Hifi newbie

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Aug 10, 2019
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Hi there!

Ok, so I am very new to this and I would like to upgrade my Hifi, but I am not sure where to start.

I've got an old Sony FM-receiver (STR-DE205), which I am currently using as my amp. I just bought new speakers: modaunt short mezzo 2 and I've got a turntable (omnitronic BD1520) and an ipod dock from apple.

I play most of the music through the ipod dock (because I don't have an CD player).

I listen to a lot of classical music, maybe some jazz. So the problem is that the sound just isn't very engaging and it is difficult to listen to different melody lines within one piece.

So I am currently thinking of buying a new amp (cambridge audio or Rotel???) or a CD player (no idea which, preferably one with a good Headphone jack) or some nice headphones or....

Which equipment (amp or Cd player) are best bought second hand and what should I be looking for in an amp/ a cd player?

please help!!! Thanks sooo much!
 
A

Anonymous

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Hello Vicv and welcome.

Since no-one has posted anything to help, I will.
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Your parameters are too wide. First of all, state your budget and that goes a long way to filtering out kit etc.

You have decent speakers so with those, I would go for a £250-300 amp. Your speakers can handle 120 watts so that gives you some idea. A little more would not do any harm as long as you don't give them full tilt! Reviews on here will help but please try and listen to kit at a decent dealer with your favorite CDs.

How about a NAD C326BEE as a starter? Coupled with a NAD C545BEE CD player? Some decent cables (but don't go OTT - try Silver High Breed for £25 or so, and some reasonable bi-wire for the speaker cable)
 

mushroomgod

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I have both of the Nad items mentioned above (and B&W 685) and they sound fantastic.

I would say that I personaly love the dark grey look of the Nad but hate hate hate the cheap plastic feel of it (the volume control feels like it came from a Xmas cracker) - in comparison my Cambridge Audio DAB which is as solid as a rock.

But...as I mentioned it does sound fantastic, so its not to important.
 
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Anonymous

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Hi Graham_thomas and mushroomgod,

Thanks a lot for your reply! :-D

The problem is I am not sure about how to spend my budget. I want to spend about £700 I guess, but I am not sure if I should splash out on a really, really good amp and not bother about a CD player for a while (In which case I was thinking of an Rotel-1520 or listen to an Roksan Kandy). Do you think this doesn't make sense with my speakers? Do you have to listen to lossless/flac files to hear a difference in this price range if you don't have a CD player?

Or I was wanting to get something like an Rotel 03 or Marantz 6003 or something from Cambridge audio in this prize range and then add a CD player!? Do you have any thoughts on these?

Is it always a good idea to add an CD player from the same brand or can you get advantages mixing them (so as to balance out weaknesses I was thinking)?

Also, thanks Graham for telling me I should look at the wattage that the amps can put out. What sort of thing can I check when I am buying a CD player? How important is Signal-to-Noise ratio? Does that sort of stand for clarity?

Sorry to ask such basic things! Thanks again!

vicv.
 

bay24

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for £800 you could get grded stock of the CA 740A and 740C from Richer sounds at the moment which I like! you can use the 740C has optical/coaxial inputs so you can use it like an external DAC if you wanted to stream music (it has the same DAC as the DAC magic). Had a short listen to them with the Mezzos as well but it was on the shop floor which was not best for testing, still they sounded like a good match to my ears!
 

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