anyone seeking a small, budget conscious, incisive, audiophile setup for near field listening.

[hg_mike]

There are often questions posted regarding the best hifi systems for desktop speakers. The Adam family of speakers often get mentioned for these type of systems.

Here is an interesting write-up of someones journey to find a small, budget conscious, incisive, audiophile setup for near field listening.

They eventually chose a chord DAC driving a pair of Adam A5x powered monitors.

http://www.head-fi.org/products/adam-audio-a5x-powered-studio-monitor-5-5-inch-100-watts/reviews/16430

 

[davedotco]

Small active monitors are ideal for budget desktop setups, I have championed this for some time. My own setup of Seiwin SN4 plus an Airport Express cost less than £200, inc cables.

Prices can go up from there to the above setup, about £1k I should think and there are a fair number of very good setups inbetween.

I have ended up with a system using Artist 6 speakers, a very domestically acceptable variation on the A5x theme and a cheap dac/pre/streamer, outstanding at very modest cost.

Systems at this level need to be carefully chosen to get the correct functionallity required and of course you need to audition speakers to stear clear of some of the obvious 'dogs' but it is not difficult.

One new product that makes this rather easier is the Yamaha WXC 50 streamer/dac/preamp that appears to do most everything for about £300, add a pair of small (or not so small) Adams and you are ready to rock.

 

[ID.]

One new product that makes this rather easier is the Yamaha WXC 50 streamer/dac/preamp that appears to do most everything for about £300, add a pair of small (or not so small) Adams and you are ready to rock.

Despite being pretty much sorted for all of my systems, I'm still very interested in checking out the Yamaha.

Looks a good size, and is especially easy to tuck away out of sight when side mounted. Oddly, I can't see any sign of it on their Japanese site, but it seems strange to only market it overseas.