B&W 685s for music through a Yamaha RXV2600. A good idea?

[legoyoda]

HI all, hopefully someone will have an opinion on this.

I currently have a home theatre setup consisting of B&W M1 satalites, A REL Quake Sub and a Yamaha RXV2600 Amp (all connected with QED Silver anniversary XT). I love the system to bits for it's primary use of Gaming and Movies but I've always found straight stereo music "odd" and not quite right (not suprised about this as it was never designed as a music system).

So, I want to add a reasonable pair of stereo speakers (I like the look and price of the B&W 685s) and was wondering if they would partner well with my Amp (using it's "Zone B" functionality I could have them and the M1's connected at the same time) OR should I forget that idea and get a dedicated stereo amp (NAD springs to mind) for the job?

I know the general consensus is that stereo amps for stereo speakers but, from memory, the RXV2600 is the part of my setup that was possibly over specd when I bought it so it might be ok?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks

Alec

Oh yes, stereo music is coming from a mixture of CD and 320kbps (CBR/High) mp3 depending on if I'm lazy or not.

 

[matthewpiano]

What sort of music do you listen to, and what are you playing your CDs on?

Finally, what sort of total budget do you have to play with?

 

[legoyoda]

Music is reasonable varied but mostly switches between House / Trance / Rock / chilled / Female vocal (not exactly specific I know). CDs played on Panasonic DMREx75 PVR (not great hence the upgrade) I know but music GENERALLY streamed at the moment over Ethernet via Xbox 360. (mp3 at 320kbps CBR with encoding type set to "very high")

Budget is MAX a grand (preferably 800 all in).

 

[matthewpiano]

I'd suggest looking at a NAD amp, probably the C326BEE, with the 685s or the Dali Lektor 2s.

I think you then need to look at a better solution for your music files and/or CD playback.

If you have a laptop, look at adding a quality DAC such as the Beresford, Musical-Fidelity V-DAC, or CA DacMagic, and look at making a move to lossless files.

Above all, audition any equipment you are interested in to avoid making expensive mistakes.

 

[legoyoda]

Thanks, very helpful indeed. I'd not even considered the DAC option before.... I'll be researching fully 🙂

 

[matthewpiano]

Add the Mordaunt-Short Mezzo 2s to your speaker shortlist as well.