Bluesound or Cambridge

MiloD

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Hi all, long time lurker. first time poster. Hoping you can help!

I'm in the nice position of having saved some of my hard earned, and been given permission by the wife(!) to enable me to do some upgrading. Its been a long time since I last treated myself to HiFi so its all quite exciting!

No interest whatosever in AV/Surround sound, looking for a pure stereo setup. My current system is an old (12/13 years I guess) Sony TAFB940 amp, linked to a pair of B&W CM1 S1 speakers, using some QED speaker cable (Silver Annievrsary I think it is, and wont change as its under the carpet). My music collection is in ALAC on my Macbook, having ripped all of my CDs a while ago, the mac is connected to the amp via a pretty cheap stoner acoustics UD100 Dac. I've got sky and apple TV hooked up to the amp too.

I've been looking at good quality streaming options, so I can leave my laptop in the study upstairs, and imporve the sound. I think I've boiled it down to the following options, in order of cost:

1. My amp, plus a Cambridge CXN

2. Bluesound powernode 2

3. Cambridge CXA60 and CXN

I want to be able to connect the TV/Apple TV & Sky Box to the my HiFi system to get fuller sound on TV and film. Option 3 comes in at come in at £1200ish and I'd not want to go much higher than this. I plan to go to SSAV (bluesound) and Richer (cambridge) with my speakers/amp to to compare options in a couple of weeks.

So what would you do, and why? Also have i missed any better options? Thanks very much *i-m_so_happy*

2. My amp, plus a Cambridge CXN
 

DocG

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Welcome to the forum, Milo!

One quick remark: the BS Powernode2 has only one digital input (optical), so connecting a TV, a Sky box and an Apple TV will be difficult (unless you can go Apple TV and Sky Box --> TV and TV --> Powernode).

EDIT: I wouldn't combine the CXA60 with a CXN, because you pay for two DACs then. How about a Chromecast Audio + Cambridge (CXA60 or CXA80)?
 

MiloD

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thanks DocG, yes I had been mulling on the problem of only one optical input on the BS2, and got to the same conclusion that you would have to go through the TV to make it work.

I hadn't thougt about the fact you pay for two DACs if you go CXA and CXN. I should probably have alisted to chromecast and CXA to see what the quality is like. In fact, I could go ATV optical out to CXA. I'm not entirely sure whetehr ATV can handle lossless music, and so whether sound quality would be compromised if I took taht route.
 

MiloD

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That' sinteresting, not considered the Naim, jsut had a read about it. I think I'll stick that on the auditioning list! cheers
 

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