[Mxyzpltk]

Hi all, right now I have a "good enough" mid-fi 2.0 system that has Paradigm monitor 9s connected to a Super-T t-amp, feeded by a sony minidisc deck mds-jb940 working as a DAC to the source that's a computer via spdif.

The question is I have budget of about $1000 to upgrade only one, amp, source or speakers, and I would like to maximise the benefit of this upgrade.

I've thought about selling the monitor 9s and other non-audio stuff to get budget to increase and make it worth it of speaker shopping,  I could go for paradigm studios, kef, magnepan mc12 (but do they need a sub in a small room 10'x13'?, and the t-amp probably won't cut it  ), or even sell a bit more crap and go for martin logan's new electromotion.

Or should I keep the 9s for the time beeing and upgrade either amp or source/dac?

I'm in Costa Rica, and that's why those speaker brands are the only ones in the list, and that also means that any dac or integrated amp I get will not be able to audition, I could audition bel-canto and musical fidelity, but I don't think they have anything in my budget, we get similar prices to the US, about 15% to 25% more, but if the US price is inside budget it's ok and I will consider it.

So what would you do, speaker, amp or source first?
Thanks in advance to all.

[JLM]

Thanks for posting.  This is a classic problem.

My modded T-amp did a remarkably good job with average speaker efficiency/room size (and I'm not a head banger).  But bumping up to 40 wpc did wonders.  So the $800 USD Peachtree Audio Decco-2 comes to mind (great DAC/pre-amp/headphone and OK power amp).  This would solve two of three components and stay within your budget.  The Peachtree is well reviewed and underwood hifi offers mods.

Unless you look into the used market, I doubt you can find bel canto or musical fidelity within your budget.

Yet, I'm a speaker guy.  And I'm not a fan of any of the brands you listed (speakers are a very personal thing).  The limited output of the T-amp doesn't offer much flexibility for speakers.  Besides we'd need to know your musical/audio tastes before recommending anything beyond our favorites.  So we can't really say if a sub might be needed.

[Rocket]

Hi,

Some members may not agree with me but I believe that speakers offer the best value when upgrading your system.  A couple of years back I upgraded my power amplifier to monoblocks from the same manufacturer to only discover that I obtained a very modest improvement despite spending thousand more dollars.

I would also suggest increasing your budget and having a look at Salk Sound 'Songtowers' which are a nice floorstanding speaker which is a TL design and provides good quality bass and uses very good components.  Selah Audio also makes good speakers.  Buying brand name speakers is probably a safe bet but the component quality will not be as good unless purchasing second hand.  Selah Audio and Salk Sound both have forums on Audiocircle.

Good luck with your decision.

Regards

Rod

[HT cOz]

I'm going to agree with Rod on this one. GR Research also on AC has some great offerings. Ruben "Out of the Woods" does some amazing builds of Dannys kits.

My room is similiar in size and can tell you even something like a Neo-1 would work really well. You would need a sub though. For referance I have a Neo3TL.

Do you have any room treatments?

[Mxyzpltk]

Hi, thanks for your answers, seems like the general agreement is on speakers, and I think I'll follow that, but the problem is that the budget is small to go out and buy real speakers, the brands I listed above are there because they are the only ones I can audition in my country, and I don't think I should buy hi end speakers without a good listen first, right?

To answer some of your questios, I love jazz, specially bops and latin jazz, Chucho Valdés, Paquito d'Rivera or Arturo Sandoval spend a lot of time in my room, but also enjoy barroque and a little classical now and then.  The room has tube fiberglass bass traps in the corners, they work good.

I feel that some bookshelf speakers on nice stands will suit this room better than full range floorstanders, and I think I will aim the resources to upgrading speakers first, so the upgrade will have to wait some months (even tho that Decco2 has crossed my mind several times), but as I said before, they will have to be one from those brands because I can audition them, I will love to hear your recomendations or some Zu or similar offerings, but unfurtunatly I can't.

Wrigting all this got me thinking again, I feel that the minidisc thingie might be the worst link in my system, and the current budget allows for a good dac that should live through the next upgrade, auditioning electronics I don't mind that much because they'll be easier to sell if I had to, so I can buy online, is the decco2 really that good of a dac, is the amp in it better than the old sonic impact Super-T, or would that be a lateral move instead of an upgrade?

Thanks again for your time an patience, I know I'm babbling more than I should.

[JLM]

Another 2-way solution within your budget: active studio monitors (small speakers with one channel of amplification per driver that avoid the need for separate power amps, but need power from your wall outlets, need to use your PC for volume control, and may need XLR cabling).   

Active has huge, undeniable advantages: greatly increased dynamics, ruler flat frequency response, and unbelievably deep/full bass.  Years ago I auditioned Paradigm $800/pair Studio 20 versus $1600/pair Active 20 (both similar smallish 2-way standmounts with the same driver/cabinet size).  No contest, not even close, end of story. 

