complete new setup - £2-£2.5k

Reality Bites · 13 Mar 2007 at 20:37

My current system is as follows :

Sony 32V2000 LCD
Rotel 971Mk2 amp
Arcam Alpha 7se CD
B&W CC6 centre speaker
Yamaha DSP E800 processor.
Atacama Equinox (hi-fi) and rev8 (TV) racks.

Since departed

B&W 602s2
Mission 7ds rears.

Since moving to a house with a smaller lounge (3m x 3.5m) I was forced to sell my beloved B&W’s and haven’t yet replaced them.

I auditioned some smaller alternatives last year such as Kef Q4’s and Quad’s 11l and 12l. All of which were very nice but felt my current amp/CD wouldn’t do them justice. I then auditioned the quads with a Roksan Kandy 111 CD/AMP combo with the REL quake and fell in love. The sound was just what I always wanted from my audio, Crystal clear, yet with the authority and body to excite. The only issue was finding the funds for such a purchase.

One year on and I’m still in the same quandary.

I went to a local Sevenoaks store to audition the Q acoustics 5.1 setup and although they setup received brilliant reviews from magazines, I felt a little ‘bored’ when I listened to them. Changes in the system meant more expensive and more capable parts were auditioned until I’d run out of time (my partner wasn’t impressed with me wanting to listen to the same few
tracks on 3 or 4 different setups over and over). I came to the conclusion that I was going to have to expand on my budget to get the sound I want.

After a lot of saving, I’ve managed to get together a budget of around £2000.

My main area would be movies, but then I don’t want to have to lose out in the music department. Is it possible to have a small speaker system which will excel with movies as well as music?

After much reading of reviews and asking of opinions I’m still unsure about which route to take. There are some good offers currently available for Arcam kit which have caught my eye, such as the AVR300 £749 and DV79 £549, but I’m concerned that aiming for kit more biased towards movies would mean a sacrifice in the music department?

Or I could re-audition the AMP/CD combo I fell in love with last year and keep my dated processor.

Speaker wise, I would have to keep the cabinets small as my lounge isn’t at all large and I have a partner who detests clutter (common place?). I’ve considered speakers along the lines of the MA RS1 and MA Radius for the rears. I would also require a subwoofer which I could connect to my amp for both music and movies (REL Quake?)

Any suggestions?!

kidloco · 13 Mar 2007 at 21:41

I have the same processor as you and the Roksan Kandy MkIII amp and its a great combo.

Im also using the same rear speakers as you

Iv just got rid of my front 3 speakers and bought Monitor Audio GS10 for the front (£800) and an RS Centre (£250) they should be with me by thursday.

I really reccomend you give the GS10 & Kandy combo a listen, its so addictive, the level of punch and detail is so toe tapping.

If you want a bit mor eslam give the RS8's a try, I loved em but just didnt have the room to let them breathe, the bass would get a bit wild sometimes. or stick with book shelf speakers and pick up a sub, some very good ones around the £250 - £300 range at the moment.

Reality Bites · 13 Mar 2007 at 21:45

i've just read your other threads (on avforums too

)

I do like the look of the GS10's....so will definately try and find them.

I guess i could leave the sub out of the equation for now and go for better bookshelfs. Due to the very small room, i dare not go for bigger floor standers.

I've not got any rears at the moment, but considered the Radius rears due to the size.

I guess my worry was the use of 'AV' kit for music, even though the arcam kit is highly respected for use with both.

kidloco · 14 Mar 2007 at 12:28

if you have a small room then as you say floorstanders are a no no.

I have yet to hear a really decent sounding AV amp when in stereo, sure the very expensive ones are not bad, but I bet if you listend to the £1000 arcam next to the £650 Roksan in stereo mode the Roksan would win buy a fair old way.

Depends what is more important to you, music or movies, I roughly listen to music 75% and movies 25% so I went down the Hi-Fi amp and AV processor route, you may be differant. If movies are your thing then the Arcam is a great comprimise.

My best advice would to just trawl the forums, and read the mags and get a decent shortlist together, then most importantly demo everything.

Oh, I did have a listen to the radius rears as they look so nice, was going to get the centre and the rears, but becuase of their size they really need a sub to back them up, even rears and especally centre are full range speakers, using these funky little lifestyle speakers without a sub makes them sound just what they are, very nice tweeters

in the end I am keeping my mission rears for now and getting the Monitor Audio RS centre, the GS centre was just to big and and too much cash. you have to keep a system balanced, no point putting a £500 centre speaker running off a £350 processor.

Other good New amps i would add to your list are the Naim Nait 5i & the Cyrus 6vs. both really nice amps. and if you like the cyrus amp the matching cd player is great also.

Oh, dont forget to save a few pennies for decent stands and cables