ok, heres the plan..

[admin_exported]

Im thinking of buying an arcam A70 next month to replace my ageing mf xa1, it should look and sound good with my arcam cd72 and provide that all important system synergy, then i will upgrade the cd72 to the 192 and buy an arcam p90 power amp useing the A70 as the pre amp, ill be keeping my moniter audio rs1's, any thoughts most welcome..

 

[Anonymous]

I cant offer any advice on your amp / speaker setup but the general concensus about the CD player is that £500 for the upgrade to a CD192 is expensive.

Nearly new CD192's can be had for less than this.

 

[Anonymous]

Ill try to get a 192 of ebay, if not i may consider the more expensive route.

 

[Anonymous]

I haven't heard the A70, but many people on the forum believe that it is weak. If you plan to add a power amp and upgrade your CD player to the CD192, you might consider a second-hand A85 instead. I bought one of these last week and can confirm that it sounds amazing (Joel Sim is not alone on this).

Hedgehog

 

[JoelSim]

Hedgehog:

I haven't heard the A70, but many people on the forum believe that it is weak. If you plan to add a power amp and upgrade your CD player to the CD192, you might consider a second-hand A85 instead. I bought one of these last week and can confirm that it sounds amazing (Joel Sim is not alone on this).

Hedgehog

Couldn't agree more (surprisingly). A85/P85 is a great combo, don't go for the A70.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Jimm,

The system you suggest is exactly the system I had, A70, P90 and RS1's

I was happy with it but after replacing the A70 with an A90 (from Ebay) the difference is night and day so I would also recommend starting with a better amp than the A70

 

[Anonymous]

Just been out for a bike ride and ended up putting a deposit down on a used cyrus 8vs amp, its 400 pounds with all its bits and pices boxed, i pick it up at the end of june, while system synergy is nice its not that important, ive already listend to the 8vs and im familiar with the cyrus sound, it should add a bit of snap that my systems missing.

 

[the record spot]

How do you rate the sound of the X-A1; I might be trialling one of these this week, so just interested to know your opinion of it.

 

[Anonymous]

The xa1 is fantastic, vocals are sweet, bass is tight considering the xa1's modest 50 watts, have had my xa1 bi-amped with a pair of mono-bloc xa50 power amps which gives you 50 watts each for top and bottom end that sounds awesome, go and have a listen!

 

[the record spot]

Okay, thanks Jimm - when you say the bass is tight, does it go deep too? I could describe my existing Mrantz as having a very tight bass, so I'm more interested in depth to override the speaker and CD player combination which verges on the scalpel-wielding clinical!

 

[Anonymous]

The xa1 is very neutral sounding, the bass is in proportian with the mids and highs, my rs1's are an easy load for the xa1 so the bass is quite tight, why not google some reviews?

 

[the record spot]

Yep, done that but always good to have a user's opinion too, especially when you've lived with it for a while. Thanks again, much appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

cheers.