What next to upgrade

[johnnyboy1950]

:wave:

Current setup, arcam alpha 7 cd player, arcam alpha 7 amp, nad dac 1 streaming either 320 mp3 or flac, TDL RTL2 floorstanders.

All pretty old stuff as you can see. Most of my source playing now is from my PC with the NAD which I am very pleased with.

I suspect the speakers are the weak link now. I would like to stick with floorstanders ( I play mainly rock so I like a big sound with strong bass, tell me if I'm wrong!) but am limited budget wise. The ones that stand out are the Tannoy mercury V4s but are these a worthwhile upgrade over the RTL2s?

Any other speakers floorstanding or not. Or is it the amp!!

 

[jjbomber]

The Arcam 10 amp was a real rocker. If one comes up second hand, that might be worth a punt. Ignore the DAC and go digital from the PC to the amp. If there isn't an optical or digital out on the PC, use a Turtle Beach Micro II from the USB to make an optical connection.

 

[sublime]

The alpha 7 is a reasonably good amp - I have the alpha 9 and the Monitor Audio BX2's sounded very good on it, they are quite small bookshelf speakers though

 

[Gazzip]

You could try the Q Acoustics 2050i's. My brother has a pair and they sound fantastic. Not at all polite as the WHF review inferred.

 

[johnnyboy1950]

thanks chaps, I think I'll stick with the arcam amp for now but what about the speakers . The tdl rtl2 transmission lines were highly rated back then (20 years ago) so what would I have to spend to improve them. How about the tannoys, worth the upgrade?

 

[johnnyboy1950]

so is the upgrade worth it?

 

[plastic penguin]

:wave:

Current setup, arcam alpha 7 cd player, arcam alpha 7 amp, nad dac 1 streaming either 320 mp3 or flac, TDL RTL2 floorstanders.

All pretty old stuff as you can see. Most of my source playing now is from my PC with the NAD which I am very pleased with.

I suspect the speakers are the weak link now. I would like to stick with floorstanders ( I play mainly rock so I like a big sound with strong bass, tell me if I'm wrong!) but am limited budget wise. The ones that stand out are the Tannoy mercury V4s but are these a worthwhile upgrade over the RTL2s?

Any other speakers floorstanding or not. Or is it the amp!!

If you're taken by Tannoy speakers I would look to change the amp first: having recently heard the Precision 6.1 with a modern Cyrus streamer/CDP/amp I feel they could benefit from amplification that offers a smoother presentation.