matt49
Well-known member
Susie said:
Susie,
Those are exceptionally good headphones. To get the most out of them, you need an amp with a decent headphone stage in it. I'll go back to my earlier recommendation: a good DAC with headphone stage will give you a lot of pleasure now and the possibility to expand your system in the future.
I recently borrowed the Naim DAC V-1 (£1250) from my local dealer in West London. It has an amazing headphone amp. All you'd need is a basic Blu-ray player, a digital interconnect cable (nothing fancy), and you're good to go. The Audiolab MDAC (£699) that I recommended earlier is also excellent for headphones.
When the time comes, you could add a power amp (e.g. the Naim NAP 100 at £650 or the Audiolab M-PWR at £499). One advantage of these Naim and Audiolab models is that the boxes are small.
:cheers:
Matt
BigH
Well-known member
Yes music and room size do make a difference. With that room size I would probably stick to standmounts. Also some speakers need some space so that will cut down your choice.
Actually I would say the speakers will make the most difference to the sound, so it maybe best to choose those first, listen to various different ones to find which you like best. Don't feel obliged to buy anything at the demo, just say you need to think about it.
For your room I would try KEF R100s (£600) for starters. The Tannoy Precision 6.1 (£900) were pretty good and may suit your music. Amps I would try Arcam A19 and Creek 50A (about £650/£700). If you go to Bartletts you can try the ADMs 9RSSs, these have the amps and dac inside the speakers and cost £1,400, so you just need to choose a source.
Actually I would say the speakers will make the most difference to the sound, so it maybe best to choose those first, listen to various different ones to find which you like best. Don't feel obliged to buy anything at the demo, just say you need to think about it.
For your room I would try KEF R100s (£600) for starters. The Tannoy Precision 6.1 (£900) were pretty good and may suit your music. Amps I would try Arcam A19 and Creek 50A (about £650/£700). If you go to Bartletts you can try the ADMs 9RSSs, these have the amps and dac inside the speakers and cost £1,400, so you just need to choose a source.
John Duncan
Well-known member
Susie
Hello and welcome to the forum. You mention bluray and DVD but don't say whether you want to consider surround sound (many classical titles are appearing on bluray in HD surround format, so this may be of interest to you).
JD
Hello and welcome to the forum. You mention bluray and DVD but don't say whether you want to consider surround sound (many classical titles are appearing on bluray in HD surround format, so this may be of interest to you).
JD
Macspur
Well-known member
Susie said:
No Suzie... Hope it's not too late, I believe it was directed at overdose!
No more to be added by me... mainly all good advice.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Mac
John Duncan
Well-known member
Macspur said:
Hi Mac not too late I was just a bit taken back. I thought maybe I'd done something I shouldn't have in one of my posts. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
John Duncan said:
I'm aware of this and would consider going SS if it wasn't for the fact a lot of my listening is done on headphones. I still want decent speakers but I just feel more intune with the music using headphones I hope that doesn't sound strange.
John Duncan
Well-known member
CnoEvil said:
AVForums certainly used to be bigger last time I saw, but it covers many more topics than this one does. It's particularly big on gaming, for example, IIRC.
John Duncan said:
Oh well, I can't be doing wiith that; so it looks like I've left before I've even joined! :doh:
John Duncan
Well-known member
Sorry Susie, we're thread drifting. Have you got a TV and would it be practical to incorporate it into your system (ie have speakers either side of it)? I'm thinking either fairly modest BD player and receiver, or something based round your mac mini, with headphones for ultimate sound quality.
John Duncan said:
It's cool no need to apologize as long as it doesn't get nasty no harm done?
We don't currently have a televsion set as we don't watch televsion. Anything we do watch is done either via our computer monitors of which we have several or a projecter in our little "cinema".
matthewpiano
Well-known member
For a system which is easy to listen to but which offers high levels of insight and detail, Arcam is very hard to beat. In your position I would be starting by listening to an Arcam A19 amplifier with Quad 11L Classic and Focal Chorus 705v speakers. If you want a universal disc player one of the Denon or Marantz models would serve you admirably. From here you may then want to see what moving up to an Arcam CD37/A38 combination would bring you (warning, its a stunning combination, particularly with classical music) and try this with a range of speakers - KEF R100s would be well worth a try as a starter.
