Hi all, recently my amp started messing up and I decided it's about time to upgrade. So this is what I currently have:
GA-Z97X-Gaming GT motherboard w/ SoundBlaster onboard audio
Warfedale Delta 30.2 speakers
Cambridge Audio Topaz AM1 with a fuzzy channel
some FLAC and high bit rate music files
some big ol' vintage floorstanding speakers for parties (Warfedale Glendale 3XPs and Bose 901s) but don't really fit in my living room with the kids and all.
Option A
Corsair Gaming Audio Series SP2500
cost £189 or maybe a little less...
Option B
Yamaha A-S501 amp
Yamaha YST-FSW100 subwoofer
cost £289
Option C
something completely different...
option A is the cheapest, simplest and is probably just as good as my current system if not better which I though was pretty good until the amp started to mess up and I took it to bits and realised quite how budget it looks inside. Then I found out it only even does 20w per channel so it was probably never even properly powering my modest bookshelf speakers anyway. However it means putting my Warfedales in storage indefinitely, lacks upgrade option and would probably be scoffed at by audiophiles.
option B the amp seems to be going cheap at £199 at the moment, it's fairly high powered and versitile. It has a pure direct mode, DAC input which can handle the 24bit 192 that my PC can output on an optical cable which seems pretty cool. That subwoofer is designed to work with the amp, the remote works on both at the same time and plugs in with just one cable. So I can set my PC to output 2.1 on the optical spdif and that should go perfectly to the speakers without any conversion fudging or pass-through settings to go wrong. It's also more scaleable, I could buy some nice Warfedale Diamond 220s later if I wanted to upgrade. But is it worth the £100 extra or is it all smoke and mirrors?
Or option C, I've certainly wish I'd asked the forum before, like the time I bought that FX6300 CPU...
I really just want it for gaming most of the time, it doesn't need to be too loud. But I do appreciate being able to listen to music with high fidelity occasionally too. Also it's really just for me, the PC user, I don't need to fill the room although I wanted the subwoofer to give a bit more depth to gaming.
Thanks for any advice!
GA-Z97X-Gaming GT motherboard w/ SoundBlaster onboard audio
Warfedale Delta 30.2 speakers
Cambridge Audio Topaz AM1 with a fuzzy channel
some FLAC and high bit rate music files
some big ol' vintage floorstanding speakers for parties (Warfedale Glendale 3XPs and Bose 901s) but don't really fit in my living room with the kids and all.
Option A
Corsair Gaming Audio Series SP2500
cost £189 or maybe a little less...
Option B
Yamaha A-S501 amp
Yamaha YST-FSW100 subwoofer
cost £289
Option C
something completely different...
option A is the cheapest, simplest and is probably just as good as my current system if not better which I though was pretty good until the amp started to mess up and I took it to bits and realised quite how budget it looks inside. Then I found out it only even does 20w per channel so it was probably never even properly powering my modest bookshelf speakers anyway. However it means putting my Warfedales in storage indefinitely, lacks upgrade option and would probably be scoffed at by audiophiles.
option B the amp seems to be going cheap at £199 at the moment, it's fairly high powered and versitile. It has a pure direct mode, DAC input which can handle the 24bit 192 that my PC can output on an optical cable which seems pretty cool. That subwoofer is designed to work with the amp, the remote works on both at the same time and plugs in with just one cable. So I can set my PC to output 2.1 on the optical spdif and that should go perfectly to the speakers without any conversion fudging or pass-through settings to go wrong. It's also more scaleable, I could buy some nice Warfedale Diamond 220s later if I wanted to upgrade. But is it worth the £100 extra or is it all smoke and mirrors?
Or option C, I've certainly wish I'd asked the forum before, like the time I bought that FX6300 CPU...
I really just want it for gaming most of the time, it doesn't need to be too loud. But I do appreciate being able to listen to music with high fidelity occasionally too. Also it's really just for me, the PC user, I don't need to fill the room although I wanted the subwoofer to give a bit more depth to gaming.
Thanks for any advice!
