Point me to the best equipment at any price... I'll end up there anyway.

purrybonker

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I have an older Integra (Onkyo) DTR 7 series receiver with B & W FPMs/PV1 and a top-line Sony 46 LCD that I use to dazzle the supermodels that hang at my place. I studied relentlessly when I bought this stuff, but now I'm beginning to think that my equipment has become inadequate.

The Integra and my Toshiba HD box need to go away and be upgraded to HDMI/Blu-ray. The blu-ray topic I think I have a reasonable handle on - buy a PS3 or wait for a bit more maturity for a dedicated player. But I'm just starting on the path to research the audio side of the equation.

With electronics and cars I always get sucked into an "I gotta have that" vacuum as I start gaining knowledge about equipment (that's why I have a PC running Vista 64 and 2 8800 GTXs in SLI - and a Porsche 911S, like I need any of that).

Can anyone save me the trouble and just point me to the best possible audio solution (receiver or separates), at any price, so I can simply rush out and buy it? The only nod to reason should be in relation to the other legacy equipment that I want to keep, like my B & W speakers. Oh, and the new equipment should keep me whole for the longest possible time in terms of forseeable technology changes.

Thanks

Cheers
 
If £72.5k is a bit excessive, you could always go cheap and get one of these.

Seriously mate, you need to specify a budget and what you want to achieve. Is it just for movies or it is music as well? If you've money to burn, get yourself to a decent dealer and tell them that, they'll be only too happy to take your money :D
 
Pics needed, with loaves of bread on the heads of these supermodels. And only 8800 GTX's, you poor man you should have 9800GX2 Quad SLI! :rotfl:
 
There's a lot more to building a decent sounding system that just chucking money at it to get the "best of everything". Acoustics, positioning, integration....blah blah blah

Some first post though!
 
...that I use to dazzle the supermodels that hang at my place
Is this you're home (/lair/shag pad etc) or business?

There's a lot more to building a decent sounding system that just chucking money at it to get the "best of everything".
Yeah of course there is, but not everyone is as interested as us in achieving the best results for our budget. If one is a squillionaire, why not just ask a bunch of geeks like us what the best thing is, and buy it (yes I know it won't actually be the best, but the aim here is to impress super models, not men with beards).

There'll be some flats (although the marketing department may come up with a posher term) on sale in Knightsbridge in the next couple of years, with an estimated price tag of £84 million. To be fair, that is for the nicest ones and not the average price. But if you're the target market for such properties, should you buy the best kit from Curry's or start researching like we do? Neither I hope. Either get (oops, sorry Ms Lumley), 'have' your butler do it, or as you suggested dave, go to a decent dealer and ask them to get you something with wow factor.
 
With unlimited funds, I'd be inclined to:
1. Get a purpose built listening room built, complete with appropriate audio tuning for the room. Get a good group to advise and complete the build on that.
2. At really high prices, personal preference is probably the most important element, followed by system synergy. So you need to get out and see if you would prefer a system using say horns or normal dynamic driver boxes.
If you like horns, you could consider using kit such as valve amps.
For AV, I'm guessing that active speakers would be a good move. Meridian, ATC and similar would be worth checking out. A full Meridian system would probably run to close on £100k.

Good luck and show us the photos as the setup develops.
 
I have an older Integra (Onkyo) DTR 7 series receiver with B & W FPMs/PV1 .......

The only nod to reason should be in relation to the other legacy equipment that I want to keep, like my B & W speakers. Oh, and the new equipment should keep me whole for the longest possible time in terms of forseeable technology changes.

Thanks

Cheers

Personally I would look at some of the following...

Wilson Audio Alexandria speakers...a step up from Wilson's Maxx.
B&W Nautilus
There are lots of others,but these I do rather like.

Amplifiers....Krell Evo series
Boulder 2000 series
And if you like valves....Wavac 833H

You may want to try a decent turntable if you use LPs....Clearaudio Reference will be a decent starter....and you'll need a Koestsu Coral or Lyra Skala to go with that.

You may wish to reconsider keeping your legacy equipment as it will be rather left behind by the best possible solutions irrespective of price,not to mention being vapourised by the power amps.

I suppose you could use them as door stops when the Wilson Alexandria,and the Boulder 2000 series amps or Krell Evos arrive.

Do please bear in mind that with the latter amplifiers,you will need to have your place rewired to accomadate separate 30A lines for each amp,so the supermodels may wish to stay somewhere else during this period.

Also please remember the floor loading if you have either suspended floors or an upstairs room....this system will sound superb,but will add over 1 tonne to your floor,even if you downsize to 2-channel stereo.

The Wavac alone should help make your 911 seem cheap by comparison.

