FrayedWire
New Member
I think I'm living in a bit of a gap in the market budget-wise, but I wanted to double check before deciding on what to do by myself. I've recently moved across the country and am starting over on audio equipment, and I'm trying to decide what will be the power source and brains for my new setup. I am pretty set on a Rega Planar 1 for the turntable based on the TTs I've been able to hear in person in my budget, and I am also pretty sure I'll be getting some Toby speakers from my hometown of Fort Worth, TX, for both price-performance ratio and sentimental reasons. I'm going with a pair of relatively small profile floor speakers, which will be more than adequate in my walk-up apartment in Manhattan. I don't expect to be living in the same place in five years, so that's also a factor. I don't care about movies or anything but music.
The hard part for me is the receiver/amps part of the system. I mostly listen to digital music, but I also have a fair bit of vinyl (and I'd like to use it more), so I would like a relatively painless way to switch between the two, and a pre-amp for the turntable. I previously handled this with a vintage receiver and an iPad.
I don't really want to spend much more than about $1000, but it seems like while I can come up with a good set of amps for the purpose for, say, $2500+ total, or a decent set of choices of AV receivers for $300-400 (plus a preamp), there is not a lot in between that upgrades the audio rather than the video and bells and whistles parts of the equation. Is that a fair assessment, or am I missing something? Should I just buy a $300 Pioneer or Denon receiver and think about a more serious upgrade down the line, when I'm in a more permanent home and willing to spend more money? Should I buy the same and pair with a low-end two channel power amplifier, maybe something from NAD, even though it seems questionable how much extra quality I'd get out of something that costs $300 (or is that unfair? I don't know anyone with such a setup and so I'm not sure how to do a proper test)? Stretch my budget a bit and get something like a Marantz MM7025? Go back to vintage? I like vintage in principle but not sure I have the time or appetite to go that route properly at this point in my life.
I appreciate your thoughts.
The hard part for me is the receiver/amps part of the system. I mostly listen to digital music, but I also have a fair bit of vinyl (and I'd like to use it more), so I would like a relatively painless way to switch between the two, and a pre-amp for the turntable. I previously handled this with a vintage receiver and an iPad.
I don't really want to spend much more than about $1000, but it seems like while I can come up with a good set of amps for the purpose for, say, $2500+ total, or a decent set of choices of AV receivers for $300-400 (plus a preamp), there is not a lot in between that upgrades the audio rather than the video and bells and whistles parts of the equation. Is that a fair assessment, or am I missing something? Should I just buy a $300 Pioneer or Denon receiver and think about a more serious upgrade down the line, when I'm in a more permanent home and willing to spend more money? Should I buy the same and pair with a low-end two channel power amplifier, maybe something from NAD, even though it seems questionable how much extra quality I'd get out of something that costs $300 (or is that unfair? I don't know anyone with such a setup and so I'm not sure how to do a proper test)? Stretch my budget a bit and get something like a Marantz MM7025? Go back to vintage? I like vintage in principle but not sure I have the time or appetite to go that route properly at this point in my life.
I appreciate your thoughts.
