Soldato
So, you want a new Hi-Fi?
There has been a spate of threads on here of late asking for help with setups both as AV systems become more mainstream and affordable and people make the move back to stereo from AV once the hype has passed them, as well as those who want to upgrade their kit but are a bit confused as to where to go.
I don’t promise all of the answers but I hope this thread helps a few people! Don’t forget that there is nothing like going to the shops to actually listen to this stuff! Don’t be afraid to go in and ask for what you want!
Amplification
There are really two ways to go here: Stereo amps and A/V amps. It is possible to mix and match between these setups too. I will come to that later.
Stereo Integrated amps
These are amplifiers where the preamplifier and the power amplifier are built into the unit. This is what most people think of when they think of stereo amplification.
Budget Stereo amplification: £80 - £200
In this price range it is easy to get carried away by some of the lesser brand’s obscene claims, designed to baffle the newbie into buying their products regardless of every other factor.
Cambridge Audio A1 v3 - £80
A very basic amplifier but at £80, you really cannot go wrong. Paired with a small and easy to drive pair of standmounts, this makes a perfectly acceptable entry to the world of separates. Lack of a tone defeat option (to totally remove any circuits other than amplification in the signal path) is one thing that is missing but at this price, you cant have everything.
30wpc into 8 ohms isn’t going to set the world rocking but with the right speakers hooked up, it’s more than adequate. It doesn’t have the punchiest delivery ever because it just lacks the current to do that but for more gentle music its pretty much spot on.
Cambridge Audio A5 - £120
The next real point up from the A1. Having owned both the A1 and the A5 I can type this out knowing full well the differences between the two. They are quite a stark contrast to each other and it is all down to the power inside the box. Twice as powerful as the A1 it will let you power significantly more demanding speakers at greater volumes before it all starts to get messy. The difference between the two is the bass delivery. The extra current allows it to control the speakers better and so you get a more precise sound. Treble and midrange are slightly improved but this is predominantly down to the inclusion of a tone defeat button. I strongly recommend that you use this feature – even the tone control circuitry in more expensive amps is still rubbish. Turn it off and leave it off!
Audiolab 8000A - ~£150
Only available second hand at the moment though you will be able to get them (at significantly higher cost) through the better hifi shops very soon indeed. Production of the new units is in China and the quality isn’t expected to be as high as the original series. Not the best looking amp ever, but it isn’t about the looks. Stereo imaging is spot on. Accurate (but to some ears clinical) this amp is one you really ought to demo before you buy – hard to do if you are getting second hand really so find a friendly seller or buy one and be prepared to sell on immediately if you don’t like it. You are almost certain not to lose money on it providing you pay a fair price for it in the first place and you shouldn’t have too much trouble shifting it.
Despite it looking like it has next to no power it packs a hefty punch according to those who really rate these amplifiers (apparently used as reference amps by a few magazines and raved about by our very own Matblack) and is an excellent all rounder. One to think hard about. Buying one of these second hand carries next to no risk as there are so few moving parts inside and most will have been owned by careful, loving audiophile owners.
Arcam Alpha series amps ~£100 – £200
Generally regarded by all as being outstanding amplifiers each series commands a higher price but you should be able to pick up an Alpha 8 in good nick for the top end of the budget without too much trouble.
NAD C320BEE - £180
NAD are a personal favourite of mine and this amp is no exception. It is typically NAD – warm with bags of current but a faithful treble reproduction that doesn’t overpower the sound like the cheaper Rotel amps do, for instance. Seemingly capable of driving speakers that it should be able to drive it might be the one if you are moving from a ridiculously powerful yet rubbish A/V amp to stereo and have kept your floorstanders behind. 50wpc might not do them justice but if you are on this kind of budget and don’t want to buy second hand it will certainly step up to the mark well.
Mid range stereo amplification - £200 - £700
Picking in this price range is hard. Everything has its own style and its what you prefer rather than what someone else tells you that is the important bit. Demonstration time is all important here. Check the bottom of this post, I may well add in a section on demonstrations!
It is time to break away from even contemplating shopping with companies like Richer Sounds. They just don’t offer the range or the service that someone at this point really needs. If we are honest about it, most of the staff don’t really know much about the hifi above the stuff they sell and its only going to get worse as they focus on vision rather than sound.
Superfi are a bit limited too, with some stores being better than others. Do some reading before you go into big chains like this and it will really help you to pick out the most knowledgeable chap in the shop rather than listening to a hail of BS from an incompetent!
