Hello Andy, Allan, Zoidburg and Geoff,

Andy & Zoidburg

Yes, thanks I'm grateful for your offers of a listen I'd very much like to hear what a proper hifi system sounds like. If we could arrange for whenever is mutually convenient (I'm working some odd hours at the moment).

Andy, I've been online and had a look at your speakers, my compliments, they really do look like the serious business end of things!


Firebottle

It's an Arcam Alpha 10 power amp.

Firstly, it's probably best if I describe my present system, it will give you everyone an idea of where I'm at.

PC / Asus Zonar D1 soundcard-> generic chinese dac/preamp -> Marantz pm6003 -> Dali Zensor 3's/Mission 751Fs

I suspect there might be a few of you either cringing with disgust or having a good chuckle at that PC/soundcard Chinese dac arrangement (and why not?).

I listen to mainly Flacs and 320k mp3s and in all honesty for a budget end system it's good, the amp is very musical and reasonably detailed, while keeping a nice foot tapping tempo with the music. Both sets speakers allow the amp to shine.

Considering I paid £180 open box/new (Richersound) for the amp, £55 for the missions and £219 (new) for the Zensors I've cornered a few deals. Let's not mention the soundcard or Chinese dac.

I've used the word "shine" and I have to say sometimes it does too much of this in a bright sense. While listening to the Bob Dylan's "I want you", I feel like covering my ears to the harmonica solo at the start and while listening to classical music things can also get a little hazy/bright during complex pieces.

I'm definitely looking for a nudge to the warm side in my upgrades.

The Arcam Alpha 10P I mentioned above, I'm not sure if it's regarded as a decent piece of kit or not by this forum? For me though it was a clear step up from the Marantz. It was so much more composed, more detailed, better bass, slightly smoother treble / mids and much more of a 3D effect with instruments and vocals separated out. And the power really helps hearing detail and bass a lower volume levels.

There are a few minus points though, listening to Andre Rieu, Blue Danube, the Forever Vienna cd, this is a piece that ebbs and flows exquisitely, the amp managed to do this, but just backed off a little tempo wise when is should really have attacked the crescendos (like my Marantz does). The bass may be just slightly more than I expected, I'd probably become used to it.

The Arcam is my first real taste of HiFi (I believe) and something along these lines is what I'm looking for.

I do quite a lot of near field listening whilst working at a desk, we also have young children in the house and so the system needs to perform at lower volumes at night.


Thanks,

Rob