Spend more on speakers or amp?

[DistortedVision]

silly:The fashion today is speakers first, which is a viewpoint I tend to disagree with. If you have a cheap amp and source why bother with expensive speakers? A speaker can only reproduce what's gone before it.

I found the most important thing to be the amplifier, once the amplifier can fully control and drive the speaker then you look at better speakers, Ive found that a expensive amplifier driving cheap speakers sounds better than a cheap amplifier trying to drive expensive speakers, saying that, the higher you go up the chain then the speakers will become more important.

I completely disagree with this. Yes a speaker can only reproduce what's gone before it but if it does this badly then its not really a valid argument. I don't doubt the source and amplifier are important but in my experience the speakers affect the sound the most and I've found that the greatest gains come from spending on the speakers than on amplification. However, there is no rule to follow here. Personally I would split my budget roughly equally with a slight weighting towards the speaker perhaps (source 30%, amp 30% and speakers 40%) thats excluding cables of course which do make a difference but diminishing returns set in far earlier in my opinion.

I'm sure what everyone would agree on is to take your time to demo and see what you like.

 

[Anonymous]

Source has always been the most important component. That's assuming the source material (CD, SACD, etc) is well-recorded, etc.

For example, take a good budget set-up, consisting of a Marantz CD6002, Marantz PM6002 and Monitor Audio BR2 loudspeakers. They all retail for about the same amount of money.

If you had a budget of 1000GBP to change only ONE of these three components, I am sure that changing the CD Player to something like a Cyrus CD 6 SE (with 200GBP change) or a Cyrus CD 8 SE (which will require 100GBP more added on to the budget) would result in a much bigger improvement than a change to a 1000GBP stereo integrated amplifier or 1000GBP pair of loudspeakers.

When it comes to hi-fi, we are trying to lose as little as possible. There is an awful lot to lose from source level. If the CD Player does not 'read' extremely accurately and does not have particularly high-quality DACs, good power supply, etc, there is a lot that stands to be lost, even before it get to the integrated stereo amplifier, and regardless of how wonderful the amp is, or the loudspeaker is, or even the amp AND the loudspeakers are, that loss cannot be recovered.

 

[radovantz]

I agree.. it is easier to describe like "rubbish in, rubbish out"..

I'd like to add the point that even with the most eficient machine, it would be worthless if the CD/DVD have been sourced from a bad quality recording.

 

[Anonymous]

Completely agree, radovantz. A good stereo system with a poor recording will sound terrible, because good systems are more revealing, and having a poor recording or compressed disc will further accentuate that, and sound terrible, regardless of how good or how high-end the sound system is.

 

[Anonymous]

my view and experience is that a decent source can be had for peanuts these days. A decent pair of speakers or amp will cost more. 200 on a cdp and 1k on amp, 1k on speakers isn't as stupid as it sounds. Amps and speakers can lose a lot of a signal during the playback. Upgrades to amp and speakers have always been considerably more profound than source for me. My last speaker change from ma rs1 to spendor sa1 was breathtaking.

 

[Anonymous]

Thaiman:
JohnDuncan:Can't be, no mention of AVI yet.

I think he sold them already!

ÿ

ÿ

He sold them to buy the upgraded version AFAIK

ÿ

However I agree 100% with your assesment on this. Get speakers first, then an amp to match.

I would add that I think a cheaper pair of speakers with expensive amp is more likely to work that the other way around.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

JohnDuncan:silly:The fashion today is speakers first, which is a viewpoint I tend to disagree with. If you have a cheap amp and source why bother with expensive speakers? A speaker can only reproduce what's gone before it.

I found the most important thing to be the amplifier, once the amplifier can fully control and drive the speaker then you look at better speakers, Ive found that a expensive amplifier driving cheap speakers sounds better than a cheap amplifier trying to drive expensive speakers, saying that, the higher you go up the chain then the speakers will become more important.

Not sure that it is. I'd advocate spending more money on amp and speakers than on a source, but the balance between the two can be down to personal taste - I've heard spectacular results from a sub-£1k amp and £8k+ speakers together, but with the OP's budget I'd probably end up with amp and speakers that cost more or less the same.