Better still, get yourself along to a specialist dealer. Their range should start in this price range though they will sell kit that is ten times your budget. Try not to get put off or distracted by this and concentrate on what you went in for and you will be fine
Back to the kit in question…
Rotel RA01 - £250
Depending on the music you listen to you will either love this amp or hate it. Either way, it is crystal clear in the mid range and some very precise treble. Not enough grunt to really hit those low transients, especially when you look at the price tag. This lack of lower frequency accuracy off-balances the sound leaving a horrendous trebly mess (in my personal opinion) depending on how bright the speakers are of course. Not suited at all for rock music or rap music. I had the displeasure of listening to a Lloyd Banks track through this amp and regardless of the speakers that I had hooked up to it, the treble dominated the track and made it unlistenable. It was the same story with Bloc Party and several other CDs I used to test it. For more mellow classical work though, I can see this amp suiting well when coupled with some warmer speakers.
Arcam A65 Plus - £370
Not personally heard this exact amp but the power amp of the same series that I demed a while back wasn’t the kind of amp you would want to pair up to a Metallica CD IMO but was significantly less highly strung than the Rotel. If it follows suit it should be a cracker for softer music but again it is all personal preference so you are going to have to demo it!
NAD C372 - £450
Typical NAD sound – Absolutely masses of grunt while never losing composure when driven hard with the right speakers and always spot on treble and mid range, especially vocals. I have heard this model driving some B&W Nautilus 804 speakers – notoriously hard to drive. It was struggling at the very top end of its abilities but by that point it was way past comfortable listening levels anyway. Definitely a contender if you listen to rock or bass-oriented music. Very hard to beat for the price.
Cyrus 6VS - £650
As ever with Cyrus, an absolutely tiny amp! Typically though, the Cyrus approach to binding posts (there aren’t any) may frustrate those who are dead-set against banana plugs - tough! Very good for such a teeny thing especially considering its 40wpc but it gives enough to fill normal sized listening spaces with reasonable speakers. More suited to classical than anything else but as ever a matter of personal preference. I had an old Cyrus amp in my living room for a short while and I really did like the sound. Cyrus customer service is reputed to be quite good too – they will upgrade this amp to the 8 spec for you apparently (not free though, obviously
) – just a matter of posting it to them.
Musical Fidelity A3 - ~£350
If you can get hold of one of these (only available s/h now I would assume) it should be seriously considered. Very clean sound, extremely well balanced and being dual mono, the stereo image is absolutely excellent. Should suit you down to the ground if you are using it for rock but it is really designed with the classical side of things in mind and that is where it excels. In my opinion probably the best amplifier I have heard to date this side of stupid money.
Meridian 551 - ~£300-£350
Reportedly excellent amplifier, not sure what else you could really expect from Meridian really. I don’t have the experience with Meridian kit to comment but Im sure there are others here that will chip in with their experiences of this amp. For £300 though, you cannot really go wrong! Second hand only and they do look rather dated but its not about what it looks like it is all about what is inside!
There isn’t any point in me going any further up the price range because I simply don’t know enough about the kit up there to be able to do it justice. It also becomes far more personal preference than anything else I think. Look into that stuff yourself, you really don’t need a guide like this if you are spending over £650 on an amp!
A/V Amplification
Home cinema has really hit the masses. People want the cinema in their front room and A/V amps are the way to go about getting this. There are risks associated with this and a few pitfalls to avoid.
My own personal journey through hifi took me from basic stereo amplification to A/V amplification and then eventually back to stereo. If you predominantly listen to music and want to get an A/V amp because you watch the odd film it would do both your music and your wallet justice to just leave A/V completely alone and just upgrade your stereo system somewhere.
If you really want films to immerse you AND you want good stereo there really isn’t any way to avoid buying both a good A/V amp and a good stereo amp. They come close but not close enough to discard stereo completely.
A/V amplification starts off just as cheap as stereo amplification but its absolutely not worth the money at that end of the market. It might seem elitist or daft or whatever but if you are going to spend less than about £200 on a new A/V amp you might as well just not bother. They are that bad at the cheap end and it makes sense that they are that bad too. For this reason, I am not going to bother looking at these cheap amps and start off with something a bit more upmarket.
