Decent separates (amp/CD/speakers) for sub £300?

kissenger

kissenger

kissenger

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I'm looking to buy an amp, CD player and some bookshelf speakers, but I don't have a clue where to start. I've never bought separates before and I'm looking to spend only around £250-£300 for the lot.

These Wharfdale Diamond 9s look to be decent:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/bookshelf-speakers/wharfedale/diamond-9.0/whar-9.0-blk

But I don't know anything about amps or CD players. I was probably going to buy new but I'm not opposed to buying on ebay if there are deals to be found, but I don't even know what to look for.

Any recommendations?

The main thing I'll be using them for is to play music off my Adroid phone.
 
i would avoid playing music from the phone if at all possible. the phone will produce interference and the dac (ie music chip) will not be the best. I have wharfdale 9.1s and are pretty good, they can be found pretty cheap. remember to budget for cables as well :)
 
Oh really? I didn't realise. Almost all of my music is on my PC nowadays and my Android is the best way to make it portable (I can't really be bothered to set up media sharing). I suppose I could burn off some CDs to get better sound quality.

As far as an amp goes, Amazon seems to have a really good deal on on the Sony STRDH100 receiver:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-STRDH100-Receiver-2-Channel/dp/B002CU0N2G

I suppose that's my best bet? I'm also wondering what type of thing I could get on ebay for around £70 but I don't know what to look for.
 
As recommended above, spending a few £'s more and getting the 9.1's would be worthwhile...

Secondhand NAD C320/325BEE off ebay possibly for an amp...
 
First things first.... The good news is that pretty much anything you buy from a proper hi-fi range will sound a load better than the typical mini/micro hi-fi you'd find in Comet etc. The only pit falls are that a separates system doesn't come with speaker cable or a wire to connect the phone or CD player. You buy these in the same way as choosing an amp, CD or speakers. So, take about £30 from your budget to cover a CD to amp cable, a phone to amp cable, and about 10m of speaker cable.

If your budget is a firm £250-£300, and you've then taken out for cables and the Diamond 9.0 speakers, then you have around you now have £160 - £210 left to play with.

£80 each for amp & CD player... well there's not much wiggle room there; your choices are pretty much made for you. A TEAC CD player and Cambridge Audio amp.

Upping the budget to £210 means you have just over £100 per item of course. But rather than splitting it equally I'd be tempted to demo a better CD player with the £80 amp, then demo the cheaper CD with a better amp. Compare the two combos. I reckon you'd get better results that way. My money would be on the better CD/cheaper amp being more musical.

There are other possible routes to consider though. The most practical for you might be this.....

If you don't have many CDs then I'd ditch the idea of buying a player at this point and go with the Onkyo A9155 amp (£150-£175). I'd then check if my PC has a digital audio out and buy the little £40 DAC from RS or get a USB DAC.

Second-hand might get mentioned as a possibility, but I'd only recommend that if either you knew a lot about hi-fi or were happy to place your £300 with a broker who could sort a system for you.

STRDH100 and other AV amps are definitely not the direction to go. The sound quality for music really isn't that good compared to a stereo amp.
 
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Lot of good information there lucid. Thanks.

So I'm thinking defo go with the Wharfedale 9s for speakers. One of the cheaper TEACs on the RS site, and maybe either the AM1 or the AM5 Cambridge amp.

Are either of those amps any good? I really like the look of the AM5 because it has an MP3 jack on the front, which would be really handy for me, and it only costs around £120. As a complete noob to all of this I thought the Sony STRDH100 was my best bet because it looks flasher and comes with LCD display/remote/receiver/headphone out on the front. But I suppose someone in the know wouldn't go for that because it's inferior as far as sound quality goes? That about right?

It does seem quite strange that there would be no headphone out anywhere on the amp though...
 
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Lol... the MP3 port is just a socket. There's load of sockets on the back. Does it really matter where you plug in the phone? After all, the phone will probably live on top of the amp when being used as a music source, right?

If you want the AM5 then go for it. Me, I'd have a listen first.

If the designers have done their job properly then the AM1 and AM5 should sound quite similar at normal listening levels. There's not really enough of a price difference to make a significantly large jump in sound quality from £80 to £120. Some of that extra price difference will be eaten up with the cost of tone control circuits (a backwards step in sound quality terms) and that MP3 jack ;) :D

Headphone sockets cost money, and not many people use them... It's not just the socket but the cost of the headphone amp that drives the phones at the correct level. At this sort of price level it's money better spent on something more useful such as better capacitors.


There's a reason why I suggested a better CD with the AM1 amp. If the CD player is feeding rubbish in to the amp then all the amp can do is make the rubbish sound louder. It can't improve it. But a higher quality CD player can do a better job of reading the disc. That'll give you a better quality signal in to the amp.


AV amps such as that Sony aren't designed for music. They are full of video processing circuits, DSP chips and general digital hash. It just messes up the sound. On top of which the quality of the components is lower. It has to be. The money needs to spread much further... there's 5 channels of amplification for a start rather than two.
 
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TALON1973 said:
would you consider 2nd hand ? as that opens up more alternatives ..
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Yeah, nothing wrong with second hand so long as you're careful. You can get more bang for your buck that way sometimes.

But, the Whafedale 9 speakers and the Cambridge AM5 amp seems like a really good deal to me. £180 all in. I don't know if I could beat that going second hand.
 
kissenger said:
Yeah, nothing wrong with second hand so long as you're careful. You can get more bang for your buck that way sometimes.

