second hand upgrade advice please.

[damonster]

Hi i would appreciate any advice. I currently have Cambridge 640a v1 amp and 640 c v2 cd player ,Dali lektor 2 speakers and chord carnival silverscreen cables and running through a Cambridge audio Dac magic .

I am after a wider soundstage with more sepration beetween instruments (more 3d sound) and want to upgrade ,probably on the second hand market or was looking at a Audiolab 8200 cd player but dont think my amp would be good enough for it.

Could any one point me in the right direction to either purchase this or what upgrade second hand would benifit my setup.

I mainly listen to rock and indie music and my budget is around £500.

Thanks!

 

[plastic penguin]

Had a similar problem to you, didn't know what would give greater upgrade. I went to a dealer trying out cdps and speakers and found improvement with speakers - not by much. I would suggest you trot to your local Richer Sounds (or one which has demo room) and try out amps, CDPs and speakers. FWIW, I think your system is out of kilter synergy-wise. Both the budget Cambridges are fairly bright and so are the speakers.

 

[richardw42]

Out of interest. Have you tried your CDP & amp combo without the dacmagic ?
It would be great if a shop would let you audition something like the Arcam rdac to see how it fits in. If you did you could ebay your current dac to offset.
That might be a start otherwise with £500 I fear you'll be swapping one set of budget components for another.

Also you don't have to go mad but if you are using very cheap interconnects & cables you could think about upgrading this and it needn't cost a fortune.

 

[the record spot]

I'd think about removing the DACMagic, it being a rather bright and often sterile sounding thing - detailed, but soulless and I'm not surprised you find the sound is a little flat, as it didn't give much in the way of depth to the music. As suggested, take it out and see how you get on. You might find the Exposure 2010 (any version) will do you a better job. More life, great build, good amp and the original was by all accounts a bit of a rocker.

 

[damonster]

Thanks for your advice . Ive got to start somewhere so ive just bought a cyrus 6vs2 amp for £260 on ebay i dont know if this will have any affect with the setup ive got but hopefully will get onto the rung of the next level of upgrades .

just hope the Dalis can work with it till i can afford a speaker upgrade and then cd player.

 

[damonster]

Thanks for your advice . Ive got to start somewhere so ive just bought a cyrus 6vs2 amp for £260 on ebay i dont know if this will have any affect with the setup ive got but hopefully will get onto the rung of the next level of upgrades .

just hope the Dalis can work with it till i can afford a speaker upgrade and then cd player.