I'd also suggest trying to hear the Creek Destiny 2 amp, which remains one of the best below £2k in my opinion, and the new Rega Elicit-R which I've heard sounding particularly fine with PMC speakers.
These are just a handful of ideas based on my own experiences.
I'd also suggest trying to hear the Creek Destiny 2 amp, which remains one of the best below £2k in my opinion, and the new Rega Elicit-R which I've heard sounding particularly fine with PMC speakers.
These are just a handful of ideas based on my own experiences.
Matching your headphones performance is going to be really tough.
PI wouldn't rush the speakers purchase. BigH s recommendation to try a dealer like Bartletts is a good one. You'll be able to directly compare good actives with good amp/speaker combos. If it can't happen for a couple of months would that be a problem ?
also do you envisage connecting the speakers to your mac / home cinema ?
PI wouldn't rush the speakers purchase. BigH s recommendation to try a dealer like Bartletts is a good one. You'll be able to directly compare good actives with good amp/speaker combos. If it can't happen for a couple of months would that be a problem ?
also do you envisage connecting the speakers to your mac / home cinema ?
Hey Susie , hows yer head ? , lol. .
Kick back and chill sounds good to me. Best I dont go down the valve route ( which is what I use ) otherwise you will end up with a migraine .
Creek / Epos , from Cnos list earlier in the thread will well be worth an audition. Also Primare / Vienna Acoustics work really well together , either or could well float yer boat.
But dem dem dem is the only way to do this.
.Kick back and chill sounds good to me. Best I dont go down the valve route ( which is what I use ) otherwise you will end up with a migraine .
Creek / Epos , from Cnos list earlier in the thread will well be worth an audition. Also Primare / Vienna Acoustics work really well together , either or could well float yer boat.
But dem dem dem is the only way to do this.
But the OP has explained she doesn't have the time to demo constantly.
Id stick with the headphones for now, maybe add a headphone amp. Then in future weeks/months find a couple of hours to hit one retailer hard.
Id stick with the headphones for now, maybe add a headphone amp. Then in future weeks/months find a couple of hours to hit one retailer hard.
Two thoughts.
Universal players often need a screen to navigate to different formats on the disc and for 2 channel listening offer little benefit sound quality wise. Personally I would look for a simpler source option, probably computer based if I possible, given your work, you probably have plenty of computing power and the knowledge required to integrate music playing into your system.
You may already have a collection of music on different media and may, for example, need a blu-ray player for your work, or be working towards a fully fledged multi-channel A/V setup, in which case the point is moot.
Secondly you have a smallish square room, a lot of very good speakers are simply not going to work that well unless positioned optimally, probably difficult in what is also a work environment.
At the risk of once again upsetting the forum, active speakers offer a genuine advantage in terms of control in the bass region and could be a very good solution should they have to be placed in a position that is less than optimum. Active loudspeakers are relatively rare in the hi-fi world, though models are available from the likes of Kef, Dynavector, AVI and others.
Active speakers are much more common in the area of multimedia and music prodution, a line that is particularly suited both to this and domestic use would be the Adam Artist range, though they are quite hard to find.
BTW. Your Sennheiser 'phones are seriously capable, you should make sure your system either has a good amplifier for them or provision to add one, very worthwhile if they are going to be used a lot.
Universal players often need a screen to navigate to different formats on the disc and for 2 channel listening offer little benefit sound quality wise. Personally I would look for a simpler source option, probably computer based if I possible, given your work, you probably have plenty of computing power and the knowledge required to integrate music playing into your system.
You may already have a collection of music on different media and may, for example, need a blu-ray player for your work, or be working towards a fully fledged multi-channel A/V setup, in which case the point is moot.
Secondly you have a smallish square room, a lot of very good speakers are simply not going to work that well unless positioned optimally, probably difficult in what is also a work environment.
At the risk of once again upsetting the forum, active speakers offer a genuine advantage in terms of control in the bass region and could be a very good solution should they have to be placed in a position that is less than optimum. Active loudspeakers are relatively rare in the hi-fi world, though models are available from the likes of Kef, Dynavector, AVI and others.
Active speakers are much more common in the area of multimedia and music prodution, a line that is particularly suited both to this and domestic use would be the Adam Artist range, though they are quite hard to find.
