Total rebuild of the system, I've settled on the components listed above.
The Classe CP-35 with the Arcam Delta 120.2 produces a warm sound which really suits my musical taste (classical).
The Mark Levinson No.36s DAC was a surprising find on my local used market. An excellent DAC, both my PC and DVD player are hooked up to it. Since all my music is stored on the PC in FLAC lossless format, the Levinson enables my PC to act as a convenient transport.
I'm absolutely loving the Totem Hawks combined with the sealed Energy S12.3, even the most demanding orchestral pieces sounds detailed from top of the frequency range to bottom.
New pictures are coming, as soon as I move into my new place early January.
Totem Hawks, these sounded absolutely amazing when I auditioned them with a Simaudio I-7
Levinson No 36s
Awesome DAC despite its age.
Classe CP-35
This is an old preamp, but I really do enjoy its sound combined with the Arcam.
Arcam Delta 120.2
The warm sound of this little dual mono amp really won me over. Capable of pushing 150+wpc into 4ohms, more than enough power to make the hawks really sing.
Pioneer DV-45A
A decent DVD player and universal player (plays DVD-A and SACD). I occasionally use it to play some CD's.
Energy S12.3
Surprisingly good cheap 12" powered sub from Energy. I used a pair of foam plugs to seal the 2 bottom ports, really seems to help the quality of the bass.
Nice job on the Hawks. They are a demanding speaker but they reward you with amazing sound. They aren't super demanding like the forests, or the Mani-2's, but demanding nontheless. They need a good solid state amp to drive them well. Forget about tubes, the Hawks are already warm sounding and they need more control than most tube amps can offer. Honestly, they will sound o.k. with a minimum 125watt high current amp, but I still reccomend more power. Like 200 watts plus really makes them clean sounding. They'll sound fine with a really good integrated of 120w+, but you really won't know what they can do until you put some big clean power to them. I've got more power on mine than most people need, but I can't even begin to tell you how good they sound. A Parasound A21 will do very nicely though.
