Advise on A First System

[Will1]

Hi,

This is my first post so firstly hello.
I am looking for advice on building a first system on a budget of £800 - £1000 and any advice would be really useful.

I need a DAC, cabling, a amp and speakers. Any suggestions would be much appreciated? The system will be played off a Computer and the DAC needs a USB option. I was considering either a Beresford tc-7D20 or a V-dac def favoring the Beresford having talked to Stanley today.
The Amp and the speakers, I really do not know.

The system will be for a small room, musically I would like the system to sound 'fun.' I know this is a terrible ambigious phrase but it is the best I could come up with, mainly I mean exact accuracy is not the key I looking for.
I listen to rock/pop, indie rock, classical, jazz, and acoustic music. I really dont care about bass or the abilty for good sound at anything above a 'normal' listening volume. The system would also ideally be easy too set up. Finally, as well as buying new I am also considering buying second hand, thinking that then I would be able to trial and resell equipment would this be advisable? If so where is a good place to look for second hand gear? Any dealers offering to sell or people thinking of selling second hand also please message.

Thanks in advance,

Will[:D]

[Rare Bird]

Hi Will

Firstly welcome, can i just say you don't have to limit yourself to USB DAC even though you may only have USB .

[John]

I think my advice would be to hear a few systems before you commit I think dealing with a good dealer, going down the second hand route you could pick up a very good system but I still think a dealer would be better at this stage. Take your time with this make sure you get a system that suits your needs
I hope a few others will be along to give you a few ideas for a system

[DSJR]

The odd pair of used AVI ADM9's come up from time to time for £750 or so. These have a good performance, they're actively driven and have a world class dac and preamp contained within. There are one or two other similar opions available from pro music shops too and in terms of "new" product with a computer as source, this may well become the future of newly purchased audio in future years..

Obviously, the above suggestion can take the "fun" out of choosing gear as it's all done for you (extremely well I should add), so in that case, you should get the Beresford (as the man himself is a regular poster here and always willing to help), together with, IMO, either a Cambridge integrated amp as a solidly designed product with a stable spec or, look out for a WD valve amp, available either in kit form, or ready built (decently made ones come up for around £300 or so).

As for speakers for the above, new for £200 are things like the Monitor Audio BR2 and the smaller B&W 680 series (a bit coloured but tweakable I think), although £200 will buy you some really good vintage speakers with better performance like KEF 104ab's, Corelli's, Concerto, Cadenza and some undiscovered Tannoys (Mercury 2, Venus and some DC models still).

Hope the above doesn't confuse you too much...:)


Seriously, the performance of smaller active monitors (look on Dolphin Music's site) can be so good now, I really do believe the future of low-cost audio is here, rather than with cobbled together boxes of dubious performance and worse appearance. For £800, a very much "fun" system can be got with carefully chosen used gear - and that's what we're here for.......

[Spectral Morn]

Hi,

This is my first post so firstly hello.
I am looking for advice on building a first system on a budget of £800 - £1000 and any advice would be really useful.

I need a DAC, cabling, a amp and speakers. Any suggestions would be much appreciated? The system will be played off a Computer and the DAC needs a USB option. I was considering either a Beresford tc-7D20 or a V-dac def favoring the Beresford having talked to Stanley today.
The Amp and the speakers, I really do not know.

The system will be for a small room, musically I would like the system to sound 'fun.' I know this is a terrible ambigious phrase but it is the best I could come up with, mainly I mean exact accuracy is not the key I looking for.
I listen to rock/pop, indie rock, classical, jazz, and acoustic music. I really dont care about bass or the abilty for good sound at anything above a 'normal' listening volume. The system would also ideally be easy too set up. Finally, as well as buying new I am also considering buying second hand, thinking that then I would be able to trial and resell equipment would this be advisable? If so where is a good place to look for second hand gear? Any dealers offering to sell or people thinking of selling second hand also please message.

Thanks in advance,

Will[:D]


Hi Will

Welcome to AoS.

Regards D S D L

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Hi will
welcome
an option that isn't quite as much of a gamble as buying second hand based on random bits of advice is pop down your local ritcher sounds, they have a clearance section of ex display and stuff with tatty boxes, I'm fairly certain that way you could have a listen to complete systems and get a good deal...
Not that the random bits of advice from a place like this would be bad... In fact you have chosen quite a good forum to ask such a question, in as much as there is a lot of experienced people here who actually use their ears ... But like John said if you go to a dealer you get to listen before you commit to anything...
http://www.richersounds.com/clearance
going to various dealer might help you decide what you like more too if you do decide the second hand route is for you
a little bit of random advice from me - I recently bought some s/h usher s520 speakers for £160.. They might be worth looking at as I think they sound "fun"... They certainly do in my system!

