TelBoy

Anybody want to nominate their favourite separates in this price range?

Need an amplifier, cd player and floorstanding speakers. Can be new but secondhand also fine. Overall budget about £1,500 but can i put about £1,300 of it towards separates to allow for cables and a stand etc.


Thinking Audiolab 8000S, Marantz 6000SE Ken Ishiwotsit, and Mission 753.


Any others i ought to be considering in your opinion?

BigGT3Fan

Naim

TelBoy

Thanks

Spoon

Tomy

Haywood_Jablome

I can tell by the budget that it's not for you. Either that or you've blown you're millions

Chris L

Got one of the Ken Ishiwhatsit ( ) CD players - about 10 years old now and still sounds fantastic Always been a big fan of their CD players.

Other thoughts? Cyrus make great amps and I also like Kef speakers.

I'm using Van Den Hul interconnects and bi-wired speaker cable.

wolfie28

Quad or Cyrus for amps, Kef for speakers and Rega for CD player. These are what make up my system and it sounds stunning . Search secondhand and you'll pick up a bargain or 2. Don't forget good speaker cable, interconnects and a quality equipment rack .

Wolfie.

TelBoy

No, not for me, Haywood.

Thanks for the suggestions so far Specific model numbers would be appreciated if you know them

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Cyrus 7 CD player, "Q" version if you can get it, but you can always update later, the "Q" conversion was plug and play, IIRC.

Cyrus 8 amp.

Thing I like abt Cyrus is it's easy upgrade-ability. PSX-R can be fitted to both CD player and amp, amp can be turned into a power/pre combination by the addition of a Smart Power, which in turn, can have it's own PSX-R etc etc.

Thery even do factory upgrades, so a CD player bought as a CD7 can be upgraded to full CD8x spec, and an 8 amp to to an 8vs.

Dunno abt speakers, they are very subjective. Personally I'ver NEVER heard any I like more than the old Cyrus CLS70, but they are no longeer made. They go occasionally on ebay for around £400.

Alcazar

NotoriousREV

Pair of ESL63 speakers, decent sub, pair of QUAD II's, NAD CD and receiver.

TopBanana

Lots of recommendations for Cyrus so far. I've only heard one cyrus component I and hated it! Very bright sound

Buster-WRX

FOCAL jmlab 714 floorstanders are the nuts for £500 notes!!

I should know when I bought them last year I must have tried every set of everything in the shop!

I have these hooked upto a merantz kenziwotsit and they are the bollocks trust me....

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Whatever you do, don't buy speakers without hearing them first - they have, in my experience, by far the greatest influence on the overall sound of the system. At any price point there will be some you love and others you hate.

For what it's worth, I'm a big fan of the Monitor Audio sound, and I like Dynaudio too - but they're your ears and only you can decide what you like the sound of best.

TelBoy

Very fair point, Andy, but unfortunately we won't have an opportunity to listen to any of this beforehand, so i'm trying to get together a selection of tried and trusted favourites which will as near as dammit guarantee a reasonably decent sound.

Daz34

How about Arcam? There is a lot of their stuff around and you should be able to get late model Alpha CD player, integrated amp and an additional power amp for reasonable money.
I would also look at Rega.
Their Planet CD and Mira amp were well regarded as were their floorstanders.
I like the old Mission speakers too but found their cyrus amps and CDP a bit to 'in your face'.

Luan Pra bang

Personally I like Musical fidelity components with B+W speakers but the speakers your need to get thte best from it are about £700 so that leaves their bottom of the range amp and perhaps a CD player from Mirantz if the MF one is to pricey as they mix together really well.
I personally find acram sounds very soft and 'wispy with no guts and think their gear is rubbish

Luan Pra bang

Just had a look on ebay and there is a MF X series pre amp and two mono block power amps for very cheap. I have had my x series for 14 years and have never felt the need to even look in a Hi Fi shop since for me its the dogs danglies and has sounded perfect with no problems the whole of its life. THis included daily full volume blasts while being a student

B0DSKI

iTrader: (17)

Arcam all the way for me

Deep Singh

I wouldn't spend £1.5k without listening to it first, could be a very expensive mistake. Aswell as the stuff mentioned above ie Naim, Arcam, Cyrus I would also audition Rokshan (?sp) Kandy amps and monitor radius RS6 speakers

hux309

i have a denon avr 1802 with wharfdale rubience speakers

It's great for an all round sound but i have auditioned monitor audio bookshelfs and they were gorgeous, granted they were £800 but if you pair them with something like a quad or arcam amp the effect would be stunning

Don't forget the source is very important as is the cabling, i switched to an ixos optical lead for my pc and the difference is like night and day, much more definition and musicality, while all the time i thought it was the speakers

Something like the kef q55 would be a great choice as well

Trout

iTrader: (1)

You could get an excellent set of Naim separates for this price on ebay.

I have a CD63 SE, and Audiolab 8000A and a pair of old Naim Credos in my office which does sound very good.

My main system is Naim

Gus the Bus

Harman Kardon separates with Mission M series (Floor standing) speakers for me. Spent months checking out (listening) to gear last year and got thee best set-up from this combination IMHO.

Gus

CharlesW

AVI amps do the business. I have had a set of their monoblocks and preamp for 10 years without any issues. They are currently driving a pair of ProAc Studio 3s (same as the ATC SCA50s), so there is no shortage of power.

AVI - Laboratory Series Integrated Amplifier

AVI - Preamplifier and Power Amplifier

Doug Brady had an integrated AVI for £499 last month.

Sale List. 23/05/07. 16:45

hades

Personally, Ruark speakers are a big favourite, you could easily pick up some second hand templars or similar for sensible money in that budget range.

I quite like the cyrus electronics, the Rega planet was a very nice CD player, but would probably go for the safe bet of a Marantz CD63 KI Sig or similar. If feasible, upgrade mains lead, damp the case etc, they respond very well to some simple mods.

My slightly less common suggestion for the amp would be to try and pick up a second hand NVA off ebay or wherever, should be able to get at least an AP50, maybe as good as an AP70 within budget. Low on features and output protection, but generally sound quality that will (for the money) stomp all over any of the "mainstream stuff"

TopBanana

They've also got the Chord SPM1900 I auditioned a few years back before sense prevailed! These days I just use an ipod!

rgv_stu

im using a crest audio vs1100 amp on a rotel preamp, best thing i did was do away with the hifi amp and get a pro audio one, loads more grunt and headroom available

solwood

iTrader: (1)

Proac Speakers - not heard speakers sound so natural - we have Tablette 2000 signatures but the Reference 7 Signatures - bely their size and IMHO break the rules of physics - good bass from tiny speakers

They sound great on the end of cyrus 7 electronics - its the set up our friends bought! Oh and the Cyrus standmounts with dedicated stands were not a patch on the ProAcs which was a surprise but may be more to do with them needing more space than was available.

We have a Sonus Faber Musica Amp - thats graet but it does not do dirty so if your music is more Carter USM then steer clear.

Naim CD3.5 - you can always upgrade with a flatcap/hicap at a later date

QED XT400 cable was great for us (a switch from Audioquest CV4).