Or more correctly, I'd end up with a Primare i30 and whatever speakers I could afford afterwards.......

JD what system do you have exactly anyway?

 

[John Duncan]

Primare D20/A20 Mk2/PMC DB1+/Pro-ject RPM5.2/Cambridge 640p/Airport Express/DACMagic arriving "by the end of the week".

All in storage while the builders are in though.

 

[DistortedVision]

dantan:
Source has always been the most important component. That's assuming the source material (CD, SACD, etc) is well-recorded, etc.

For example, take a good budget set-up, consisting of a Marantz CD6002, Marantz PM6002 and Monitor Audio BR2 loudspeakers. They all retail for about the same amount of money.

If you had a budget of 1000GBP to change only ONE of these three components, I am sure that changing the CD Player to something like a Cyrus CD 6 SE (with 200GBP change) or a Cyrus CD 8 SE (which will require 100GBP more added on to the budget) would result in a much bigger improvement than a change to a 1000GBP stereo integrated amplifier or 1000GBP pair of loudspeakers.

When it comes to hi-fi, we are trying to lose as little as possible. There is an awful lot to lose from source level. If the CD Player does not 'read' extremely accurately and does not have particularly high-quality DACs, good power supply, etc, there is a lot that stands to be lost, even before it get to the integrated stereo amplifier, and regardless of how wonderful the amp is, or the loudspeaker is, or even the amp AND the loudspeakers are, that loss cannot be recovered.

No I completely disagree. That was old school of thought arose from Ivor Tiefenbrun when Linn only made source components.

 

[John Duncan]

Agree partially. Of course the source is important, and what's lost can't be recovered, but the difference now is that even budget CDPs are rather good at detail retrieval thank you very much, and I find the extra money spent on amps and speakers is more obvious - and I've long argued that given a 200 quid (each) CDP, amp and speakers, a grand would be best spent anywhere other than the CDP.....

Admittedly, the Cyrus SEs appear to have changed the game for retrieval accuracy, but I suspect the same result can be had with a solid state source anyway, and it's then down to the DAC or network player you use. I'll let you know when the DACMagic arrives

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting discussion... I am a bit of an amp sceptic myself, just comparing the frequency response curve of an amp which is almost completely flat in between 20 and 20kHz for most amps regardless the price range and the frequency response curve of different speakers which differ greatly you would say there is more ground to be won on the speaker side of your set. I know many will say you can not compare everything just by measuring, there is also the listening test which can point out many differences not to be measured, but still you can not ignore this vast variation in speakers and smaller variation in amp curves. Moreover 'comparing' amps by listening tests is very tricky since you can only really compare if you have adjusted the output level of the two amps because a small increase in output from amp a to amp b will have a big impact on your perception of that amp's performance. Ofcourse you need to choose an amp which has enough power for your listening room and speaker efficiency, but dividing the budget I would always start by choosing the speakers you feel most comfortable with and then look at the amp and source.

 

[Anonymous]

I have been interested in the budget sector for many years and have come to the conclusion that it is easy to find a good budget CD player; nearly as easy to find a very good budget amp; but very hard to find good budget speakers. It might be that I haven't auditioned enough speakers, but my view is as only as big as my window.

I think that speakers seem to have a stronger personality, and you need to be comfortable with them.

In summary I would say speakers.

 

[Anonymous]

TNTTNT:

I have been interested in the budget sector for many years and have come to the conclusion that it is easy to find a good budget CD player; nearly as easy to find a very good budget amp; but very hard to find good budget speakers. It might be that I haven't auditioned enough speakers, but my view is as only as big as my window.

I think that speakers seem to have a stronger personality, and you need to be comfortable with them.

In summary I would say speakers.

couldn't agree more at this price point. finding speakers that can even achieve full range reproduction of any standard is hard. If you must have bass that can drive along dance music then your getting tweeters that your components will be insulted by, and chip board boxs that make ikea look good. Only little bookshelf speakers may meet the quality standards of £200 components, but what use are they at a party? however £200 components can happily run £600 floor standers. Wouldn't do it the other way round though.