System upgrade - Hi-Fi novice needs advice

[FuzzyinLondon]

Hi Guys Just after a quick bit of advice. My current set-up is listed below. I'm considering making a few modification to it in order to enhance my enjoyment of my music collection specifically. I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to the music side of things but I do know that, from reading various posts on these forums, the Onkyo 605 isn't the greatest with music. However, it's the first real system I've ever owned and has been a massive step up from everything that I've had previously. Now I'm looking to improve things slightly with a couple of possible additions: 1) I'm looking to possibly upgrade my front speakers, which are currently the Q Acoustics 1010s. These have been excellent thus but I do feel that I can get better stereo performance if I step up to the 1020 (£80 at Superfi) or the 1030s (£130), both of which would give me the ability to bi-amp. I like the aesthetic of my current set-up and am looking to stay with Q Acoustics in Beech. 2) I'm looking to get a dedicated CD player - possibly a Cambridge audio Azur 540C or a Marantz CD6002. I've got a local Richer Sounds so I will go and give them a listen and I'm keeping a look out for second hand bargains on eBay. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated. I guess a lot of people will think: why doesn't he build himself a decent separates system for music? I'm limited mainly by lack of space and, to a certain extent, my budget. I've got my living room furniture set-up pretty much the way I want it and it's not a huge space so there's no really any room for moving things around. I'm also not looking to spend any more than £300. So a couple of questions: Is the speaker upgrade worth it and is it worth spending the extra £50 for the floorstanders? It's not a big room (13ftx10ft) and I'm worried the floorstanders might be overkill. Also, I'm pretty sure that a dedicated CD player will help me get more out of my system but are there any other component I should be looking at that wouldn't kill my budget? Any advice/opinions greatly appreciated Fuzzy

 

[Gerrardasnails]

[quote user="FuzzyinLondon"]Hi Guys

Just after a quick bit of advice. My current set-up is listed below. I'm considering making a few modification to it in order to enhance my enjoyment of my music collection specifically. I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to the music side of things but I do know that, from reading various posts on these forums, the Onkyo 605 isn't the greatest with music. However, it's the first real system I've ever owned and has been a massive step up from everything that I've had previously. Now I'm looking to improve things slightly with a couple of possible additions:

1) I'm looking to possibly upgrade my front speakers, which are currently the Q Acoustics 1010s. These have been excellent thus but I do feel that I can get better stereo performance if I step up to the 1020 (£80 at Superfi) or the 1030s (£130), both of which would give me the ability to bi-amp. I like the aesthetic of my current set-up and am looking to stay with Q Acoustics in Beech.

2) I'm looking to get a dedicated CD player - possibly a Cambridge audio Azur 540C or a Marantz CD6002. I've got a local Richer Sounds so I will go and give them a listen and I'm keeping a look out for second hand bargains on eBay. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I guess a lot of people will think: why doesn't he build himself a decent separates system for music? I'm limited mainly by lack of space and, to a certain extent, my budget. I've got my living room furniture set-up pretty much the way I want it and it's not a huge space so there's no really any room for moving things around. I'm also not looking to spend any more than £300. So a couple of questions: Is the speaker upgrade worth it and is it worth spending the extra £50 for the floorstanders? It's not a big room (13ftx10ft) and I'm worried the floorstanders might be overkill. Also, I'm pretty sure that a dedicated CD player will help me get more out of my system but are there any other component I should be looking at that wouldn't kill my budget?

Any advice/opinions greatly appreciated

Fuzzy[/quote] I would keep it how you have it right now. Are you using the Toshiba for cd playback? If so, I would assume that a half decent cdp would beat it but I'm not sure you will get the benefits with a receiver as your amplification and your modest speakers. I would keep your money in your pocket and wait until you have more space or money to upgrade. For instance if you had say a Onkyo 875 or Denon 3808, the benefits of a decent cdp would be more noticeable.

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Thanks for the advice. I think I may borrow a good quality CD player off a mate, or from my local Richer Sounds, to see what kind of gains can be made. I've was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the sound quality of some of the higher bitrate tracks from my iTunes playing through the Onkyo via my Airport Express. CD playback was a big step up in quality again but I haven't compared it with the Toshiba yet. The only thing I find lacking is the bass in 'pure direct' mode which is why I considered the speaker upgrade to improve stereo performance. I think some more testing is in order though before I get trigger happy with my wallet. Thanks for making me think twice.

 

[Anonymous]

regards to upgrading your front r&l speakers to upgrade them ideally you'd need to spend a lot more money than that otherwise you may spend the money and realise that it's not worth it and want to upgrade a lot sooner as gs said try a cdp and if not happy with your speakers then save more up!