Question Amp & Speakers - £1000 budget

Thank you all for your comments - what a great source of knowledge and ideas.
As xmb says, I now need to spend some time in the demo room - looking forward to it..
 
Thank you all for your comments - what a great source of knowledge and ideas.
As xmb says, I now need to spend some time in the demo room - looking forward to it..
Don't try and demo too much in one day. My old brain can only take in a maximum of three units in one sitting. Trust your brain and pick the ones that put the biggest smile on your face. You'll know it when you hear it.
 
Have a look at talk electronics to see if they do anything in budget, I'd never heard of them , I'm not a buyer of new hifi , always bought used , a few months ago I bought a pair of spendor S6e speakers and a marantz CD6006 UK CD player ,when I connected them to my old arcam amp I just sat there with my gob wide open for an hour , spent hours listening to music, something I've not done in years

Then I thought if they sound this good with a 25 year old amp I wonder what they'll be like with a better amp so I bought a icon valve amp but the sound wasn't right , a bit harsh so I sold it and went looking

A talk electronics storm 2 came up on Ebay for £175 , a Google bought a thread up on here with one for sale a couple of years ago with a post from a guy who had one saying how good it was

So purchased, set up and wow, it sounds better than a nthing I've ever had before so the new stuff might be worth a look, one of those companies nobody has ever heard of but they're still going so they must be doing something right
 
Have a look at talk electronics to see if they do anything in budget...
The OP wanted Bluetooth and digital inputs so this rules out Talk Electronics.
 
...my comment about ‘distance and angles’ came from reading the previous posts:
"my listening position was around 15 foot away and they don't work that well at that distance.
I moved the room around and then I was about 12 foot away, still too far.
Move the speakers out and the sofa forward so you are about 8 foot from them and they start to make a lot more sense.
Just something to consider."
and
"The speakers mentioned in this post will all sound good from around 1 metre to 3m listening distance".

There seems to be some confusion regarding listening distances, or maybe a misunderstanding? All speakers have optimum listening conditions but it depends upon many factors and it doesn't necessarily mean the sound will be poor if these conditions aren't met.

Listening distances, speaker spacing, speaker height and angles between both speakers and listener all have a bearing on sound quality. As do several other factors, the most important of which usually being the room acoustics.

Far as I'm aware, the optimum speaker placement for domestic listening apply equally to both active and passive speakers (assuming they are of similar type and size), generally speaking, though there may be the odd exception. However, nearfield active monitors usually sound good close up too (i.e. ~1m) - that's what most were designed for. Some small passive speakers also sound good up close but, IME, some don't.

In most 'average' rooms (whatever average means) there are recommendations for speaker/listener positioning for optimum audio quality but any measurements given are just for guidance. Other rooms and listeners may well prefer different positioning - each to their own. For example, whilst you may wish to listen at a 1m distance to small speakers, you wouldn't get the best sound from a pair of Focal Utopias at that distance.

At the end of the day, you should choose a system type that you feel comfortable with. Great audio isn't the preserve of active speakers. There is no doubt that a well-balanced passive setup can offer great sound too - though probably not quite as good value.
 
Hello,

It's been a long time since I bought new equipment so I consider myself something of a 'newbie' and would appreciate some advice.

I would like to purchase an integrated amplifier that has a phono stage, Bluetooth and digital connections including optical - I am not looking for an AV unit with features that I will not use.

Presently I play mainly vinyl and CD and tend to listen to rock, blues, soul etc with a bit of electronica, but want the option to listen wirelessly from an i-device.
The Hi-Fi is in a modest sized open plan living/kitchen room and unless I wander around I'm seated 3m from the speakers which are 1.7m apart.

I am considering:
Quad Vena II Vena II | QUAD | the closest approach to the original sound 45w @ 8 ohms
- possibly the system pack (on offer) with S-1 speakers.
Audiolab 6000A 6000A | Audiolab | World Class Hi-Fi, DACs, CD Players and Amplifiers 50w @ 8 ohms
Cambridge Audio CXA60 + Blutooth dongle + phono stage 60w @ 8 ohms

Speakers need to be bookshelf and can be a max of 25cm off the wall. As well as Quad S-1 I was
looking at Dali Oberon 1(Sensitivity 86dB, Impedance 6 ohms) or B&W 607 (Sensitivity 84dB, Impedance 8 ohms).

I like the tidy solutions of the Quad and Audiolab but have yet to hear any of these units so these are just starting points.

Any comments on these combinations or any other suggestions? Thank you.
With that budget buy used so you can get good stuff
 
I would suggest adding a subwoofer to some of your ideas with small speakers, as bass will always be limited otherwise, for the styles of music you listen to!
 

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