Unfortunately most audiophiles want to shop for their own amps and avoid single driver designs (that by definition would be active).  (Bing Scott Ender for custom, high quality, inexpensive cabling.)  Here's some suggestions:

http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-JBL-LSR2328P-LIST
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/8020B/
http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-DYN-BM5AMKII-LIST
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HR624mk2/

[richidoo]

I agree with JLM, upgrade the amp.

The Paradigms aren't that bad, they are well engineered with decent drivers, high sensitivity, very easy load for any amp. The speakers are the best part of your system! I would prefer what you have to some of the upgrade options you mentioned. But the T Amp is holding you back.  "Class T" topology is not a sweet inspiring sound, unless it has expensive output filter and power supply like a RedWine T-amp. Look for vintage stereo receivers for sale locally. Some of them like Sansui, Onkyo Denon, HK, older Sonys sound very nice, probably $50-100. There are many good brands from the 70s-80s. Technics was popular and sounds fine. 40-50W should be enough. Vacuum it out, clean the pots and switches and connectors and you're golden. plus you get radio and probably a phono input if you get curious about vinyl. The risk is reliability of an older unit. But 20 years old from a good brand should be OK. 40 years old no.  The worst that happens is you need to replace some caps. Any local repair technician can do that in an hour ($100.) If you find a classic stereo receiver it would be worth fixing it if necessary. I have several such receivers ranging from 10 (Onkyo) to 30 (technics) years old, no problems.  It has to be a stereo receiver though, old enough to use discreet transistors, not IC chips. If you get a modern multichannel HT receiver it will have the same chip amps that you have now, or worse. $129 Yamaha 5.1 rx sounds really awful.

The minidisk DAC probably has very little jitter removal. SPDIF from PC mother board is high jitter. That combined with the electrolytic caps in your speaker crossovers will make music sound too much treble, and harsh.  Cheapest solution here is a good quality SPDIF output like M2Tech HiFace which will eliminate any jitter to your DAC, and making it sound as good as it can. Cost $200 US and you can use it with any DAC or PC that you may get in the future.

If you can solder you can replace the 2ccapacitors going to your tweeter with film caps and hear a huge improvement in smoothness. You could hire an electronic technician or find a local audiophile to help with this. Cost <$100 US.

We have same taste in music. I love bebop, and also listen to as much latin jazz as I can find on radio. I wish I had more latin jazz CDs, only 1 Paquito D'Rivera record.

The peachtree stuff is cute, but the amp is not much better than what you already have. I think if you control jitter, that your minidisc DAC will be adequate for the speakers.  Then your next upgrade will be a whole new system if you want more. Remember that if you upgrade one part, it will make the other parts sound inadequate in comparison. Better to have a balanced system of complimentary parts than one hotrod part fed by clunker parts.

[Mxyzpltk]

I agree with JLM, upgrade the amp.

The Paradigms aren't that bad, they are well engineered with decent drivers, high sensitivity, very easy load for any amp. The speakers are the best part of your system! I would prefer what you have to some of the upgrade options you mentioned. But the T Amp is holding you back.  "Class T" topology is not a sweet inspiring sound, unless it has expensive output filter and power supply like a RedWine T-amp. Look for vintage stereo receivers for sale locally. Some of them like Sansui, Onkyo Denon, HK, older Sonys sound very nice, probably $50-100.

What about a pioneer sx-850 from the late 70s? I have acess to one of those that was serviced in the 80s, works fine but it's across town, I'll go get it if you think is worth the effort.

The minidisk DAC probably has very little jitter removal. SPDIF from PC mother board is high jitter. That combined with the electrolytic caps in your speaker crossovers will make music sound too much treble, and harsh.  Cheapest solution here is a good quality SPDIF output like M2Tech HiFace which will eliminate any jitter to your DAC, and making it sound as good as it can. Cost $200 US and you can use it with any DAC or PC that you may get in the future.

I have to trust your advice blindly as you just described exactly the sound I get from my current system, the problem I have with the M2Tech is that I use linux as the source (and everything else  ) and as far as I know, the m2 needs extra drivers and are available only for windows, so I was thinking that maybe the muscal fidelity v-link will do the work just as good, but I can't tell from the reviews I find online, the only serious one is from stereophile, but I don't trust those too much since they always like everything they review, but I have not been able to find comments from real users.

If you can solder you can replace the 2ccapacitors going to your tweeter with film caps and hear a huge improvement in smoothness. You could hire an electronic technician or find a local audiophile to help with this. Cost <$100 US.

I don't feel comfortable doing this, but do have some friends that will love to get their hands in there, can I just unscrew the tweeter and read from the caps what's rated on the label, so that I can get the same but in film cap form? what brands should I get, sonicaps or something like that?  it would suck to be speakerless because I screwed this up 

We have same taste in music. I love bebop, and also listen to as much latin jazz as I can find on radio. I wish I had more latin jazz CDs, only 1 Paquito D'Rivera record.

The peachtree stuff is cute, but the amp is not much better than what you already have. I think if you control jitter, that your minidisc DAC will be adequate for the speakers.  Then your next upgrade will be a whole new system if you want more. Remember that if you upgrade one part, it will make the other parts sound inadequate in comparison. Better to have a balanced system of complimentary parts than one hotrod part fed by clunker parts.

