Cheap kit for upgrades to replace Arcam and TDL ?

[Reffc]

Personally, for the budget you have Mike, the single biggest improvement you can make sonically is the speakers. You can amp roll and CDP roll to your heart's content, but even CDPs up a notch from the Arcam won't sound a whole lot different tbh through older speakers that may need attention. I had a visitor today and we compared his 10 year old untouched speakers which he brought with him directly against ones with new (better) x-overs and the difference was anything but subtle. I started off with an Arcam Alpha CDP and its not bad at all. Its never going to set the world alight, but the only used player in that budget I'd look to replace it with would be a Rotel 965BX which even by today's standards is a cracking player for peanuts. You could be burning money by stumbling from one budget player and amp to another. Concentrate on the speakers as there are two options: Buy used and buy cheap but some stonking bargains are out there for under £100, or have the ones you already have looked at and fettled. Either way, you should see a bigger bang for buck than keeping the ones you have and spending on sideways moves for amps/CDPs. At this end of the budget, your speakers make the biggest difference, by far.

[MikeMusic]

Well, that's the thing - Arcam goes for peanuts and is, therefore, the usual 'cheap as chips' recommendation.

Right. Thanks Dave

[MikeMusic]

Personally, for the budget you have Mike, the single biggest improvement you can make sonically is the speakers. You can amp roll and CDP roll to your heart's content, but even CDPs up a notch from the Arcam won't sound a whole lot different tbh through older speakers that may need attention. I had a visitor today and we compared his 10 year old untouched speakers which he brought with him directly against ones with new (better) x-overs and the difference was anything but subtle. I started off with an Arcam Alpha CDP and its not bad at all. Its never going to set the world alight, but the only used player in that budget I'd look to replace it with would be a Rotel 965BX which even by today's standards is a cracking player for peanuts. You could be burning money by stumbling from one budget player and amp to another. Concentrate on the speakers as there are two options: Buy used and buy cheap but some stonking bargains are out there for under £100, or have the ones you already have looked at and fettled. Either way, you should see a bigger bang for buck than keeping the ones you have and spending on sideways moves for amps/CDPs. At this end of the budget, your speakers make the biggest difference, by far.

Thanks Paul
What sort of age would you consider/guess speakers need fettling ?
I haven't forgotten my Isobarik crossovers paying you a visit

[Reffc]

Hi Mike

there's two reasons you might want to look at speakers of a certain age. First because of the use of electrolytics that often need replacing, and secondly, because the components used may have been of a shocking quality and maybe (as I recently have found with one set) only generically matched to drivers taking no account of the impedance rise in the woofer when selecting inductors and caps. In the case of a pair I currently have, the actual crossover is way above intended as the components are miles out and this leant and edge to the upper midrange (unsurprisingly) as the woofer was being run well into cone break-up area. This from a well known, established and respected loudspeaker manufacturer.

|'d say speakers of 15 years or older probably benefit from at least a recap with something decent, but sometimes they're fine up to 20 or 30 years old depending on the design implementation and the components used.

[MikeMusic]

Hi Mike

there's two reasons you might want to look at speakers of a certain age. First because of the use of electrolytics that often need replacing, and secondly, because the components used may have been of a shocking quality and maybe (as I recently have found with one set) only generically matched to drivers taking no account of the impedance rise in the woofer when selecting inductors and caps. In the case of a pair I currently have, the actual crossover is way above intended as the components are miles out and this leant and edge to the upper midrange (unsurprisingly) as the woofer was being run well into cone break-up area. This from a well known, established and respected loudspeaker manufacturer.

|'d say speakers of 15 years or older probably benefit from at least a recap with something decent, but sometimes they're fine up to 20 or 30 years old depending on the design implementation and the components used.

Thanks Paul
You are educating me nicely. Some shocking and disappointing news there
Wish you were a lot closer

Reminds me I need to take pics of my Iso xovers for you to look over.
Also need to make the time tomorrow to do it. Note made (again). Fingers crossed.

If you ever come near us, Junction 10 and 11 M25 not far please pop in to look over my various sets of speakers !