worth getting seperates?

marc2003

marc2003

marc2003

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i want to ditch my midi hifi system in favour of getting a seperates amp and some speakers. i'm not looking for component advice just yet but my question is this - is it worth it because i have no interest in buying a cd player whatsoever. i intend to play all music from my pc in mp3 format (mostly a minimum of 200vbr). i intend to spend 300-400 notes on the speakers and amp. or am i wasting my time/money as i will be using compressed formats? guess i'll need a new soundcard as i'm still using a sb 4.1 card from years ago..... :p

btw only interested in stereo for music, not surround or anything like that for movies. :)
 
The system will still sound much better than what you're used to, it's just you won't be using it to it's full potential. :)
 
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It is absolutely worth it - MP3s or not.

Im sure everyone here is aware of my views on compression so I wont go into that...

You may find it tricky to adjust to real hifi at first - the ear is easily tricked into a perceptive quality rather than actual quality so to many people, hifi seems a bit tiring to listen to. After you have "adjusted" to how things are supposed to sound you will wonder how anyone can listen to music on a midi system and think it is good :)

Forr £400 I would research the s/h market a bit - in your shoes I would be doing roughly what peteruk did (bar his amp choice :eek:) so have a search for his posts here to get some idea of the spending power your money has. There is also a sticky at the top of the forum you can have a look at too :)
 
thanks for the replies people. i'm definitely going to go for it within a month or 2. i really only have a couple of hundred to play with each paypacket so will have to spread it out over the next few months. one slight snag, i really want to ditch my old crt in favour of a tft this month, so it looks like the sound system won't be complete until july... :p

thinking of getting the nad c320bee as the amp but have no ideas on the speakers just yet. :)
 
marc2003 said:
thinking of getting the nad c320bee as the amp but have no ideas on the speakers just yet. :)
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I'm forever preaching about my arcam amp, but i couldn't recommend it enough. Electrically identical to the alpha 9 and usually goes on the bay for half the price.

tom's recomendation of a DAC is a good idea, that's if you have a soundcard with a coaxial digital or optical output. SOmething like the arcam black box would make your mp3's sound soo much better, or a lot worse is they are low bitrate. What quality are most of your tunes at, and what do you use to record them onto your pc with. With me, anything below 192kbps is unlistenable with my current setup, but i ahve the new tool album encoded @ 256kbps lame mp3 and it sounds great.

ad
 
adfinni said:
I'm forever preaching about my arcam amp, but i couldn't recommend it enough. Electrically identical to the alpha 9 and usually goes on the bay for half the price.

tom's recomendation of a DAC is a good idea, that's if you have a soundcard with a coaxial digital or optical output. SOmething like the arcam black box would make your mp3's sound soo much better, or a lot worse is they are low bitrate. What quality are most of your tunes at, and what do you use to record them onto your pc with. With me, anything below 192kbps is unlistenable with my current setup, but i ahve the new tool album encoded @ 256kbps lame mp3 and it sounds great.

ad
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I would invite you to take my MP3 bit rate test in Sound City and draw the same conclusion about 192kbps mp3s vs 256k :)
 
i ripped all my cds using eac/lame using alt preset extreme. so they're all well over 200kbps vbr. i vey much doubt i could tell the difference between those and something encoded lower though..... :o
 
DRZ said:
I would invite you to take my MP3 bit rate test in Sound City and draw the same conclusion about 192kbps mp3s vs 256k :)
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O god ye, i was going to do that but totally forgot. Properly recorded 192 tracks sound quite good, but any track at 128 sounds poor to me, especially through the. Il try and remember to do it after exams.

FLAC for the win :D
 
You could just buy a pre-amp and a power amp and use some sort of wireless bridge simular to Apple Airport, or a direct 3.5mm photo in to the pre amp and you're good to go :)

As for bit rates.. don't get me started!!

192 AAC for normal, lossless for serious use, 24bit 44.1khz for studio
 
Its worth it but make sure you avoid sensitive speakers as they'll show every single imperfection. When i play MP3s through my stereo (B&W + Pioneer) i notice everything, same goes for 75% of CDs. You notice the compression, you notice poor quality CDs that you just don't notice on headphones/pc speakers.

Only amp/speaker combo i know of is B&W + Rotel. I'm sure there are other recommended matches though
 
I cant think of anything that would go together worse than B&W and Rotel - extra bright and fatiguing amplification with bright and fatiguing speakers...

Obviously personal taste comes into it but I personally am not at all a fan of either of the above manufacturers!
 
have a read of what hifi they test amps and speaker packages and compare them to silly money systems ,if money is an issue have a look for a richer sounds for end of line stuff.
seperates are the best to get
dave
 
Look we all know theres only two choices Linn/ Naim or Kef and Audiolab, or Mission and Musical Fidelity, three choices :D

MB
 
Thats three.

Unless you meant the Kef/Audiolab thing as a joke, we know that only the deaf buy kit like that :D
 
Matblack said:
Look we all know theres only two choices Linn/ Naim or Kef and Audiolab, or Mission and Musical Fidelity, three choices :D

MB
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And I thought there was only one choice ...... LINN :D
We don't mix with ...N ... N... NAI... dam can't say it... since the falling out ! :p
 
I've demo'd Rotel + B&W :o It hurts :(

Look at Cyrus. There's definatly not enough Cyrus love on these forums!
 
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