Hi all,
Thank you for the helpful responses.
I did what you all suggested and auditioned the kit at my local hi-fi shop at the weekend (taking along my Mordaunt-Short Aviano 6 speakers), and my findings are below:
- Arcam A19 - I really wanted this to be the one (mainly because it was the cheapest), and based on comments from some of you and What Hi-Fi I really thought it would be. However, I was really disappointed by it. I am surprised at comments above saying that the Arcam A19 had better defined bass than the Naim XS-2. The A19 I listened to seemed to have very weak bass, or at least not the strong level of bass I like. The mid-range and higher frequencies were very nice and I liked the clarity, but I wanted more bass. It's possible the source was to blame for the bass I guess (Marantz CD player, not sure of model), or maybe the A19 wasn't run-in yet.
- Naim Unitilite - I liked it. Punchy and energetic. Much better bass. Obviously the CD player being used here was the one integrated into the Unitilite so maybe I'm not comparing like-for-like. The sound from the streamer playing FLACs was very impressive and sounded much better than CD (a much bigger difference than I was expecting). While I was there the integrated CD player seemed to have issues with a couple of my CDs and I am wary of the all-in-one unit philosophy. If anything is going to break it will probably be the CD player (only bit with moving parts), so I'd rather have a separates system as it's easy to replace bits when they die.
- Naim Nait XS2 - I know this wasn't originally on my radar but someone suggested that an XS2 with a separate streamer might give a better sound, so I gave this one a listen. Again I really liked it and it felt just that bit more authoritative than the Unitilite. In hindsight I can't remember now if the dealer had swapped the Marantz CD player for a more expensive Rega Apollo at this stage so again I'm not sure if I was comparing like-for-like vs the A19 so this may have all been an unfair test.
I did test a couple of Rega amps (the Elex and the Elicit). The Elex vocals sounded too harsh for my liking and I knew it would be fatiguing to listen to long-term. The Elicit was the same, until the CD player was switched from the Marantz to the Rega Apollo at which point it became much smoother and more refined, and sounded really good. But ultimately I preferred the Naims.
After all of this, I think I am going to try and source a second hand Naim Nait XS or XS2 to drastically improve my amp from what I currently have (old Technics) and will get a separate streamer which will probably be the Pioneer N50. Unfortunately none of my local dealers have an N50 in stock for me to listen to or play with so I will be buying that blind, so I will get it new and take it back or sell it on if it's not for me.
Again, thank you all for your advice!