Oh and don't read what hifi, they are often biased by the wrong things

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Oh and out your budget £100 would be likely to be needed for cables and for that I would highly recommend "mark grant cables" mark is another follow member here, a nice chap and his cables are very good value as he, like stan is an imdependant manufacturer so you are only paying for his beer, not matey in the shops beer and matey at supplyers beers and lots of matey's in vans beer :)

[Will1]

Firstly thanks very much too all the responders the advice is all useful. Hamish I had been using what Hifi as a bit of a guideline so its good to know to take its advice with a pinch/handful of salt. I am heading to Manchester later this week so I will have a look in Richer Sound. An advance look on there website shows they have some good clearance book shelf speakers and amps. These two stood out. Speakers: KEF IQ3 and amp: Cambridge Audio AZUR 640A V2 > any thoughts on these two anyone?

Although advice on the AVI ADM9's is what I would really like. I was not even aware that dac and amp integrated speakers even existed. What other similar products to these exist? Space is actually limited and I will certainly be moving a few times this year so the portability would be really useful. Where should I look to get some AVI ADM9's second hand?

Thanks again,
Will

[DSJR]

ebay sometimes have them and 5 ways Hifi are a good midlands dealer to ask also.

For portability with a little bit to play with, get a Caiman DAC, look at the apparently very popular Yamaha and possibly Quad active monitors at around £600pr and I can get advice on a cheapo way of controling volume. There may be dac's out there with good quality and not too expensive that can drive the active speakers directly. Again, Dolphin Music will be able to advise...


The point I'm very clumsily making is that HiFi shops haven't cottoned on to the fact that for many people "on the move," a separates system just isn't always feasible. OK for when you're settled and there's some money in the bank, but not to start with. Some of these little "pro" active jobbies are made in the far east for not much dosh and "some" of them are superb by all accounts, being properly balanced and not at all fatiguing to listen to for long periods. The Quad 11L active is based on a very successful passive design and having active crossovers and directly coupled amps in each should tighten up the sound somewhat. They're also reasonably good looking. I'm told the Yamaha actives are extremely popular for near field monitoring and may be just what you need for now.

The HDD forum should be able to help (forget the AVI bias and associated threads, there's much good for you to learn there) and Sound-On-Sound magazine has good reviews, including many online ones of speakers such as you might need...

[DSJR]

Look at the "Budget Active Speaker thread on here too..."

I'm told the BM-C2 DAC-controller might be just what you're looking for betwixt laptop and active speakers...... You may need an M-Audio transit or similar to give a digital signal to the controller..

[Themis]

If you want your system to sound 'fun' and if you don't take the active route,
then I would suggest Dali, Dynaudio or Focal speakers instead of the Kef. ;)

In my opinion, you should build your system around the speakers : go and listen to a few of them (if you haven't already), chose the ones you like, then it will be easy to find correct amplifier and source. :)

[The Vinyl Adventure]

a caiman and a pair of dynaudio bm5a speakers (which i have liked when i heard them) would be within budget at new prices, and would be very "portable"

[Ali Tait]

Check out "Greenhome Electronics" The owner posts here and has a lot of kit at good prices.Worth a look.

[technobear]

The Beresford Caiman has both fixed and variable outputs so is quite capable of driving active monitors.

There are some excellent active monitors in the pro-audio arena at very keen prices. I referenced a few in the 'Budget Active Speaker' thread. Don't be put of by the fact that they have balanced inputs. All you need is a pair of RCA to XLR adaptors and you're good to go. This is certainly a simpler route than messing about with a full size separates amplifier. You get a lot of performance for your money.

The Cambridge Audio and KEF units you mention above would also be fine. Frankly, at this price point you have a huge choice of amps and speakers and there are not many bad ones.

[Will1]

Hello there folks.
I thought I would just send a update now I have bought my gear. I followed the advice given here and it really helped. I went a listened to some monitors but found the sound was just to flat. I played around with various other brands and found like Themis suggested that Kef were more accurate driven and did not really suit my tastes. Eventually I gave up on the portability idea and decided sound quality was my number one criteria.

I Have bought
Dac - V-dac (£144)
Amp - store bought but second hand Roksan Caspian (£300)
Speakers - Monitor Audio RS8 (500)

My only really issue is the DAC the V-dac seems good its just it annoys me a little I did not go for the Beresford Caiman. I am going to buy one this week and see if it offers a noticeable improvement, I spoke to the shop I bought the V-Dac from (action gate audio) they said if I wanted to change they'd refund me the money!
My other wonder was how necessary is it too terminate cable (i bought QED silver anniversary) I did not bother with airlocks but did not want to use bare cable just for easy of moving around so I put some cheap brass plugs on - will this have any serious impact on sound quality?

