Was about to post in the week that I had cracked it with this set up, but I thought no, best not tempt fate.

Nevertheless as I suspected something went wrong. In this case my Parasound CD player is now being picky about reading discs. It's never been completely right, I've always thought it might have a dodgy cap or something as it starts getting a bit of roughness in the sound after a coupe of hours, but it usually only starts towards the end of a session so I live with it. But it is now mucking me about too much.

This is a huge shame as I don't have any working players that are as good. The Sony SACD player I have is okay but it puts that layer of phoney SACD 'smoothness' over everything. The Parasound gives significant extra clarity compared to it.

Otherwise everything is chipper. The JM Lab speakers have grown on me enormously, The NVA LS5 speaker cable has really sorted the bass out, It still sounds a bit 'WAF tower-ey' but that issue is now much diminished. The Krell does its Krell-thing well, still can't get it to light up or get warm though. I don't think it really notices that it has some speakers to drive at all.

More to the point the system sounds good with any type of music or recording you throw at it.

So I'm pretty much almost there as to getting the sound I've been looking for across several decades. I thought I might be onto something when I borrowed that Tisbury passive off of Jerry, but that was just the start and it has been several years between now and then.

I think if I can just get a working digital source that is equal to or better than the Parasound then you can put a fork in me because I'll be done. At the moment I'm torn between buying a top line Sony ES CD player or getting a transport and DAC. The latter would open up the exciting world of DAC box-swapping, but where to even start? Plus at the moment I only have 2 powered components in the system, so no need to use a mains block. CD player seems like the 'tidier' solution.

Went a bit mad with the budget last year in the name of 'lashing harder' but it does seem to have paid dividends. So budget limited to about £500 tops for this, and could do with getting it right first time.