Upgrade opions

henge72

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Feb 10, 2010
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Hey, opinions welcomed for a near future upgrade, current set up is Marantz pm66se amp,marantz cd63se cd player, sonos zp90 and mordant short mezzo 2 speakers, most of my listening is through the sonos as the cd player is skipping and may be on it's way out? So my thoughts were the amp or speakers are the first things to look at, musical tastes involve most genres and i am generally resonably happy with the sound but it doesn't seem that hair raising and i feel i'm missing out on something, or am i just pandering to the upgrade bug :) Budget would be around £500 and would be willing to take it 1 component at a time if needs be, any thoughts would be gratefully received

Ben
 

audioaffair

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Feb 21, 2009
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Hi there

Without trying to confuse(!) I would look at adding an external DAC to your Sonos if that is your main source. Your amp is good enough to reveal the benefits to you, your budget would give you lots of options, after you've sorted the source I would then begin to look at amps or speakers

Hope that helps :)
 
henge72 said:
Hey, opinions welcomed for a near future upgrade, current set up is Marantz pm66se amp,marantz cd63se cd player, sonos zp90 and mordant short mezzo 2 speakers, most of my listening is through the sonos as the cd player is skipping and may be on it's way out? So my thoughts were the amp or speakers are the first things to look at, musical tastes involve most genres and i am generally resonably happy with the sound but it doesn't seem that hair raising and i feel i'm missing out on something, or am i just pandering to the upgrade bug :) Budget would be around £500 and would be willing to take it 1 component at a time if needs be, any thoughts would be gratefully received

Ben

Hi Ben

The Mezzo 2's are perfectly good speakers so i would recommend that you carry on using them for a while yet. Anyway in the first instance i feel that the biggest return on your investment will be made by replacing the amp. Amplifiers such as Rega's Brio R, NAD C365BEE or if you are also happy to consider buying used then Rotel's RA-1062 are worth a look. All three amplifiers will give a worthwhile upgrade as they'll grip, drive, control and ultimately energize the Mezzo 2's much more effectively at almost any comparable listening level :)

After the amp then look at uplifting the performance of the ZP90 by adding a DAC such as the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus or the Rega DAC.

Btw, what interconnect/s and speaker cables are you using please?

All the best

Rick @ Musicraft
 

henge72

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Thanks Maurice, I should have added that I'd tried a used dac magic, i didn't feel it added that much for the outlay so I sold it on for pretty much what I'd paid for it so no great loss, would it be worthwhile trying something further up the scale such as the arcam r-dac, audiolab m-dac or the new musical fidelity m1 dac?
 

henge72

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Thanks Rick, I was thinking the amp first, no particular reason, just a gut feeling that it is the weakest link, i do like the speakers an feel they have more to offer me. I am using and couple of interconnects 1 qed (that old i can't remember the model number, only £25 ish though) and the zp90 is using a freebie out the box type, speaker cable is chord carnival silverscreen, I was thinking of chord crismon plus interconnects as a start

Ben
 

audioaffair

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Hi

I can't comment on the Arcam as it isn't an item I stock, I am aware of its reputation though(a good one!)

Both the Musical Fidelity & the M-Dac would be well worth a listen in my opinion.

Regards
 
Hi Ben

Thanks for your reply and your welcome.

Yes, better amplification first :)

Btw, i'll recommend that you carry on using the basic interconnect as i feel it will be more then good enough for your components.

All the best

Rick @ Musicraft
 
A

Anonymous

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If you want your hairs being raised, I would go for tubes.
 

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