Upgrade advice

[liquid]

I very rarely post on here but I do lurk quiet often. I am after some advise on priority and options for upgrading.

My current system is Kef 102/2 with kube (had for 25 ish years, the best buy of my life), Audiolab 8000p (Chinese version) a little dot valve amp (got it a few years ago, great little buy) Caiman Mk2 Dac (with new firmware upgrade) Mini Mac 2012 i7 (Very strange as I hate Apples style over substance model, with all Hd removed and replaced with SSD) the two NAS to provide files- stored remotely to remove the noise)

I have just brought an AUDIO RESEARCH VS115 for a flat £2k http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1316009124...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I realise my set up will be quiet unbalanced and it will take a decent pre and a speaker upgrade to see the benefit of the audio research but, all upgrades need to start somewhere!

Haven’t even got the amp yet, come Friday I am told.

I will be hitting the second hand market for sure as to complete my ‘journey’ I would have to sell a kidney if I went new. I am unlikely to upgrade again, less the Dac and source, which is still on a learning curve.

A lot of it is about fulfilling childhood dreams as I would really like to see a krell badge on the shelf and am reading great things about the Krell KBL preamp. I also want to include something British, so an updated Kef is feeling a good fit or Electrostats... Some may view that not as a Hi-Fi pursuit but my view is that there are many ways to skin a cat and you can achieve most things with certain restrictions.

I listen to everything from Punk to opera, my room is 6.5mts x4mts but I will move so that is academic.

The budget is emotive in terms of amount but ridged in terms of when. The next purchase will be around May and the following one this time next year. I expect to spend around 5K for the both.

So my question is what first and what flavor?

PS I am thinking of some emergency Kef 104/2 as a band-aid to tide me over…!

[Spectral Morn]

Hi Simon

Nice buy, logically you need to get a balanced pre-amp, and there are three on sale here at the minute.

Audio Research LS26 http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...-Research-LS26 £2200

Cary Audio SLP-05 http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...SLP-05-pre-amp £3250

and my own Balanced Audio Technology VK31se http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...-pre-amplifier £2400

All three would be sensible choices, the LS26 the obvious one, with the Cary and BAT slightly off field but both very good too.



Regards Neil