Claire, In need of a richer sound with stereo music

[pete321]

Claire, a while ago you said you felt for my speakers (MA BR5's), well they've gone and Proac Studio 140's stand proudly in their place and I love 'em, I wonder whether there's a volume knob in the country thet would make them sweat!. I heard them hooked up to a valve amp and to my ears they sounded awful, too rich and bass heavy, however having previously owned Proac Tablettes in a past bachelor life I knew that this was down to the valve amp. When I got them home they sounded exactly the opposite on my wooden floors, but by too much, a bit too harsh on the top end and the bass, although tight and fast, a tad too lean as is the midrange.

I've now replaced the QED Silver Anniversary bi-wire with 4 runs of QED Revelation which is bi-amped from my Onkyo 905, I was amazed how much different the new cable has made for any doubters out there, bigger soundstage and helped to tame the brash top end without losing clarity. My DacMagic is being modded as I write with Burson OpAmps and better capacitors which will no doubt take the sound to another level. However, I think the Onkyo is never going to provide the more refined, richer (not too rich) sound I need. The Onk is fine for movies, but is the £3K+ Arcam AVR600 my only choice for stereo music which is probably my priority for an AV amp, it's got to be a one-box solution that decodes HD audio?

 

[Anonymous]

Could you not keep your onkyo 905 and connect a stereo amp to the pre out's on your AV! cheaper than the arcam avr600! Thats what ive done anyhow works a treat for me

Their are a number on stereo amps out there with a fixed gain connection on one of the input's so that your onkyo would use it like a power amp

 

[Andy H]

Agree with Gareth on this one. It's what I did to good effect.
This would also be a lot cheaper than than spending 3+k on the avr 600.

I'm intrested in your upgrade on the DacMagic, you'll have to post your findings when it's done.

 

[pete321]

I have thought of it, it's certainly a cheaper option and they'd be a lot of amps to choose from, but it's another box, which means another shelf, which would probably mean the plasma would have to be moved, and so on...

 

[Anonymous]

Assuming youd get a stereo amp thats the equal of the AVR600 (for stereo of course) for £1000ish, Id be quite happy to move my plasma and spend £2000 on a nice holiday

 

[pete321]

OK, you've got me thinking now and I'm gonna get the tape measure out! Problem is the Onk 905 needs so much free air above it to breathe, so that affects the height of my Apollo Aria rack.

What amps around the £1000 mark would be suitable to use in the way you propose (preferably skinny (height) ones) and how do the connections work, what do I connect the pre-outs from my Onk to on the stereo amp? Not essential, but an amp with balanced inputs would make the most of my modded DacMagic, I know Naim used balanced connections, but I'm, not sure about others.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Pete,
I have the 875 and really got the amp working sweet by plugging it into a BT 500av BTU. (E Bay under £80)
Made an amazing difference with the Pre amp section loosing the radiation coming off the transformer and power rails.

If you can find one, snap it up.

 

[Anonymous]

pete321:
OK, you've got me thinking now and I'm gonna get the tape measure out! Problem is the Onk 905 needs so much free air above it to breathe, so that affects the height of my Apollo Aria rack.

What amps around the £1000 mark would be suitable to use in the way you propose (preferably skinny ones) and how do the connections work, what do I connect the pre-outs from my Onk to on the stereo amp? Not essential, but an amp with balanced inputs would make the most of my modded DacMagic, I know Naim used balanced connections, but I'm, not sure about others.

Cyrus make skinny gear, but most HiFi stuff tends to be on the big side. Naim's not that skinny but smaller than some.

I agree with your comments about bi-amping, by the way, which was the last thing I tried before consigning my AV amp to ebay and history. Sounded better, but my cheapo NAD brought back real music.

 

[pete321]

Thanks Trevor, but I'm sure what a BTU is, any links anywhere, I can't find it on google.

 

[pete321]

Tarquinh:pete321:

OK, you've got me thinking now and I'm gonna get the tape measure out! Problem is the Onk 905 needs so much free air above it to breathe, so that affects the height of my Apollo Aria rack.

What amps around the £1000 mark would be suitable to use in the way you propose (preferably skinny ones) and how do the connections work, what do I connect the pre-outs from my Onk to on the stereo amp? Not essential, but an amp with balanced inputs would make the most of my modded DacMagic, I know Naim used balanced connections, but I'm, not sure about others.

Cyrus make skinny gear, but most HiFi stuff tends to be on the big side. Naim's not that skinny but smaller than some.

I agree with your comments about bi-amping, by the way, which was the last thing I tried before consigning my AV amp to ebay and history. Sounded better, but my cheapo NAD brought back real music.
Cyrus make some good amps, but it doesn't have to be width skinny, just height skinny. I guess the best would be an amp with a fixed level input specifically for connecting from AV amp pre-outs, don't what amps these are though around the £1000 bracket. Does the award winning Roksan Kandy 2 have a fixed level input?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Pete, This is the one that you want, not the smaller ones (125va or 250va)
BT MCU5A / 500 Mains Conditioning Unit - Cleans Mains

Not one about on E Bay at the moment, but they keep coming up.

 

[Anonymous]

pete321: Cyrus make some good amps, but it doesn't have to be width skinny, just height skinny. I guess the best would be an amp with a fixed level input specifically for connecting from AV amp pre-outs, don't what amps these are though around the £1000 bracket. Does the award winning Roksan Kandy 2 have a fixed level input?Not familiar with the Roksan, but the Naim XS does. 350 over your budget, but you might find the previous model (same innards, case slightly different) at better prices if you look around.

 

[Sliced Bread]

Tarquinh:pete321:
OK, you've got me thinking now and I'm gonna get the tape measure out! Problem is the Onk 905 needs so much free air above it to breathe, so that affects the height of my Apollo Aria rack.

What amps around the £1000 mark would be suitable to use in the way you propose (preferably skinny ones) and how do the connections work, what do I connect the pre-outs from my Onk to on the stereo amp? Not essential, but an amp with balanced inputs would make the most of my modded DacMagic, I know Naim used balanced connections, but I'm, not sure about others.

Cyrus make skinny gear, but most HiFi stuff tends to be on the big side. Naim's not that skinny but smaller than some.

I agree with your comments about bi-amping, by the way, which was the last thing I tried before consigning my AV amp to ebay and history. Sounded better, but my cheapo NAD brought back real music.

Hey Tarquinh,

What AV amp did you get rid of, and what model nad did you place it with? Just asking as I've been considering this path myself...either adding a stereo amp or going 100% stereo.

 

[John Duncan]

The Roksan does have a fixed level input yeah, you have to do some fiddling though - forget the steps...

Can we take a step back though and work out precisely what you want to do, and your priorities. You want movies and music, yes? How much of each? More of one than the other or about equal?

 

[pete321]

JohnDuncan:The Roksan does have a fixed level input yeah, you have to do some fiddling though - forget the steps... Can we take a step back though and work out precisely what you want to do, and your priorities. You want movies and music, yes? How much of each? More of one than the other or about equal?

Quality with stereo is my priority, but I also must have HD audio decoding via HDMI, although upscaling is not necessary. As far as I can see, the AVR600 is the only 1 box solution, but it's pricey.

The addition of an integrated stereo amp would be cheaper and would achieve the stereo sound quality I want and I'm happy with my Onkyo 905 for movies. Downside is another shelf on the rack which would meet with much disapproval from my other half (I'm already in the doghouse given the extra size of my Studio 140's over the outgoing MA BR5's), plus I'd need to add a seperate power amp as I'd want to bi-amp my fronts.