Finally I am going to buy some okay USB cable not sure if it will make a massive amount of difference but there was some down from 35 to 10 in Superfi the other day so its not exactly a huge gamble if it does nothing.

Finally, although I no expert if anyone is browsing this thread considering buying gear for the first time. My one massive piece of advice is go out and listen to speakers and amps yourself! Browsing the internet magazines you will find hundreds of opinions go out try speakers work out what is it you want and how you like your music too sound. Then come to a decent forum where you ask for some advice.

Thanks for all the help,
Will

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Couple of pointers based on your choices - that qed stuff can easily be beaten I found it vieled my old system, but a lot say it can make bright treble (I think) so if that problem comes up, it might be worth looking toward the cable for a solution.
Secondly, be carfull with positioning them rs8's, I hav installed a good few pairs of them and somtimes if you arnt careful that powerful bass they do can overwhelm

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Also based on the v-dac being warmish I would have thought the caiman would also be more suitable with the rs8's

[Stratmangler]

Hi Will

Do me a favour - DO NOT BUY A USB LEAD FROM AN AUDIO RETAILER. They are ripping you off at £10, never mind £35. Just get a USB2.0 spec cable from any computer seller. Here is a good place to look and get an idea http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Search/Cables/USB-Firewire-Cables/ .

Chris:)

[Will1]

Wow, Hamish you seriously know your stuff. I forgot to add thanks to you before for pointing me towards monitor audio. In terms of treble I have found it can go a bit ott but nothing serious I demod the speakers with a Marantz Pm6003 and then it was more of a problem (using the QED cable as well.) The only reason I went for the QED was because it was the only real choice in the shop and I as I was getting it thrown in at better than half price it seemed a good idea (and to be honest as I able was the last thing to buy I really wanted to get going trying it out!). I have two 8 metre leads at the moment so would not replace them quite yet. However I plan on getting two two metre leads, I'll think I will buy the cable from Mark Grant? you recommend last time.

As for the Bass its not been a massive problem but I have still noticed it can dominate a little, still playing around with the placement (I only set everything up last night and tonight been the first time I have really listen. So'll take it account.

Stratmangler - Noted - I did expect that I would be able to get much cheaper cable from a computer supplier. I just could not work out wht cable would be okay so I had settled on slightly over paying at a HIFI shop. I was thinking of getting this then: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/37782/Vivanco-I-USB-18A-B-1-8m-USB-2-0-Certified

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Did I recomend monitor audio? ... Anyway, no probs, Its just a coicidence that I happen to know about most of your kit in fairlness as we sell monitor audio, the vdac, and qed cables... I also have a caiman :) (you didn't get you kit from a branch of sight2sound did you)
did you have a listen to the rs6's? I prefer them slighly, but a £500 the rs8's are a lot of speaker for the money. We did have one customer that had a pair of rs8's that didn't work for him because of heavy bass, I went out there and with a bit of tweaking we got them sounding just as he liked them ... I have a feeling we just moved them out of corners of the room, but I can't remember for sure. He had bought them based on a slightly unrealistic demo where they had been placed basically in the middle of the room (not by me of course :) )

[Stratmangler]

Stratmangler - Noted - I did expect that I would be able to get much cheaper cable from a computer supplier. I just could not work out wht cable would be okay so I had settled on slightly over paying at a HIFI shop. I was thinking of getting this then: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/37782/Vivanco-I-USB-18A-B-1-8m-USB-2-0-Certified

Should be fine;)

Chris:)

[technobear]

...(i bought QED silver anniversary)...

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ! :doh:

[goraman]

The Music Hall Trio with a music hall 25.2 DAC with Klipsch RB61 speakers.
Best value in new gear for the money.
Used gear is to subjective.Roy Hall gives you the absolute Max. value for the doller or pound.
And the Klipsch at RB61 sounds great with his gear and at 95db.@1 watt. you can fill even the largest rooms.And if you want more bass and 97 DB. the RB 81.a little more money.
good luck in your search,but don't buy before reading reviews on the gear I recomended as I think it's by far the best bang for the buck in new gear and it fits your budget.

