I m just getting started building my first hi-fi (or mid-fi dependng on your perspective) stereo, and its been a blast so far.
My budget was around $2000 and since I purchased everything used I was able to stay well within my budget, and I was very close to achieving all of my goals. I really wanted a system that could reproduce music with a wide dynamic range with tonal accuracy and neutrality/transparency. Since I have a large collection of lossless DVD-A quality (24 bit 96khz) music stored on a PC I was very concerned with having the ability to take a digital output from a PC soundcard at 24/96 resolution. I also wanted to stay away from a tube based steup because I was going to also use the system as apart of my home theatre, and I didn't want to have to be replacing tubes constantly.
So far Im satisfied with everything. Although I think I missed the mark a little on the neutraility/transparency side of things. The JMLabs are a fine speaker, but I'd certainly classify the them as a bright. It's an interesting brightness though. It's not an over bearing/fatiguing sound but rather a very clean and crisp top end sound that is rare amongst all of the cheap gear I've ever owned. So at first I wasn't totally satisfied with the sound, but as my ears are adjusting I find myself enjoying it more and more. I find myself noticing a lot of things in the top end that I never heard before.
The mambo is an amazing amplifier for the price, especially if you pick one up used. The built in DAC is actually very nice and does a nice nob of handling the 24/96 FLAC files on my PC. At 50W I was afraid it would be underpowered, but it is certainly got enough juice for my needs.
I actually love the sound of this setup on vinyl even with my super cheap sony table. The warmth of vinyl really evens the whole sound out and IMO nails the neutral/transparent sound I was going after. I know my next step is to add a nice TT setup. Im considering either a music hall or rega TT, and I'm considering something along the lines of the Bellari VP129 Tube Phono Preamp.
any other suggesstions for TT, phono stages, in that price range would be great.
Features: 24-bit/96kHz Upsampling Crystal CS8420 sample rate converter w/Burr-Brown PCM1738 DAC. Processes all standard digital audio signal rates from 32kHz to 96kHz Digitally-controlled analogue audio volume control IC by Texas Instruments, PGA 2311 The highest performance available today 50 watt/channel class A amplifier Robust 600 Watt specially designed power transformer 6 pairs of K1529/J200 MOS-FET output transistors Two digital inputs: 1 optical/1 coaxial 5 analog inputs 5-way insulated gold binding posts High quality gold input jacks Full remote-control operation Heavy-duty detachable power cord.
Pioneer Elite DV-45A
universal audio/video player.
Features DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, SACD, CD, VCD, CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, and MP3 playback
192kHz/24-bit Burr-Brown audio DACs
Canare 4S11 bi-wire speaker cables
14 awg cable star quad design
Sony PSLX-430
cheapo turntable that I've had since I started collecting vinyl in college. hoping to replace this soon with something that will really do my vinyl justice.
I love your Computer server for your music. I am looking into building a hot swap genre music server system myself. Glad to see you did it well already. The Belari is great for your phono, but don't be afraid to roll tubes, because ultimately you will get the sound you really want. You may want to look into some of the Rega,Project,Music Hall turntables to get more out of your vinyl, and it won't kill the bank.
I like your system. A power conditiner might soften some of that brightness you're talking about. I'm on a budget, too, so I just bought a Belkin surge supressor to hold me over, and I was very surprised at the effect it had on the overall musicality of my system.