Pioneer VSXC502 - £250
Budget A/V amp but a reasonable performer. Has all the right decoders and has 3 digital inputs which is enough to connect your DVD player, console and Sky+ box to it. 100w RMS into 8 ohms per channel – take this with a pinch of salt, it might claim 100w RMS but I doubt in practice it will develop more than half that. I doubt the power supply inside could cope with this.
Filmwise it isn’t refined enough to handle something like The Usual Suspects or some of the musical scenes in Hannibal and nor does it have the punch to handle the exploding scene in Swordfish but somewhere in the middle it seems to be reasonably happy. If you are doing home cinema on a budget – stretch it a bit more and get something better!
Denon AVR-1906 - £300
At this price range and in my personal opinion there isn’t a more musical A/V amp out there. The equivalent Yamaha is £100 and still isn’t as good for music. This comes across in films too. For open passages of music in films where you really don’t want the typical A/V amp attack it is mellow but it still has the drive to really give explosive scenes some action. Not as good as the Yamaha for the latter part of that but then in my experience there is more music in films than there is explosions so it might be a case of where your priorities lie.
85wpc x 7 (RMS into 8 ohm)
Yamaha DSPAX757SE - £400
Very capable amplifier and a favourite of many at this price. Not my favourite amp as it is priced between the two Denons and offering neither enough extra over the 1906 to warrant the money or present enough of a saving to buy it over the now departing but excellent Denon AVR-2805. Still, in its own right it has issues reproducing music but in every other aspect it is great for the money
Denon AVR-2805 - £600
When it was not long out I bought this amplifier after a ludicrous amount of time testing every single A/V amp this side of £1000 that I could. Value for money wise, this had it all. It held its own against amps costing double and had features that cheaper alternatives just could not hope to offer. The ludicrous connectivity offered meant you could quite literally struggle to fill even half of the inputs. EIGHT digital inputs as well as a host more analogue connections meant it was unlikely you would ever find something that you couldn’t connect. Composite, S-Video and Component all catered for make for an impressive looking rear panel but the quality is there inside to back it all up. It doesn’t suffer from all of this technology crammed inside it either – It is still the best A/V amp this side of £1000 I have heard either for music or films.
There are others and they fit somewhere around each of the models listed here. Yamaha have that aggressive sound but lack musicality and deftness for quieter passages. Denon have the musicality but some people feel they lack drive and aggression through more active scenes. For vocal clarity, Marantz may have it in the bag but I felt let down by the rest of the package from each of the amps I have heard by them.
Speakers
Perhaps the hardest thing to try and advise people on are speakers. What people actually hear from a loudspeaker seems to vary so wildly from person to person that it makes it almost impossible to write about. Im going to attempt a rough guide.
IT IS PARAMOUNT that you pair your speakers with your amp as best you can. This means taking your amp to the shop or making sure they have one in stock that is identical. The load a speaker presents to an amplifier changes how the amplifier outputs. I cant stress this enough - speakers sound so different on different amps!
Standmount speakers suit small rooms best. Low cabinet volume hampers bass response and they are quite often less sensitive than floorstanding equivalents. They generally tend not to give a full sound in a large room and instead sound “lost”.
Good standmount speakers need good stands. You have to place them somewhere and that somewhere must be at eye level of a seated listener. Good stands can make or break a pair of bookshelves. If you really must put them on a desk though, put blue tack underneath the corners. This will help to stop them vibrating about and sounding awful.
Budget Standmounts - £60 - £150
Gale Silver Monitor - £60
If you need speakers on an exceptionally limited budget these are probably the speakers for you. They aren’t going to be the best sounding loudspeaker but if you are just making the move from a midi system you should notice the improvement.
Mission M71 - £100
Beautiful sound for the money and even if price is disregarded they are still nice speakers. Couple well with Cambridge Audio and Denon amps in particular they are a very good pair of speakers to start your voyage into hifi!
Mourdant Short 902 - £150 (£120 in black)
Never heard a pair in my life but a few people have mentioned them when discussing budget standmounts.[EDIT: Actually, I have but it was aaages ago, I just didnt remember!] Here is what Hifichoice.co.uk have to say
Apparrently, these work well when coupled with the Mourdant Short 308 sub. Subs arent the best solution to bass problems but if its the only way, go for it
Mid range standmounts £150 - £400
I use the term mid range loosely here – I know that speakers go up to ludicrous money and that in comparison, £400 is still relatively “budget” but for the purposes of the scope of this thread, it shall be considered mid range! I have decided not to write about each of these speakers – the differences in personal taste are too great for me to colour your judgement. I have picked out some speakers I think it might be worth going and hearing side by side though.
