re: Post pics of your system

Years ago, many audio shops would have B&W speakers being driven with Rotel amps. You can usually find a good bit of Rotel on AGon.

quote:

---

Google Odyssey Amplifiers and go to their page--you can custom build an amp and order direct from them.

---

These seem very reasonably priced. With your recommendation, they approach the top of my list.

quote:

---

You looking for tube or solid state McIntosh?

---

The one that seems to dip down into the upper limit of my price range semi-frequently is the mc2505. I haven't seen any of their tubes drop terribly low. I would love a good tube amp, but I'm not ready to pay the prices they want for them (not because I'm not convinced of their quality or sound...I'm just more broke than I'd like to admit).

quote:

---

Krell will all be solid state (transistor). I find the Krell from the last 6 years to be priced a little high. It is great gear, but they are making really high powered amps (400, 600, 900 wpc) and are charging a king's ransom for that power.

---

In this line, I lean toward the s300i. I'll have to admit a pretty severe ignorance to the sound color that comes from amps. My introduction to an audiophile-quality system was listening to a pair of b&w 800n powered by...I can't seem to find the exact model, but a 400wpc Krell stereo class A amp, which the owner proudly touted at approximately $16,000 (thrown in in case you're more familiar with their models and may know what I'm talking about since I clearly don't). His similar-level previous gen Krell amp had recently locked itself into 'safe' mode or something like that, so this one was very low hours, to the point that he was actually not yet impressed with its sound. I couldn't begin to list the other components of his system, but I know that he pushes Krell heavily, namely because he likes the sales rep/dealer/owner he deals with and has gotten great service from them on what seems to be an unarguably high-quality product. But, the pairing was great, and while it's not a perfect extrapolation to say that "Krell and B&W sound well together," since it's practically impossible to give ear-time in any store to my speakers with any backend, I've got at least a reasonable idea that they'd be a pretty decent pairing.

This is actually also the reason I picked up the 803m. They popped up on Craiglist at the right time, and I figured even without the proper backend for them, they were worth the investment.

quote:

---

Tubes--check out Audio by Van Alstine

---

I take back everything I said about tubes being unaffordable. I'm very new to this brand. Thanks for the introduction. I will most definitely be reading about them a lot in the future.

quote:

---

Rotel

---

I see them pop up and leave Audiogon fairly quickly. They seem to be very well regarded, but I haven't out much time into reading about the product lines. Most of what I've seen of them lately were of the multi-channel AV receiver variety, so a bit out of where I'm looking. I admittedly need to check them out closer than I have been.


I really appreciate you taking the time to help out. Hopefully sometime between now and August-ish I'll pull the trigger on a couple of upgrades and have pics of more than a middle-tier 20 year old speaker pair to look at.

quote:

---

Your speaker placement is curious. That one close to the side wall is strange. You ever mess with different positions?

---

I forget the number I used, but they're measured equidistant from the side and rear walls. L wall is dry-wall and difficult to see in that picture. R wall is brick. I believe they're both 24"x24" from the walls. Whatever the number I arbitrarily chose to get them roughly equidistant, the soundstage from roughly where the picture was taken is pretty good, and I'm very happy with the "ghosted" center.

Do you think they're too wide, too narrow, or does that L wall corner really just blend together from the poor quality picture? The room itself is probably ~14ft wife by 25ft deep. Couch is centered about 13ft from the tv. L wall, as stated, is just drywall with nothing on it. R wall is brick with a fireplace almost directly to the right of where the couch is, a little more to the front than back. The rear of the room is a foyer, hallway, and small wall with an opening to a wet bar, so the acoustics aren't perfect by any means, but the dimensions are somewhat on the "favorable" side.

quote:

---

I really like that ambient light. Looks sharp.

---

Thanks. Caught it on sale on Amazon for like $15 or so.

Also, for tubes--look at Prima Luna--used, they may fit into your budget.

I will try to get a list of some specific models/brands/power ratings together in the next day or so so you have a place to start. As I said earlier in this thread, there is more great new affordable audio gear out now than ever before. You may not need to go used.

27" Retina iMac (4GHz i7 | 32GB Ram | AMD Radeon R9 M295X | OS X Yosemite & Windows 8.1)
13" Macbook Pro
Harmon Kardon HK3490 (2 Channel)
2 Polk TsSi100 Bookshelf Speakers
Sennheiser Momentum Over-the-Ear Headphones
Samsung Note 3

USB Powered LED Lighting (behind computer)


LINK