Hello All,
This is my first post proper so I'll try to explain myself as best I can.
I watch films and listen to music in my living room and having made do with a tiny 5.1 polk blackstone speaker package driven by a Marantz NR1605 AVR, the desire for better music in good old stereo has been overwhelming.
As a result I've recently purchased an amptastic mini-1 and a pair of Klipsch KG4.5's. The KG4.5's have the improved titanium diaphragms from Bob Crites in the states and I will also be purchasing the capacitor upgrades in due course. I've modded the mini-1 to run as a power amp from the pre-outs on my Marantz and hooked it up to a Yuasa 12V SLA battery. The improvement in 2 channel has been substantial and very satisfying but now I've had time to adjust to this step up in performance I can't help thinking I'm not getting the best from the little mini-1 and new speakers.
My thoughts are that the Marantz pre amp and dac are letting the side down but how do you guys think I can improve on things without losing the marantz and therefore multi channel capability altogether and buying say a beresford caiman seg or similar? I'm not totally against losing the marantz but it would still be a bonus if I could watch films in surround sound. I've thought of rca switches (to select between the av amp and a yet to be purchased pre/dac) or even a speaker wire switch but both these options seem like a hashed-up workaround just to keep the marantz.
To give a little more info, the other speakers in my set up are a B&W CM centre (S1) and B&W M1 rears. Source components are SKY, media pc, amazon fire tv, PS4 (all via HDMI into AVR) and most of my music listening is done via spotify through the connect function on my NR1605.
Any help would be much appreciated and if I'm trying to make two different shape pegs fit into the same hole do let me know