BTW. Your Sennheiser 'phones are seriously capable, you should make sure your system either has a good amplifier for them or provision to add one, very worthwhile if they are going to be used a lot.
davedotco said:
I thought the small room would be preferable as it meant less work for the speakers however there are much larger rooms I could use. 99% of my music is on CDs Hybrid-SACDs we do have a large DVD and Blu-ray collection though, everything is ripped and stored on a RAID.
matt49
Well-known member
Susie said:I thought the small room would be preferable as it meant less work for the speakers however there are much larger rooms I could use. 99% of my music is on CDs Hybrid-SACDs we do have a large DVD and Blu-ray collection though, everything is ripped and stored on a RAID.
Almost all speakers (there are exceptions) work best with a couple of feet clearance from the wall behind them. To create a wide sound stage and separate out the instruments, you'll probably want six feet between the two speakers. Then you'll want at least as much distance between you and the speakers, say nine feet, and also about six feet between you and the wall behind you (otherwise sound bouncing off the wall behind will confuse the sonic image). In other words, your ideal listening room would be around eighteen feet deep. That's not to say you can't get good results in a smaller room.
Also a larger room will allow you to use larger speakers with bigger low frequency drivers, which means deeper bass extension. Big speakers in a small room usually don't work well (though I've come across exceptions to this rule too).
In fact, there are exceptions to all of this. You can get very clean, precise and tuneful bass from quite small drivers, for instance. But if you like big orchestral music, say, small drivers won't deliver the atmosphere of the concert hall in the way large drivers will, and for that you need a large room.
On the subject of London hi-fi dealers, I think Bartletts and Grahams (both Highbury) have already been suggested. Depending on where you are, the following might be useful: KJWestone (Marylebone), Oranges and Lemons (Wandsworth), Audio Venue (Ealing).
:cheers:
Matt
EDIT: should have mentioned Billy Vee (Lewisham).
Susie said:
If you like classical music, these are brands that I would look out for:
Source
Streamer from Linn or Naim
Amps
- Arcam
- Rega
- Sugden
- Creek
- Croft
- Electrocompaniet
- Audio Analogue
- Unison Research Unico
- Pathos
- Musical Fidelity
Speakers
- Spendor
- Harbeth
- Kef R Series / LS50
- Sonus Faber Venere / Toy
- Epos
- Proac
- Vienna Acoustics
Susie said:I thought the small room would be preferable as it meant less work for the speakers however there are much larger rooms I could use. 99% of my music is on CDs Hybrid-SACDs we do have a large DVD and Blu-ray collection though, everything is ripped and stored on a RAID.
There is also the problem that "square" is acoustically the worst shape for a room to be.
Susie said:I thought the small room would be preferable as it meant less work for the speakers however there are much larger rooms I could use. 99% of my music is on CDs Hybrid-SACDs we do have a large DVD and Blu-ray collection though, everything is ripped and stored on a RAID.
It seems to me that you are somewhat spoilt for choice, you can go pretty much wherever you like.
It is worth remembering that this is very much an enthusiasts forum and recommendations will be made on the assumption that the equipment will be properly set up and at least reasonably well positioned, something that might be impractical in a 12ft square listening room that doubles as a workspace.
I have been through the whole expensive system / dedicated room experience and now have a much more pragmatic approach, simple easy to use system that just gets used, the emphasis is very much on the music and easy access to it. I tend to be quite old fashioned too, separate systems for my workspace, and living areas would be my choice though of course they can be easily linked.
To me the funtionality is important, I like to keep it simple and find it beneficial to work out what I want while working and what I wand when just listening, for me this is not the same thing, hence the separate system route.
John Duncan
Well-known member
Ok, so it seems that surround would involve completely changing tack and would throw away what you've got in terms of Mac Mini and NAS. In which case, let's stick to stereo, and I'd suggest two things; a DAC/Headphone amp for the Senns such as a DACMagic Plus or Beresford, and a pair of KEF X300As for speaker duties, which are USB so involve the absolute minimum of faff.
You should hear the X300As first as I haven't, though Mr Clough tells me they're very good.
You should hear the X300As first as I haven't, though Mr Clough tells me they're very good.
iceman16
Well-known member
I would suggest using a decent tube or valve amp if you really like listening to classical music and Sonus Faber speakers or anything that does'nt sound bright or tiring.
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