Thanks to several of you, who helped me figure out a new system. As promised, here some "baby pictures", and a few comments/observations. Thorens 203 TT is on backorder, so will have to wait a bit on adding it. To give you a bit of an idea on the room, it is not a "listening room" but a home office as seen with the fisheye view. On left in fireplace is are the components, a bit more towards right near the terrarium is the first speaker, in the other corner between the bookshelves is the second speaker.
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System now is a Furman line conditioner, an old Marantz 6600 CD/DVD player, a new Rotel 1572, and a new Sonos Connect, going to new Bower & Wilkins CM6 (got a good deal on a floor model) connected via Cardas 101 speaker cables with Audioquest banana plugs. Speaker stands filled with sand.
As I don't want to put components into a rack, I put some spacers between the three components to get more air flower and heat dissipation going. WARNING, those blue pads will leave a blue stain on light wood. Left a couple of those blocks for a week sitting on my desk and now have a "nice" blue square on my new butcher block work bench (Grrr). However, I also wonder whether the spacers are necessary at all. With components in the open, there is much more airflow than with components in a rack. Amp is on top, as it gets hottest. The more uncommonly used CD player in middle to isolate it from any electric fields from line conditioner.
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I splurged a bit for the speaker cable, about 70 feet of Cardas 101. I did a comparison listen between that and a 4x gauge 14 cable, and the Cardas was a tad cleaner. Would not have thought that speaker cables make a difference at that level. Hey, still learning ...
I got a loaner Audioquest Cinemaquest Cinnamon digital coax. Compared it to a hand-me-down entry Tributaries (blue) cable, and can not notice an iota of difference either from CD player or from Sonos Connect. Not terribly surprising, as I have a hard time figuring out how 1's and 0's could be affected by cable quality.
Tried also connecting CD player and Sonos with Tributaries blue RCA cables. From Marantz 6600 to CD in it was noticeable, but from Sonos Connect to Aux it was night and day. OMG! Just dead flat sound with RCA. The 1572 ADC is leagues above the others.
Also tried the tributaries blue RCA vs. cheapo RCA cables (the black plastic 99c or so from Radio Shack), and there is definitively a difference.
Sonos Connect software works quite well and has a nice desktop interface. Took a bit of googling to figure out how to import playlists from iTunes. So far so good, and I think I only scratched the surface ...
Setting up the Rotel RA 1572 was pretty straight forward at first after figuring out that optical ≠ digital coax (duh!). I did a bit of tonal adjustment with Bass and treble +3 (= fake loudness). Because my usual sitting position is near the fireplace, also adjusted balance a bit towards right. Bass is sufficient, so have not bothered to hook up the hand-me-down Paradigm PDR8 sub. The dimming options of the LED and display are very nice.
However, then I ran into difficulties, trying to get the Rotel 15 app going on my iPhone 10.
First one has to set up an IP address on the 1572. Figured out that the 1572 has to be plugged in straight into a router. Tried first to use the second ethernet port on a Sonos connect to get the 1572 daisy-chained to my LAN, but the 1572 did not like that. Eventually I got it to do a DHCP set-up.
Next tried to check for firmware update. Current version is 2.59. No idea whether that is latest or not. However, the 1572 could not find the server to check or newer version. Not sure whether that is also a problem with daisy chaining or whether Rotel has a server problem. Does anybody have intel on dasychaining a Rotel? May have to get another long Cat7 cable to the 1GB router just to be on the safe side.
Soundwise, it sure delivers! Room is easily filled with sound at volume 35/95. And sound is just "there". Soundstage is possibly not as nice as in dedicated listening position, but plenty of structure in the sound. Noticed something strange. When switching to CD or Tuner, which have no input, no connected cables at all (!), and turning volume up to max, the digital Coax signal can be heard faintly through speakers. The other input selectors (phono, XLR, USB, Opt1/2) are silent at max volume. Wonder whether that is a design flaw, or a product defect. It does not seem that this is as it should be.
Where to go from here? The Thorens 203 will be fun. Also got a Project VCS II record cleaner (between tripods on lower bookshelf). Given that the stock phono cartridge on the 203 is rather low brow, I suspect that the phono cable is also not the highest rated version. As the phono signal is the weakest analog signal, it may be most affected by cable quality, even with a higher voltage MM cartridge (Ortofon blue). Any recommendations what might be a sensible choice here?
The missus "complained" a bit about the sound penetration from the CM6s through the house. So thinking about headphone amp. I prefer in-ear and have a pair of B&O, which I actually like quite a bit. Not sure whether the headphone out on the 1572 will be sufficient, or whether a dedicated can-amp may make a lot of difference. Have to see where I can demo listen some can-amps.
So too much for now.