SOME GOOD CHOICES

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue39/musichall_trio.htm

OOps to late he bought.


http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&source=hp&q=klipsch+rb+61&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=6729280900383449566&ei=HiGXS_a8LIGKtQPG29zPCA&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCYQ8wIwAg#ps-sellershttp://www.musichallaudio.com/detail.php?p=68

[John]

I think the Mark Grant cables would suit you better a lot of people on the site really like them and good value for money
Give the Caiman a few weeks to settle in It should be a lot better match for you
Hamish is right play around with speaker postion use the manafacture recomendations as a basic guide and then adjust to suit your room it can make a big difference

[goraman]

www.whitezombieaudio.com
look here !
Very cheap for silver in teflon.

[Will1]

Having weighed up all the pros and cons have decided to stick with what I have for now. I decided against directly demoing the Caiman due to the long burn in time it would never have performed fairly in a side by side test.

For now with money quite tight after buying all the gear I will leave stuff but in a month or so I will advertise on various forums (where QED is more popular!) the cable for sale and then buy the Mark Grant. Simarly I will buy a Caiman give it a full burn in period then sell one of the DACs.

The speaker positioning as made siginificant differences, I checked the manual and have adjusted accordingly.

Hamish. You actually pointed me towards dynaudio no monitor audio. I have never been to sight and sound. I actually bought the V-Dac online and everything else in a local HiFi shop 'Searle Audio' (in South Cumbria) I did not try the RS6's but did try some RS 5's, the RS8 sounded significantly better.

Finally, one question how important is terminating cable I just have cheap brass plugs at the moment on the QED. Does it make any significant difference putting something fancier like airlocks on. Whatever I probably will not do anything as I plan on selling the cable but I am still interested.

Thanks again

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Yeah there is only 3 shops, it's just a coincidence that you bought all product that we stock when we only sell about 5 brands of hifi currently.
Sounds like you have a good plan with you kit, glad you funding better results with tweaking your speakers...
The rs5's are a bit limp - I can see why you would do for the 8's them...

[Ali Tait]

Having weighed up all the pros and cons have decided to stick with what I have for now. I decided against directly demoing the Caiman due to the long burn in time it would never have performed fairly in a side by side test.

For now with money quite tight after buying all the gear I will leave stuff but in a month or so I will advertise on various forums (where QED is more popular!) the cable for sale and then buy the Mark Grant. Simarly I will buy a Caiman give it a full burn in period then sell one of the DACs.

The speaker positioning as made siginificant differences, I checked the manual and have adjusted accordingly.

Hamish. You actually pointed me towards dynaudio no monitor audio. I have never been to sight and sound. I actually bought the V-Dac online and everything else in a local HiFi shop 'Searle Audio' (in South Cumbria) I did not try the RS6's but did try some RS 5's, the RS8 sounded significantly better.

Finally, one question how important is terminating cable I just have cheap brass plugs at the moment on the QED. Does it make any significant difference putting something fancier like airlocks on. Whatever I probably will not do anything as I plan on selling the cable but I am still interested.

Thanks again
Hi,I wouldn't worry about what plugs you are using at the moment,it makes very little if any difference to my ears what plugs are used,as long as they are of basically decent quality.I tried some eichmann plugs which are not cheap,and can't hear any difference to other plugs I've used.Mostly snake oil IMO.

[Themis]

Hi,I wouldn't worry about what plugs you are using at the moment,it makes very little if any difference to my ears what plugs are used,as long as they are of basically decent quality.I tried some eichmann plugs which are not cheap,and can't hear any difference to other plugs I've used.Mostly snake oil IMO.
Same opinion here. Any decent plug will do the work. No plugs is even better. ;)

[The Grand Wazoo]

Same opinion here. Any decent plug will do the work. No plugs is even better.

Same here too!
Especially the last bit!!

[Will1]

Having now having been able to give all the gear a full listening. I have got the bass sorted but have got annoying harshness in the treble especially noticeable in acoustic guitar which I listen to a lot (i was already told these speakers suffered from this)
I have decided to accelerate upgrading the cable. Mark Grant Canare seems to be the out and out winner. Yes? also should I consider changing the interconnect 'QED audio 2' and poss the optical 'Wres1st' Is this important. One limitation on the toslink I have to have a cheap converter to a mini toslink? So I can use it with my Mac.

With the interconnects have seen some with quite good discount on Audio T clearance.
http://www.audio-t.co.uk/?section=onlinestore&display=searchresults&specp=all&cat=1003

Any advice useful as always.
Thanks Will

[John]

My advice would be to change all your interconnect cables
As for what each cable is like on the link you supplied I have no idea but remember most people have replaced more expensive cables and been very happy with the Mark Grant
I prefer pure silver myself but thats me

[The Vinyl Adventure]

I would ave thought marks cables will give you more for the money despite the price reductions in audio t...