I am starting to hunt around for some components to set up my eldest daughter with her first audio system for her upcoming move into an apartment in the city. She'll be graduating from university this year and is starting a job downtown after the summer. She loves music, values good sound quality, loves vinyl for its sound and not because it's trendy. Musical tastes range from alternative, acoustical, folk-influenced alternative, jazz, and a little classical. No rock, metal, or hip-hop. Doesn't care for overly heavy bass, but likes accurate, crisp, dynamic sound that highlight vocals, acoustic guitars, wind and brass instruments. Transparency and detail would rule here. Full midrange, lots of quickness and jump.

So far I have acquired an original Rega Planar 2 turntable which I will upgrade with a few sensible mods (nothing over the top...mostly motor and deck isolation-focused). Arm and cartridge undetermined, but they will be good quality....something like an RB300/2M Bronze, or equivalent.

Digital source will be a Macbook, most likely running Spotify and iTunes.

Her Grandpa is giving her a pair of his old KEF stand-mounted speakers; model unknown, circa 1980's vintage. They are two-way, unported, so will likely need good oomph from whatever amp I end up getting. He ran them with a Quad 306 and I don't think it enough gas in the tank for those.


So what I'd like some opinion on from the group here is the amp and DAC. Budget about C$1000 (600 GBP) for both.

Re. the amp -- this could be compact separates or an integrated, new or second hand (prefer the latter for value for money). We'd probably need 75 to 100 watts to really drive the KEFs, but I could be wrong. I see that some of the new integrated amps have built-in DACs. My concern here is redundancy of the on-board DAC after a few short years, so instinct says to go for a high quality traditional amp and separate DAC that can be upgraded when needed.

Older integrated models that I'm considering are the Rega Mira, one of the more powerful NAD integrated units, or something from Arcam or Cambridge. I love the Sugden sound, but I don't think they made anything much over 50 wpc(?). For separates, some of the older Bryston combos can be had here for very reasonable prices, being a local company, but some of their early stuff had a very grainy sound. I'm also not averse to Japanese units if simply designed, well made and good sounding -- most of them have so many superfluous bells and whistles that I'd be turned off by....and they tend to be rather large.

I haven't heard most of these, and definitely not recently, so opinions most welcome. If new, then the field is wide open, but I'm doubtful I'd find anything suitably powerful within the budget. How about Class D? I know nothing about this - can these little amps drive a larger unported speaker like the KEF?

As for the DAC, I'm leaning toward one of the Schiit units as they are good value, preferably one that can be upgraded (if it makes sense to do so). On the budget end perhaps one of the Dragonfly models would do the job.

So, advice welcomed and gratefully accepted. Hopefully I'm on the right track with my amp leanings. Looking forward to hearing some recommendations.

Kind regards,
Svend