B&W DM600 S3 - £200
KEF iQ1 - £230
Mission V61 - ~£200 (I think?!)
KEF iQ3 - £280
B&W DM602 S3 - £300
Dynaudio Audience 42 - £400
Floorstanding Speakers
Floorstanding speakers generally need a larger room in order for them to sound comfortable
Typically, floorstanders give a much more accurate reproduction of the source and are also usually more efficient, meaning they are louder for the same power.
I would go and have a listen to:
Mission V62 - £200
KEF iQ5 - £400
B&W DM602.5 S3 - £400
KEF iQ7 - £600
B&W DM603 - £600
B&W DM604 - £800
KEF iQ9 - £800
Dynaudio Audience 72 - £1100
B&W 704 - £1400
What to do when you get to the shop
A lot of people are scared of going to the shop for a demo. They don’t know what to ask, what shops will or wont do and how to act in there.
The first thing to remember is that they are there to help you. They will have heard it all before from lots of people before you. If it is a shop of good repute they will also know what you are likely to like just from what you say to them.
Shops usually would be grateful of some notice – if you know you are going to be free one day in a couple of weeks, pop in and ask if it would be alright for you to come in and have a chat about what you want and if it would be possible for you to hear that kit when you came in. If you plan on bringing down some of your own kit tell them in advance and they will be expecting you and are likely to be able to offer you some help if you need it.
The single most important thing to remember to do is to take as many CDs as you think you need to take in order to get a good feel for how it is going to sound with your collection. One CD isn’t going to cut it but taking 100CDs with you is a bit silly. Try and cut it down to perhaps 2 or 3 CDs from every genre you like. This is to let you hear different things from the same genre if you think it isn’t going to represent your collection well from one CD.
Do ask them questions – ask them if they think it suits the music well and if they could show you something else in budget that may do it better.
Only change one thing at a time – say you had three pairs of speakers and three amps to demo – get a feel for the speakers first and then change the amps. Knowing the characteristics of each amp and pair of speakers before you get there will help with this.
There has been a spate of threads on here of late asking for help with setups both as AV systems become more mainstream and affordable and people make the move back to stereo from AV once the hype has passed them, as well as those who want to upgrade their kit but are a bit confused as to where to go.
I don’t promise all of the answers but I hope this thread helps a few people! Don’t forget that there is nothing like going to the shops to actually listen to this stuff! Don’t be afraid to go in and ask for what you want!
Amplification
There are really two ways to go here: Stereo amps and A/V amps. It is possible to mix and match between these setups too. I will come to that later.
Stereo Integrated amps
These are amplifiers where the preamplifier and the power amplifier are built into the unit. This is what most people think of when they think of stereo amplification.
Budget Stereo amplification: £80 - £200
In this price range it is easy to get carried away by some of the lesser brand’s obscene claims, designed to baffle the newbie into buying their products regardless of every other factor.
Cambridge Audio A1 v3 - £80
A very basic amplifier but at £80, you really cannot go wrong. Paired with a small and easy to drive pair of standmounts, this makes a perfectly acceptable entry to the world of separates. Lack of a tone defeat option (to totally remove any circuits other than amplification in the signal path) is one thing that is missing but at this price, you cant have everything.
30wpc into 8 ohms isn’t going to set the world rocking but with the right speakers hooked up, it’s more than adequate. It doesn’t have the punchiest delivery ever because it just lacks the current to do that but for more gentle music its pretty much spot on.
Cambridge Audio A5 - £120
The next real point up from the A1. Having owned both the A1 and the A5 I can type this out knowing full well the differences between the two. They are quite a stark contrast to each other and it is all down to the power inside the box. Twice as powerful as the A1 it will let you power significantly more demanding speakers at greater volumes before it all starts to get messy. The difference between the two is the bass delivery. The extra current allows it to control the speakers better and so you get a more precise sound. Treble and midrange are slightly improved but this is predominantly down to the inclusion of a tone defeat button. I strongly recommend that you use this feature – even the tone control circuitry in more expensive amps is still rubbish. Turn it off and leave it off!
