hi everyone,
i am very new to this forum, so want to say hello at the first place.
My common PC speakers (Genius) died this week, so I need to buy new pair. I used them in the living room connected to PC mostly for listening to music (there is something playing at my home ALL the time), watching movies and occasionaly playing games. This is what I want to do with the new speakers also. But wanted to buy more decent one, so I search for "good" desktop speakers and found out, that I will have to invest around 120 euro ($154) to get 'decent' from common manufacturers like Logitech, Creative, etc. This look like nonsense to me, as I can buy incomparable quality for a budget twice (or 3 times) more. So I want to go for more Hi-Fi solution, but I am not a Hifi geek (and possibly will never be), just want to be a little practical in this matter as I really listen to music ALL the time.
Few info:
I WILL use computer as source for playback. (So possible chain will be PC -> [DAC] -> AMP -> Speakers).
- My living room is 4.7m x 4.0m.
- I use foobar as player
- Music is compressed with LAME -V2 (which I was not able to distinguish from FLAC on double-blind test) and FLAC
- Will listen to music ALL the time (and in the eve watch movie or play a game)
- Music is mostly ambient, jazz, nujazz, rock, metal, classical, and similar
- Currently running onboard sound card (there is no need for anything better with genius speakers )
My BUDGET is around 300 euros (but can pay a little more if it makes sense),
So, I did a little search on secondhand AMP in my city and found old YAMAHA AX-500 for 95euro ($122) in bazar. Also found very good reviews about this one, but wanted to ask also for your opinion about quality of this amp and price. Is it a good buy? Or should I consider new amp or even something else?
Next I have to buy some speakers (dont want to buy old ones in this case). I read reviews at this site and searched what is available in my country. So my possible options are:
Tannoy Mercury V1, price 204 euro ($262)
Cambridge Audio Sirroco S30, price 195 euro ($250)
Q Acoustic 2020, price 186 euro ($239)
Dali Zensor 1, price 365 euro ($469)
Monitor Audio Bronze BX2, price 347 euro ($445)
My priorities:
- quality of sound (specially music, I dont mind movies and games)
- durability/quality (I wont care about my equip a lot, its just things to me... so I will treat them badly sometimes >) )
- price
I dont care about:
- output power (I dont need to play anything VERY loudly, me neighbours dont need it even , just want to have enought of it for my living room )
- look (if I want to see something beautiful, I look at my gf )
I am also a big fan of price/value ratio and 80/20 rule (it means, that if you consider "top" equip you can get, 80% of its performance you can by for 20% of its price). So I dont want to overstep this line
I am aware, that if I buy some HiFi stuff, i will also need a new soundcard and/or DAC to feed it properly. If I conseder DAC i would probably go for Styleaudio Carat-Topaz Signature (good value/price ratio). But I guess I will go for decent soundcard and maybe later for DAC if I feel like I need to.
Now my question are:
- what is your opinion and/or suggestions about amp? what would YOU choose in my place?
- what speakers would you recommend considering my needs, priorities and amp?
- what soundcard would you suggest?
- what DAC would you suggest?
Basically I want to hear your educated opinion about what would you choose in my place. Will really appreciate it.
thank you in advance,
f.
i am very new to this forum, so want to say hello at the first place.
My common PC speakers (Genius) died this week, so I need to buy new pair. I used them in the living room connected to PC mostly for listening to music (there is something playing at my home ALL the time), watching movies and occasionaly playing games. This is what I want to do with the new speakers also. But wanted to buy more decent one, so I search for "good" desktop speakers and found out, that I will have to invest around 120 euro ($154) to get 'decent' from common manufacturers like Logitech, Creative, etc. This look like nonsense to me, as I can buy incomparable quality for a budget twice (or 3 times) more. So I want to go for more Hi-Fi solution, but I am not a Hifi geek (and possibly will never be), just want to be a little practical in this matter as I really listen to music ALL the time.
Few info:
I WILL use computer as source for playback. (So possible chain will be PC -> [DAC] -> AMP -> Speakers).
- My living room is 4.7m x 4.0m.
- I use foobar as player
- Music is compressed with LAME -V2 (which I was not able to distinguish from FLAC on double-blind test) and FLAC
- Will listen to music ALL the time (and in the eve watch movie or play a game)
- Music is mostly ambient, jazz, nujazz, rock, metal, classical, and similar
- Currently running onboard sound card (there is no need for anything better with genius speakers )
My BUDGET is around 300 euros (but can pay a little more if it makes sense),
So, I did a little search on secondhand AMP in my city and found old YAMAHA AX-500 for 95euro ($122) in bazar. Also found very good reviews about this one, but wanted to ask also for your opinion about quality of this amp and price. Is it a good buy? Or should I consider new amp or even something else?
Next I have to buy some speakers (dont want to buy old ones in this case). I read reviews at this site and searched what is available in my country. So my possible options are:
Tannoy Mercury V1, price 204 euro ($262)
Cambridge Audio Sirroco S30, price 195 euro ($250)
Q Acoustic 2020, price 186 euro ($239)
Dali Zensor 1, price 365 euro ($469)
Monitor Audio Bronze BX2, price 347 euro ($445)
My priorities:
- quality of sound (specially music, I dont mind movies and games)
- durability/quality (I wont care about my equip a lot, its just things to me... so I will treat them badly sometimes >) )
- price
I dont care about:
- output power (I dont need to play anything VERY loudly, me neighbours dont need it even , just want to have enought of it for my living room )
- look (if I want to see something beautiful, I look at my gf )
I am also a big fan of price/value ratio and 80/20 rule (it means, that if you consider "top" equip you can get, 80% of its performance you can by for 20% of its price). So I dont want to overstep this line
I am aware, that if I buy some HiFi stuff, i will also need a new soundcard and/or DAC to feed it properly. If I conseder DAC i would probably go for Styleaudio Carat-Topaz Signature (good value/price ratio). But I guess I will go for decent soundcard and maybe later for DAC if I feel like I need to.
Now my question are:
- what is your opinion and/or suggestions about amp? what would YOU choose in my place?
- what speakers would you recommend considering my needs, priorities and amp?
- what soundcard would you suggest?
- what DAC would you suggest?
Basically I want to hear your educated opinion about what would you choose in my place. Will really appreciate it.
thank you in advance,
f.