Replacing Arcam A85 Amp with Cyrus 6 XP

[admin_exported]

My current setup includes:

Arcam A85 Amp (bought April 2001)

Logitech Transporter

B&W CDM1NT Speakers (Bought March 2003)

I am considering upgrading my Amp to a Cyrus 6 XP and possibly upgrading my speakers as well, although not too sure what model of speaker.

I enjoy listening to Soft Rock, Jazz and Classical Orchestral.

I have ripped all my music onto my computer hard drive as FLAC files, and currently 38364 songs, on 2958 albums (that's CDs, LPs and singles) and 6048 artists.

In reality listening via Transporter is by far my prefered option as it gives me easy and quick access to all my music in a matter of seconds via an App on my iPhone called iPeng. This iPeng App acts as a remote control for my Transporter, and allows me to search on any piece of music by keying in part of the song title, artist or album, and can select by Gendre as well.

I find that Soft Rock and Jazz sounds very fgood on my system, but I feel that Classical sometimes sounds a bit lifeless. I am hoping that an upgrade in Amp and possibly speakers will make a noticable improvement.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Norderney:
My current setup includes:

Arcam A85 Amp (bought April 2001)

Logitech Transporter

B&W CDM1NT Speakers (Bought March 2003)

I am considering upgrading my Amp to a Cyrus 6 XP and possibly upgrading my speakers as well, although not too sure what model of speaker.

I enjoy listening to Soft Rock, Jazz and Classical Orchestral.

I have ripped all my music onto my computer hard drive as FLAC files, and currently 38364 songs, on 2958 albums (that's CDs, LPs and singles) and 6048 artists.

In reality listening via Transporter is by far my prefered option as it gives me easy and quick access to all my music in a matter of seconds via an App on my iPhone called iPeng. This iPeng App acts as a remote control for my Transporter, and allows me to search on any piece of music by keying in part of the song title, artist or album, and can select by Gendre as well.

I find that Soft Rock and Jazz sounds very fgood on my system, but I feel that Classical sometimes sounds a bit lifeless. I am hoping that an upgrade in Amp and possibly speakers will make a noticable improvement.

Wow! That's a lot of music.

Going from the Arcam to the Cyrus will be a massive change in sound and not necessarily a better one. Demoing would be the way to go.

 

[drummerman]

Another publication just did an interesting group test which included the cyrus.

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

Hello Norderney,

I haven't got any knowledge pertaining to the Cyrus, but I went from an A85 (with P90) to the Roksan's listed below, and it's a real sonic upgrade in every respect I can think of. Grace, power, definition, subtlety - all in spades. Not sure if you can have a large amount of subtlety, but you get my drift.

Co-incidentally, I also upgraded within the last few months from the B&W 1NT's too. That was an even bigger, more instantly noticeable upgrade.

The amps were ex-dem, and the speakers second-hand, otherwise they'd have been beyond budget. So far, it's all worked out well.

Now if I could just get a decent price for my DAC . . .

 

[MUSICRAFT]

Norderney:
My current setup includes:

Arcam A85 Amp (bought April 2001)

Logitech Transporter

B&W CDM1NT Speakers (Bought March 2003)

I am considering upgrading my Amp to a Cyrus 6 XP and possibly upgrading my speakers as well, although not too sure what model of speaker.

I enjoy listening to Soft Rock, Jazz and Classical Orchestral.

I have ripped all my music onto my computer hard drive as FLAC files, and currently 38364 songs, on 2958 albums (that's CDs, LPs and singles) and 6048 artists.

In reality listening via Transporter is by far my prefered option as it gives me easy and quick access to all my music in a matter of seconds via an App on my iPhone called iPeng. This iPeng App acts as a remote control for my Transporter, and allows me to search on any piece of music by keying in part of the song title, artist or album, and can select by Gendre as well.

I find that Soft Rock and Jazz sounds very fgood on my system, but I feel that Classical sometimes sounds a bit lifeless. I am hoping that an upgrade in Amp and possibly speakers will make a noticable improvement.

Hi Norderney

Your speakers have still got some life left in them so hold on to them for a while yet. I don't feel the 6XP will give any real improvement over the A85 if at all. An amplifier i will highly recommend is Rotel's RA-1062 as it will give you an instant and big improvement regardless of what you listen to. The RA-1062 will be a superb match for the CDM1NT's. If you are happy to buy used then you should find a good RA-1062 for around £300-£350.

Btw, if you still feel the need to change speakers then ATC SCM11's or SCM19 speakers are worth considering.

All the best

Rick @ Musicraft

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

With respect I doubt that the amplifier is the limiting factor here.

The first thing I would do is to check out your speaker positioning and toe-in. Move the speakers backwards and forwards an inch or two at a time and see how the sound balance changes. Toe-in means altering the angles of the speakers with respect to the back wall - for example pointing them at the listener will sound different from firing them straight down the room. Before doing any of that you should confirm that the stands are as rigid as possible - i.e. not wobbling at all both from side to side and back and forth. If they are, then sort it out with spikes, coins, and/or a thin layer of blu-tack or whatever. It's also worth checking that the screws holding down the speaker drivers (if accessible) are firmly tightened down. These are all old tricks of the trade that tend to get forgotten but htat can be surprisingly beneficial in bringing life back to a system.

Bi-amping with an Arcam power amp (the current model is a P38 but there are often older models - P85, P90, P35 - on e-bay) using the external power amp to drive the woofers usually makes everything sound clearer too. This works because passive bi-amping divides up the current in the speaker cables in a beneficial way and because the amps then have an easier time of it as well.

Finally, the Transporter is a fine replay device with good internal DACs etc, but it may well benefit from a good modern external DAC. These have come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of years and need not be expensive.

I hope these suggestions help you to get better results without changing the system wholesale.

Sincerely,

John Dawson (Arcam)