Audiolab 8000A - ~£150
Only available second hand at the moment though you will be able to get them (at significantly higher cost) through the better hifi shops very soon indeed. Production of the new units is in China and the quality isn’t expected to be as high as the original series. Not the best looking amp ever, but it isn’t about the looks. Stereo imaging is spot on. Accurate (but to some ears clinical) this amp is one you really ought to demo before you buy – hard to do if you are getting second hand really so find a friendly seller or buy one and be prepared to sell on immediately if you don’t like it. You are almost certain not to lose money on it providing you pay a fair price for it in the first place and you shouldn’t have too much trouble shifting it.
Despite it looking like it has next to no power it packs a hefty punch according to those who really rate these amplifiers (apparently used as reference amps by a few magazines and raved about by our very own Matblack) and is an excellent all rounder. One to think hard about. Buying one of these second hand carries next to no risk as there are so few moving parts inside and most will have been owned by careful, loving audiophile owners.
Arcam Alpha series amps ~£100 – £200
Generally regarded by all as being outstanding amplifiers each series commands a higher price but you should be able to pick up an Alpha 8 in good nick for the top end of the budget without too much trouble.
NAD C320BEE - £180
NAD are a personal favourite of mine and this amp is no exception. It is typically NAD – warm with bags of current but a faithful treble reproduction that doesn’t overpower the sound like the cheaper Rotel amps do, for instance. Seemingly capable of driving speakers that it should be able to drive it might be the one if you are moving from a ridiculously powerful yet rubbish A/V amp to stereo and have kept your floorstanders behind. 50wpc might not do them justice but if you are on this kind of budget and don’t want to buy second hand it will certainly step up to the mark well.
Mid range stereo amplification - £200 - £700
Picking in this price range is hard. Everything has its own style and its what you prefer rather than what someone else tells you that is the important bit. Demonstration time is all important here. Check the bottom of this post, I may well add in a section on demonstrations!
It is time to break away from even contemplating shopping with companies like Richer Sounds. They just don’t offer the range or the service that someone at this point really needs. If we are honest about it, most of the staff don’t really know much about the hifi above the stuff they sell and its only going to get worse as they focus on vision rather than sound.
Superfi are a bit limited too, with some stores being better than others. Do some reading before you go into big chains like this and it will really help you to pick out the most knowledgeable chap in the shop rather than listening to a hail of BS from an incompetent!
Better still, get yourself along to a specialist dealer. Their range should start in this price range though they will sell kit that is ten times your budget. Try not to get put off or distracted by this and concentrate on what you went in for and you will be fine
Back to the kit in question…
Rotel RA01 - £250
Depending on the music you listen to you will either love this amp or hate it. Either way, it is crystal clear in the mid range and some very precise treble. Not enough grunt to really hit those low transients, especially when you look at the price tag. This lack of lower frequency accuracy off-balances the sound leaving a horrendous trebly mess (in my personal opinion) depending on how bright the speakers are of course. Not suited at all for rock music or rap music. I had the displeasure of listening to a Lloyd Banks track through this amp and regardless of the speakers that I had hooked up to it, the treble dominated the track and made it unlistenable. It was the same story with Bloc Party and several other CDs I used to test it. For more mellow classical work though, I can see this amp suiting well when coupled with some warmer speakers.
Arcam A65 Plus - £370
Not personally heard this exact amp but the power amp of the same series that I demed a while back wasn’t the kind of amp you would want to pair up to a Metallica CD IMO but was significantly less highly strung than the Rotel. If it follows suit it should be a cracker for softer music but again it is all personal preference so you are going to have to demo it!
NAD C372 - £450
Typical NAD sound – Absolutely masses of grunt while never losing composure when driven hard with the right speakers and always spot on treble and mid range, especially vocals. I have heard this model driving some B&W Nautilus 804 speakers – notoriously hard to drive. It was struggling at the very top end of its abilities but by that point it was way past comfortable listening levels anyway. Definitely a contender if you listen to rock or bass-oriented music. Very hard to beat for the price.