Enjoy.


P.S. joking aside,you really do need to have at least a sensible idea of budget,and also to get the idea out of your head that the most expensive is by definition the best...this is not always true.
If you continue in the realms of hi-fi with that idea it will bleed your wallet dry quicker than you can say "I gotta have that"
 
Is this you're home (/lair/shag pad etc) or business?

Yeah of course there is, but not everyone is as interested as us in achieving the best results for our budget. If one is a squillionaire, why not just ask a bunch of geeks like us what the best thing is, and buy it (yes I know it won't actually be the best, but the aim here is to impress super models, not men with beards).

There'll be some flats (although the marketing department may come up with a posher term) on sale in Knightsbridge in the next couple of years, with an estimated price tag of £84 million. To be fair, that is for the nicest ones and not the average price. But if you're the target market for such properties, should you buy the best kit from Curry's or start researching like we do? Neither I hope. Either get (oops, sorry Ms Lumley), 'have' your butler do it, or as you suggested dave, go to a decent dealer and ask them to get you something with wow factor.

Some excellent responses, I would have expected no less - exactly why, after following a number of threads, I picked this forum to "ask around".

I was being somewhat facetious in my initial post and I've overstepped a bit. This is my home system that's used 99.9% of the time for TV/Movies (supermodels are easily distracted whilst I scrounge the cupboards for viagra fragments). But I do want the system to be there for me when I want to pop in some Fela Kuti or Prince.

I live in one of the most expensive real estate jurisdictions in the world and despite my arrogance, am limited to a large extent in terms of space and to some extent in terms of willingness to spend. I'm in a flat with no luxuries like "dedicated audio/video rooms". In fact the living area is chock-full of lousy acousitics - bare bamboo and glass predominate. But I do have the compensation of a great view from bed or sofa - bonus points if anyone can identify where I am.

It would make no sense to spend huge bucks - let's keep it to under 10k euros for a receiver or components shall we? And remember, I want to keep my B & W's and the Sony LCD, at least for the time being.
 

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I don't see any loaves of bread yet..
 
If £72.5k is a bit excessive, you could always go cheap and get one of these.

Seriously mate, you need to specify a budget and what you want to achieve. Is it just for movies or it is music as well? If you've money to burn, get yourself to a decent dealer and tell them that, they'll be only too happy to take your money :D

Yamaha DSP Z11 - interesting, I'll use this as the starting point. Thanks!

I'm really scared of the dealers - because I know enough to know what I don't know and I hate being patronized and feeling financially abused. I have the 911S (sorry - it's just a good analogy) - but I got the best deal on that 911S and it has the best equipment because I took the time to research the heck out of it, as I did when I bought the Integra DTR 7.2

It does get tedious to have to become a bit of an expert solely for the brief time it takes to make a purchase decision. Those porsches and supermodels are more my thing.
 
Only poor people buy AV amps. If you're soooo rich you'd get av processor and 21 Krell Monoblocs (tri-amping each speaker)
 
...
I was being somewhat facetious in my initial post and I've overstepped a bit. .....

I live in one of the most expensive real estate jurisdictions in the world and despite my arrogance, ......

It would make no sense to spend huge bucks - let's keep it to under 10k euros for a receiver or components shall we? And remember, I want to keep my B & W's and the Sony LCD, at least for the time being.

Seriously.....and speaking as a mod here,I would suggest that the best way for you to get good advice,from one of the biggest resources of experience and information around,is to leave the self-confessed arrogance at the door.
Many members here have systems that run to budgets rather beyond that contemplated here.

It's irrelevant to have it foisted on members that you live in an expensive area,or drive a Porsche.....what is of far more use,and has eventually come to light,is that you live in a flat,with a bright acoustic environment,and despite a budget of £8k/10Keuros,you still want to use a speaker system that will seriously limit the results.

You really do need to think seriously about this or you will waste your money.
 
Please tell me this post is a joke...

I expect it may be....but will give it a try nonetheless in the hope that it may simply be a misinformed post.
 
Trying to start off with a bit of humour there, I've obviously missed my mark. Appologies.

Ok, let me start again. The a/v environment is modern-minimalist and is acoustically compromised - lots of hard angular surfaces and varied viewing/listening angles and distances. It is a mixed-use living area where arranging even the FPMs in a proper 6.1 array is a bit of a challenge.

The FPMs were selected because of their visual/ergonomic compliance with the Sony LCD and surroundings and seem competent for TV/DVD viewing although I find them quite "bright" for listening to music.

If there are better alternatives to the B & Ws I'd be interested, but my primary objective is obtaining HDMI interfaces and some future-proofing in a new receiver.
 

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