But, the Whafedale 9 speakers and the Cambridge AM5 amp seems like a really good deal to me. £180 all in. I don't know if I could beat that going second hand.
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Whatever you bought second-hand would have to be on your doorstep, otherwise a big chunk of the saving gets eaten up with the cost of getting hold of the goods.
 
lucid said:
Lol... the MP3 port is just a socket. There's load of sockets on the back. Does it really matter where you plug in the phone? After all, the phone will probably live on top of the amp when being used as a music source, right?

If you want the AM5 then go for it. Me, I'd have a listen first.

If the designers have done their job properly then the AM1 and AM5 should sound quite similar at normal listening levels. There's not really enough of a price difference to make a significantly large jump in sound quality from £80 to £120. Some of that extra price difference will be eaten up with the cost of tone control circuits (a backwards step in sound quality terms) and that MP3 jack ;) :D

Headphone sockets cost money, and not many people use them... It's not just the socket but the cost of the headphone amp that drives the phones at the correct level. At this sort of price level it's money better spent on something more useful such as better capacitors.


There's a reason why I suggested a better CD with the AM1 amp. If the CD player is feeding rubbish in to the amp then all the amp can do is make the rubbish sound louder. It can't improve it. But a higher quality CD player can do a better job of reading the disc. That'll give you a better quality signal in to the amp.


AV amps such as that Sony aren't designed for music. They are full of video processing circuits, DSP chips and general digital hash. It just messes up the sound. On top of which the quality of the components is lower. It has to be. The money needs to spread much further... there's 5 channels of amplification for a start rather than two.
Click to expand...

I see what you mean. You're dead right. The AM5 is basically the AM1 but with a few extra features which are mostly useless anyway, and it doesn't even have a headphone socket.

And you're saying the lack of tone control isn't a problem? That's the only other thing that's worrying me because I usually like a little less bass than most people.

Still this sounds like a really good amp for BR, MP3, etc.
 
I tried to hint at it before, the MP3 socket is marketing hype for gullible people. You'll get exactly the same result plugging a wire in to the rear sockets, and it'll probably look neater too.

Tone controls....hmmm... They could be useful if the speakers have to go in absolutely horrible positions that messes up the sound. The problem is that you end up breaking another thing to try fix something broken elsewhere. Two wrongs rarely make a right.

If there's too much bass from the speakers then see if you can find speakers that suit your taste better. If there's still too much bass then shift the speakers away from the corners, side walls and rear wall. If all else fails try bunging up the bass port.

All of this though is just the way I'd solve those problems. If you feel more comfortable with the AM5 then go for it.
 
So I went ahead and bought the Cambridge AM1 and the Wharfdale 9.0s. I am a complete neophyte when it comes to all this but I was blown away by the sound quality. Thanks a lot for the recommendations lucid and everyone else. I'm really enjoying listening to these. And you were right, lucid, about the tone controls - they didn't turn out to be necessary. The bass level is just fine.

Only thing I need now is an mp3 interconnect. Anyone know where I can get one cheap that isn't absolute rubbish? I bought a Cambridge one when I picked up my amp/speakers but it's not long enough. I think I need a 5m one. I've been looking on ebay but there are so many I don't know which to go for.
 
LOL! Yeah I am using the phone as a source sometimes. Sounds good to me.

Edit: would I be better off hooking up my amp to my blu ray player and using that for music until I get a decent CD player or whatever?
 
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kissenger said:
Edit: would I be better off hooking up my amp to my blu ray player and using that for music until I get a decent CD player or whatever?
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Should be a much better source than your phone. If your bluray player will play media from a USB device or through the network then take advantage of that.
 
Although the quality of the DAC in the phone won't be great the problem isn't so much the phone. It's the amount of compression required to put enough files on it to make it worthwhile using as a music library.

DVD players and Blu-ray players generally don't make good CD players. There's too much circuit noise from the video circuitry and far too much signal processing going on to get a decent stereo output. By all means hook one up if you already have it. But don't waste your money buying one as a stop gap rather than saving for a second-hand or new CD player. Use your PC instead.
 
lucid said:
Although the quality of the DAC in the phone won't be great the problem isn't so much the phone. It's the amount of compression required to put enough files on it to make it worthwhile using as a music library.

DVD players and Blu-ray players generally don't make good CD players. There's too much circuit noise from the video circuitry and far too much signal processing going on to get a decent stereo output. By all means hook one up if you already have it. But don't waste your money buying one as a stop gap rather than saving for a second-hand or new CD player. Use your PC instead.
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The thing with that is I wouldn't mind buying a CD player, but I don't think that would do the trick for me because I've got so used to playing music on my PC that going back to discs with just 10 or 12 songs on, and having to switch them over all the time, would seem a bit archaic.

Also I have a decent soundcard in my PC with an optical out and what not, but it's too far away from where my amp is set up to bother hooking up. So my only options are really my phone (8gb of memory) or my laptop. My laptop would work well because it's got a big hard drive and a remote built in, but then again the only output I can use on it is the headphone jack. There is no optical out or SPDIF out. There is a HDMI out but I would need a DAC to hook that up. Also, I always get a ground loop whenever I plug it in via the headphone jack and I can't seem to get rid of it (it's there even when I unplug the laptop from the power supply).
 
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