Help please!!!

[darrenconnor4]

I'm only just starting to appreciate the intricacies of better than average AV!

I listen to music mostly through my itunes via iphone remote when i'm knocking about the house but when i sit down i play cds.

I have....

Denon D-M38DAB with Monitor Audio BR-1's. (correction...the M37)

LG LH5000 42" tv.

Sony BluRay player.

Xbox 360.

Virgin+.

Eventually want to upgrade the whole lot but at the minute have only limited space and a girlfriend unhappy about cables and seeing tech everywhere. Because i want to upgrade in stages i need everything to work well along the way.

I was thinking of getting an AV receiver upto around £300, and a good but cheap cd player (eg cambridge audio) for <£100.

I suppose my question is...is this the best way to do things or should i just upgrade my all in one to a decent seperate system and am i going to see that much difference over my denon?

Any help would be much appreciated!

thanks.

 

[chebby]

Your Denon M38-DAB is a cracking system and I know (from owning them a few years ago) that the MA BR1s are excellent speakers.

I don't think you are going to significantly improve anything with a £100 CD player or the (stereo) performance from a £300 AV receiver.

Given the small space and a partner who is (rightly) wary of seeing 'boxes' everywhere, then I would think in terms of a compact soundbar for the TV/Bluray/DVD (Yamaha do some good ones) which should be pretty effective in a small room, and enjoy the Denon for a while longer. (It has only been out a few months, you can't have had it for very long.)

When you have saved enough for a significant upgrade to your Denon, then I would explore options like the Arcam Solo-Mini (£700) Arcam Solo-Neo (£1350) or NaimUniti (£2100) which are all excellent 5 star systems but (importantly for domestic harmony), are all compact 'all-in-one' units involving the minimum of cables.

There are scads of small, high quality, bookshelf speakers you can upgrade to (at every price level) without upsetting your partner or taking more space than your present ones. However (again) I wouldn't bother upgrading until you have enough money to make it a really worthwhile upgrade. (Think £400 MA RX1s or Rega RS1s, or similar, before you will hear an obvious improvement over the BR1s.)