Thanks again for your advice (and thanks to everybody else, I've been drooling over those GR and Selah kits, and those active monitors sure look interesting), let me pay a bit back by recommending Chucho Valdés new (2010) record "Chucho's Steps", it is amazing, well recorded, awsome piano, Chucho went up a notch in this album, the rest of the band is very very good, and is nice to hear him go through his influences, if you don't  trust me, youtube for "Zawinul's Mambo", that clip speaks for itself.

I agree that I should save for an entire new system, I think I will keep my pennies saved and wait until it reaches the $5k mark so that I can try to build something nice, if you guys think the pioneer sx-850 will help the sound I get then I will get it, refurbish it if needed and use it, plus the V-Link or similar usb to spdif interface, that should keep the upgrade need in check for a while... does it sounds like a plan?

[cujobob]

If you can DIY, the class D amp kits offer good bang for the buck.  There are powerful enough options for $200-300 on the used market for amps as well.  I'd also look into a pair of GR Research N2X ... N1X might be good too but not as common.  They won't go super low but a sub can be added later.  They should offer the most refined mids and treble for $500-700 used.  I have no idea how much shipping would cost you or if that's even an option.

[Matty_J]

A company called Red Dragon Audio, makes class D amplification.  Some people are not fond of the looks, but I haven't heard anything bad either from people in different forums.
http://www.reddragonaudio.com/
They offer a 45 day in-home trial...

[Mxyzpltk]

Well, I added the pioneer to the system last night, I could only listen for a few moments as everybody was sleeping, but from that I can say for sure the t-amp is not going back, I now understand what "headroom" means in the audio reproduction context, also detail was much better, but the real improvement was in soundstage and image, it grew a lot.  Unfurtunatly I can't listen carefully until the weekend but I liked it so far, a great 30 years old upgrade, and a move forward for sure, so thanks for the advice.

I will order a MF V-link soon, and hope that will give me a better sound, but considering the current source, and my room's limitations I think I'm moving forward. After the source is upgraded my plan is to save enough cash to build from scratch a new system and the GR and selah will be at the check out list (even tho I still don't feel like buying speakers without audition, but who knows, it'll be a while until I get the money).

I just hope I can hold myself back into buying a dac before the new system

Thank you all again, and let me know what you thought of Chucho's album, I would like to know.

[JLM]

Seems to me that many (most?) audiophiles have one or more "thing(s)" that they are most sensitive to.  For me, I can't stand the surface noise of vinyl, tubes frankly have never done much for me, but I do have lots of likes/dislikes when in comes to speakers, and for me speakers make up about 2/3rds of the audiophile traits I crave.

If you can find out what "pushes your buttons" you can focus on that first and foremost.


Back in the 70's, Advent came out with a model 300 receiver.  It cost $275, didn't look like much, wasn't all that well built, didn't have any lights on it, and didn't weigh 50 pounds or have flywheel volume/tuning knobs.  But it had a very good "real world" FM tuner, a terrific pre-amp with pre-amp direct outputs, and a power amp section that was small and just OK.  A friend in college bought one, it's pre-amp ran circles around my McIntosh integrated amp's pre-amp section and matched my room-mate's Luxman pre-amp section in terms of sound quality.

In the 80's, NAD offered the 3020 integrated amp for about $300.  Again didn't look like much, not built like a tank, no lights, didn't have killer specifications, didn't weigh 50 pounds, etc.  But again it had very good "real world" performance with sound quality rivaling my Hafler pre/power amps.  (The Hafler is holds "cult" status with some.)

The Peachtree units could be the next Advent.  Some reviewers say its DAC doesn't compare to a $1000 this or that.  Could be, I most certainly haven't heard them all.  Another good brand that could be another Advent/NAD and fits your budget is right here at Audio Circle, Virtue Audio.  They sell integrated amps (larger versions of your T-amp) and offer a significant discount bundle with Ascend Acoustics CMT-340 SE speakers with their Two.2 (with upgraded power supply for $949 USD).  I love my Ascend Acoustics CBM-170's (smaller original two-way version of that speaker), they are very musical, image like champs, and offer extreme content value (but the standard finish is pretty "underwhelming").  A subwoofer can easily be added to this system and Virtue is also hinting at adding a DAC (their CD player is well respected too).

Now Virtue/Ascend Acoustics aren't "destination" pieces, but could get you 70% of the way there for pennies on the dollar.  And like many things in life the last few % can cost dearly.  Any of the suggestions I've made are stuff I could be very happy with and if I had to start over would think long and hard about settling into something just like this.

Oh, I just found that the Ascend Acoustics site also offers a Virtue Two.2/CBM-170 SE bundle with speaker cable thrown in for $658 USD, which would be killer in a small room (or a bigger room with a subwoofer later on).

http://store.virtueaudio.com/product-p/vrtu-ia-vatwo.2-pbf-1.htm
http://store.virtueaudio.com/product-p/ascend-340-two.2-combo.1.htm
http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/cmt340m/cmt340m.html

http://www.ascendacoustics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=170VirtueCombo&Category_Code=LSPK-2CH