B&w cm9 speakers require suitable amp, and advice

[Kbooth1973]

Hi all,

we have a pair of cm9 floorstanders and an old arcam 5 amp, demon 595 CD player and a sonos connect. Love the speakers, but obviously need a suitable upgrade for the remaining kit . Looking at the arcam a39, roksan m2, naim nait, rega elicit and the Cyrus 8. We listen to most of our music digitally stored on a nas (in mp3 for now, but possibly flac lossless at some stage), which comes in through the sonos and also streamed from spotify. My question is do we need a dedicated dac or is an integrated amp such as the ones listed above suitable? Does the dac replace the sonos or does it go in between the sonos and amp? At this sort of price range (£1500) is there something blindingly obvious that we're missing, or does anyone have views on the pairing of the b&w cm9's with any of the above amps? Thanks in advance...

 

[kikiso]

Hi Kbooth,

I can't answer all your questions but as nobody else has replied thought I'd share my observations. I have the Elicit-R. I purchased that first and then matched it to speakers that sounded good to me. My budget couldn't stretch to the CM9s but the CM8s sounded better than the other speakers on the day, but I was told the CM9s would be even better. I've been running the speakers for a few months so they are now working at about optimum and the sound I get from the combination is very good. Very controlled, very capable.

The amp is used to play vinyl, I'm not using another phono stage yet, although I think it will sound better if I used one, I can't justify the cost, but this doesn't seem to be an area you are much interested in. I also use the amp for cinema duties when the CM8s become my front speakers. The source is sometimes from Sky HD and sometimes from my Oppo, both sound very good, the Oppo being better, but the source is Blu-Ray so you would expect that.

Digital input comes from both my Pioneer AV Amp and my Oppo, and it all sounds very good, sometimes pretty near vinyl, but this depends on the quality of the source. The amp and speakers don't disguise poor source material. Good source equals great sound, poor source equals acceptable sound. In fact, I've sometimes preferred the Pioneer AV amp and my 685s with the extra processing from the AV amp to overcome the shortcomings of the digital material, so a dedicated DAC may be something that others would recommend. Hope this helps and gets others to post.

 

[Robdespy]

I also have cm8s, so for what it's worth I am using a rotel 1570 which has a built in dac - sounds great to me

 

[davedotco]

Given that the CM8s are not particularly sensitive and have B&Ws usual 3 ohm minimum, the Rotel would be a very safe and sensible choice, you can compare the Sonos on analogue and digital outputs to see what sounds and works best for you.

I am not that familier with modern B&Ws so I have no real ideas how my favourite amplifiers would fare, the Creek 50a with onboard dac module and Peachtree Nova 65 and 125 would top my audition list, though I don't see my other favourite, the Croft Integrated as being a good match. Might be wrong of course but these are my favourite amplifiers around £1k.

 

[Vladimir]

Harman Kardon HK990 or second hand (or ex demo) pre/power Rotels, Brystons etc. There are usually great deals on Roksan Kandy K2 integrated + power amps.
The more power the better. Brochure poetry wont get you far with B&W floorstanders.

 

[Kbooth1973]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the time taken to reply. We did set out to get the CM8's, but in testing we had to compare them and once we heard the CM9's there was no going back! I refused to try the CM10's at that point. I hadn't considered doing a separate pre and power, but that might be the way forward. I know we need a lot of power for the b&w's. We tried it with the arcam a19 and it didn't do much. I'll also look into the other suggested amps. Does anyone have experience of using sonos as the source through this kind of set-up? It sounds pretty good, but I'd be interested to know what difference it makes to have a dedicated dac and/ or lossless flac files? Thanks again...