Hi All
I recently bought a pair of Focal Chora 826s and have been running them in on my old Audiolab 8000A. With a CD they sound excellent sometimes and disappointing at other times depending on the CD, I have tried them with a Topping DAC combined with the CD payer and also with an Ifi Zen blue streaming in LDAC and again it sometimes sounds absolutely brilliant, at other times very compressed. A week ago they had another offer on the Choras so I now have 2 pairs ( the wife loved the look of the Dark wood ones we had and we both agreed a matching pair in the light wood would look great in the adjoining room) The two pairs cost £1200 (we are in France) they will be in adjoining rooms and can sit about (set 1) 4m away from the amp/streamer and (set 2) 2m from the Amp streamer (i can drill through the wall to pass the cables!!).
At first, it seemed a no-brainer, Powernode with a switch to change between speakers (I think mostly it would be one set at a time but it would be nice to listen to both) but after looking into it I am not sure if this is the way to go? Would you stick with a simple amp that is designed to run 2 sets of speakers and a separate streamer?
I am worried about buying a streaming amp that will become outdated. I don't think the Audiolab is right for the Focals, I am going to put it back with my B&W CDM 1's. The power node seemed a good idea (even if I have to keep swapping the banana plugs) at about £800 out here but I have heard that a lot of people then spend another 5-600 on a DAC (even though the power node has one built in?) I want to move to mainly streaming and would prefer to spend the 1k or so I had hoped to but could stretch it to double that for something that will sound really decent. I am not against trying out unknown brands or an outside-the-box way of thinking about how to do it.
Many thanks in advance.
I recently bought a pair of Focal Chora 826s and have been running them in on my old Audiolab 8000A. With a CD they sound excellent sometimes and disappointing at other times depending on the CD, I have tried them with a Topping DAC combined with the CD payer and also with an Ifi Zen blue streaming in LDAC and again it sometimes sounds absolutely brilliant, at other times very compressed. A week ago they had another offer on the Choras so I now have 2 pairs ( the wife loved the look of the Dark wood ones we had and we both agreed a matching pair in the light wood would look great in the adjoining room) The two pairs cost £1200 (we are in France) they will be in adjoining rooms and can sit about (set 1) 4m away from the amp/streamer and (set 2) 2m from the Amp streamer (i can drill through the wall to pass the cables!!).
At first, it seemed a no-brainer, Powernode with a switch to change between speakers (I think mostly it would be one set at a time but it would be nice to listen to both) but after looking into it I am not sure if this is the way to go? Would you stick with a simple amp that is designed to run 2 sets of speakers and a separate streamer?
I am worried about buying a streaming amp that will become outdated. I don't think the Audiolab is right for the Focals, I am going to put it back with my B&W CDM 1's. The power node seemed a good idea (even if I have to keep swapping the banana plugs) at about £800 out here but I have heard that a lot of people then spend another 5-600 on a DAC (even though the power node has one built in?) I want to move to mainly streaming and would prefer to spend the 1k or so I had hoped to but could stretch it to double that for something that will sound really decent. I am not against trying out unknown brands or an outside-the-box way of thinking about how to do it.
Many thanks in advance.