Amp and speakers about £600

[admin_exported]

Hi Everyone. I have various separates in storage as I have been living on a boat for the last 5 years. The amp and speakers are ancient and definitely at the end of their lives, but I shall be keeping my Cambridge Audio CD player (it's in storage so I can't confirm which one it is - save to say that it must be 6 years old!) because it's in good condition.

I am therefore only looking for an amp and speakers which will both go with the Cambridge Audio CD player, but I want them to be of sufficient quality that they will work happily with something else if I should find more money to buy a new CD player at a later date. I've been reading reviews and listening to speakers in shops for the last week or two and have the following short list:-

Amp options:

Cambridge Audio 340ASE

Cambridge Audio 540A V2

Rotel RA-04

Speaker options:

Monitor Audio Bronze BR2 or BR5

Monitor Audio Silver Silver RS5

B&W 685

KEF iQ5SE

Does anyone have any general suggestions regarding my plan to upgrade in stages, leaving the CD player til last, and my specific list of options?

For the record I should say that my winning vote so far is the Rotel/B&W combination, the MA and KEF speakers simply falling short on sound and build quality.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[d_a_n1979]

I think your winning choice of the Rotel and B&W speakers is about right 🙂

The BR2 speakers are wonderful as are the BR5s, better bi-amped but persoanlly i struggle to move away from B&W speakers.

What would be handy to know is the size of your listening room and what type of music you listen to?!?

If you go for the B&W speakers make sure you get some good stands, more so ones that can be weighted down with Atabites or similar.

I've recently purchased Atacama SE24 stands for my B&W 602 S3 speakers (matched with an Arcam Alpha 9 integrated amp) and the sound to me is wonderful. Plenty of beefiness and punch in the bass, nice and tight too!

Let us know how you get on!