Cyrus 6VS - £650
As ever with Cyrus, an absolutely tiny amp! Typically though, the Cyrus approach to binding posts (there aren’t any) may frustrate those who are dead-set against banana plugs - tough! Very good for such a teeny thing especially considering its 40wpc but it gives enough to fill normal sized listening spaces with reasonable speakers. More suited to classical than anything else but as ever a matter of personal preference. I had an old Cyrus amp in my living room for a short while and I really did like the sound. Cyrus customer service is reputed to be quite good too – they will upgrade this amp to the 8 spec for you apparently (not free though, obviously
) – just a matter of posting it to them.Musical Fidelity A3 - ~£350
If you can get hold of one of these (only available s/h now I would assume) it should be seriously considered. Very clean sound, extremely well balanced and being dual mono, the stereo image is absolutely excellent. Should suit you down to the ground if you are using it for rock but it is really designed with the classical side of things in mind and that is where it excels. In my opinion probably the best amplifier I have heard to date this side of stupid money.
Meridian 551 - ~£300-£350
Reportedly excellent amplifier, not sure what else you could really expect from Meridian really. I don’t have the experience with Meridian kit to comment but Im sure there are others here that will chip in with their experiences of this amp. For £300 though, you cannot really go wrong! Second hand only and they do look rather dated but its not about what it looks like it is all about what is inside!
There isn’t any point in me going any further up the price range because I simply don’t know enough about the kit up there to be able to do it justice. It also becomes far more personal preference than anything else I think. Look into that stuff yourself, you really don’t need a guide like this if you are spending over £650 on an amp!
A/V Amplification
Home cinema has really hit the masses. People want the cinema in their front room and A/V amps are the way to go about getting this. There are risks associated with this and a few pitfalls to avoid.
My own personal journey through hifi took me from basic stereo amplification to A/V amplification and then eventually back to stereo. If you predominantly listen to music and want to get an A/V amp because you watch the odd film it would do both your music and your wallet justice to just leave A/V completely alone and just upgrade your stereo system somewhere.
If you really want films to immerse you AND you want good stereo there really isn’t any way to avoid buying both a good A/V amp and a good stereo amp. They come close but not close enough to discard stereo completely.
A/V amplification starts off just as cheap as stereo amplification but its absolutely not worth the money at that end of the market. It might seem elitist or daft or whatever but if you are going to spend less than about £200 on a new A/V amp you might as well just not bother. They are that bad at the cheap end and it makes sense that they are that bad too. For this reason, I am not going to bother looking at these cheap amps and start off with something a bit more upmarket.
Pioneer VSXC502 - £250
Budget A/V amp but a reasonable performer. Has all the right decoders and has 3 digital inputs which is enough to connect your DVD player, console and Sky+ box to it. 100w RMS into 8 ohms per channel – take this with a pinch of salt, it might claim 100w RMS but I doubt in practice it will develop more than half that. I doubt the power supply inside could cope with this.
Filmwise it isn’t refined enough to handle something like The Usual Suspects or some of the musical scenes in Hannibal and nor does it have the punch to handle the exploding scene in Swordfish but somewhere in the middle it seems to be reasonably happy. If you are doing home cinema on a budget – stretch it a bit more and get something better!
Denon AVR-1906 - £300
At this price range and in my personal opinion there isn’t a more musical A/V amp out there. The equivalent Yamaha is £100 and still isn’t as good for music. This comes across in films too. For open passages of music in films where you really don’t want the typical A/V amp attack it is mellow but it still has the drive to really give explosive scenes some action. Not as good as the Yamaha for the latter part of that but then in my experience there is more music in films than there is explosions so it might be a case of where your priorities lie.
85wpc x 7 (RMS into 8 ohm)
Yamaha DSPAX757SE - £400
Very capable amplifier and a favourite of many at this price. Not my favourite amp as it is priced between the two Denons and offering neither enough extra over the 1906 to warrant the money or present enough of a saving to buy it over the now departing but excellent Denon AVR-2805. Still, in its own right it has issues reproducing music but in every other aspect it is great for the money
Denon AVR-2805 - £600
When it was not long out I bought this amplifier after a ludicrous amount of time testing every single A/V amp this side of £1000 that I could. Value for money wise, this had it all. It held its own against amps costing double and had features that cheaper alternatives just could not hope to offer. The ludicrous connectivity offered meant you could quite literally struggle to fill even half of the inputs. EIGHT digital inputs as well as a host more analogue connections meant it was unlikely you would ever find something that you couldn’t connect. Composite, S-Video and Component all catered for make for an impressive looking rear panel but the quality is there inside to back it all up. It doesn’t suffer from all of this technology crammed inside it either – It is still the best A/V amp this side of £1000 I have heard either for music or films.
