Looking for some pointers!

[admin_exported]

im quite new to the world of hi-fi seperates and am looking to buy my first decent bit of hi-fi kit. Any advice would be very much appreciated. ive got a few ideas of what direction to go in, but im looking for some educated advice to narrow it down a bit on what to consider.

Im looking to spend around about £600, with the intention of maybe upgrading components and speakers later. Ive been looking at Denon, Onkyo and Marantz seperates so far, only for iPod and CD use at the moment. I would also like to get some floor standing speakers Any ideas?

many thanks!

Rob

 

[Andrew Everard]

At that level you'll be lucky to get some decent floorstanding speakers, a CD player and an amp, but I'll have a go. The iPod thing you can get round by using a simple connection lead from the headphone socket of the player to the connections on an amp - the iChord from The Chord Company is good for this.

As far as CD players and amps are concermed, I'd probably go for the Marantz CD5001 or Cambridge Audio Azur 340C, at about £120 and £150 respectively, partnered with the Marantz PM4001 amp, which you can buy for around £140, or the Cambridge Azur 340A, which is about a tenner more.

Either of those amps will be up to driving the kind of floorstanding speakers you're after: obvious choices within your budget would be KEF's Q5s, easily found at about £250, or Mordaunt-Short MS904i or MS906i speakers, at £250 or £300.

Finish the system off with a pair of Chord Crimson interconnects between player and amp, at about £38 for a metre pair, and Chord Carnival Silver Plus speaker cable, at about £60 for a 3m terminated pair, and you'll be, as they say, good to go.

 

[gregory]

you could also try the nad c320bee amp a what hifi 5 star winner and the c525bee cd player with mission m33i floorstanders with plenty left over for cables.you can save more money by having the speaker cables unterminated saving at least 50% on cost just for the sake of convenience.you should check out the new azur 340se which comes with its own i pod connection,was there not a review on this amp in the mag recently.good luck,gregory.

 

[hifikrazy]

The WHF review panel were far from impressed with the NAD combination of C325BEE and C525BEE in a recent same-make-systems group test though.