jasper..... have you considered going up another level..... I would certainly consider having at least one of the current flagships with speakers of that level, but would be onto separate power amps given half a chance. There simply may be insufficient difference between A5 and A1 for you to notice.
Dunky...... im not so much drawing from single experience, rather all round. I havent listened to half the kit some have (i simply dont have the chance in NI) but of all the combos ive heard, the worst are when the amp and speakers are mismatched. In any case, your £1000 speakers were not designed with a £300 amp in mind, so in some respects it is like watching a film in the wrong aspect ratio. Also i restate that i think people here differences and not improvements, i suspect that, taking as an example, a denon A11sr. Run a pair of £300 speakers on the front. Then blindly switch for a different designs, one costing £300 again and the other twice that, i suspect that the listeners will only have slightly better than 50% chance of telling which the more expensive speaker is. Were you to tell them the expensive one was B&W however, while the other was my earlier mentioned MS, they would know what to be listening for and then would pick the B&W because they know how it will sound compared to the MS. Tough one to argue, but i really believe most people with unbalanced amp/speakers are perceiving difference, not improvement.
I have on occasion thought about actives, but im not into these studio things, it might be accurate but im not monitoring, im enjoying. So i choose on enjoyment factor. that said, i like the idea of pmc actives as well as some of the more exotic brands, but that gets to be daft money to get a matched 5.
Nobber..... im actually talking about both stereo and AV. Believe it or not, i do as i preach for both. I have 3 stereo poweramps, each coming in at about twice that of a pair of speakers..... so i have a power amp for the front pair, one for the rear pair and one biamping the centre. The centre is easily the strongest channel and that is with an amp to speaker ratio of 4:1! that doesnt even include processing! So hopefully its obvious that i believe what im saying here!
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