There are others and they fit somewhere around each of the models listed here. Yamaha have that aggressive sound but lack musicality and deftness for quieter passages. Denon have the musicality but some people feel they lack drive and aggression through more active scenes. For vocal clarity, Marantz may have it in the bag but I felt let down by the rest of the package from each of the amps I have heard by them.
Speakers
Perhaps the hardest thing to try and advise people on are speakers. What people actually hear from a loudspeaker seems to vary so wildly from person to person that it makes it almost impossible to write about. Im going to attempt a rough guide.
IT IS PARAMOUNT that you pair your speakers with your amp as best you can. This means taking your amp to the shop or making sure they have one in stock that is identical. The load a speaker presents to an amplifier changes how the amplifier outputs. I cant stress this enough - speakers sound so different on different amps!
Standmount speakers suit small rooms best. Low cabinet volume hampers bass response and they are quite often less sensitive than floorstanding equivalents. They generally tend not to give a full sound in a large room and instead sound “lost”.
Good standmount speakers need good stands. You have to place them somewhere and that somewhere must be at eye level of a seated listener. Good stands can make or break a pair of bookshelves. If you really must put them on a desk though, put blue tack underneath the corners. This will help to stop them vibrating about and sounding awful.
Budget Standmounts - £60 - £150
Gale Silver Monitor - £60
If you need speakers on an exceptionally limited budget these are probably the speakers for you. They aren’t going to be the best sounding loudspeaker but if you are just making the move from a midi system you should notice the improvement.
Mission M71 - £100
Beautiful sound for the money and even if price is disregarded they are still nice speakers. Couple well with Cambridge Audio and Denon amps in particular they are a very good pair of speakers to start your voyage into hifi!
Mourdant Short 902 - £150 (£120 in black)
Never heard a pair in my life but a few people have mentioned them when discussing budget standmounts.[EDIT: Actually, I have but it was aaages ago, I just didnt remember!] Here is what Hifichoice.co.uk have to say
Apparrently, these work well when coupled with the Mourdant Short 308 sub. Subs arent the best solution to bass problems but if its the only way, go for it
Mid range standmounts £150 - £400
I use the term mid range loosely here – I know that speakers go up to ludicrous money and that in comparison, £400 is still relatively “budget” but for the purposes of the scope of this thread, it shall be considered mid range! I have decided not to write about each of these speakers – the differences in personal taste are too great for me to colour your judgement. I have picked out some speakers I think it might be worth going and hearing side by side though.
B&W DM600 S3 - £200
KEF iQ1 - £230
Mission V61 - ~£200 (I think?!)
KEF iQ3 - £280
B&W DM602 S3 - £300
Dynaudio Audience 42 - £400
Floorstanding Speakers
Floorstanding speakers generally need a larger room in order for them to sound comfortable
Typically, floorstanders give a much more accurate reproduction of the source and are also usually more efficient, meaning they are louder for the same power.
I would go and have a listen to:
Mission V62 - £200
KEF iQ5 - £400
B&W DM602.5 S3 - £400
KEF iQ7 - £600
B&W DM603 - £600
B&W DM604 - £800
KEF iQ9 - £800
Dynaudio Audience 72 - £1100
B&W 704 - £1400
What to do when you get to the shop
A lot of people are scared of going to the shop for a demo. They don’t know what to ask, what shops will or wont do and how to act in there.
The first thing to remember is that they are there to help you. They will have heard it all before from lots of people before you. If it is a shop of good repute they will also know what you are likely to like just from what you say to them.
Shops usually would be grateful of some notice – if you know you are going to be free one day in a couple of weeks, pop in and ask if it would be alright for you to come in and have a chat about what you want and if it would be possible for you to hear that kit when you came in. If you plan on bringing down some of your own kit tell them in advance and they will be expecting you and are likely to be able to offer you some help if you need it.
The single most important thing to remember to do is to take as many CDs as you think you need to take in order to get a good feel for how it is going to sound with your collection. One CD isn’t going to cut it but taking 100CDs with you is a bit silly. Try and cut it down to perhaps 2 or 3 CDs from every genre you like. This is to let you hear different things from the same genre if you think it isn’t going to represent your collection well from one CD.
Do ask them questions – ask them if they think it suits the music well and if they could show you something else in budget that may do it better.
Only change one thing at a time – say you had three pairs of speakers and three amps to demo – get a feel for the speakers first and then change the amps. Knowing the characteristics of each amp and pair of speakers before you get there will help with this.
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