I was able to put together this budget system which has been evolving slightly during the last couple years (previous pieces include B&K st140 amp, arcam alpha 5 integrated, a nad and a rotel dvd player using athena (great bang for the buck) and psb speakers. All pieces were bought either from Audiogon or ebay.
I recently bought a v-dac from Musical Fidelity and I just started to feed my uncompressed music through airport express from itunes on my iMac. Sound quality is really close to what I get when using my arcam cd player but with the convenience of having all my music just one click away plus I can use my iphone as a remote control.
I listen to mostly classical and jazz music, as well as some rock & pop.
Any comments/suggestions are very welcome and appreciated.
Thanks to everyone for your kind words. I'm sorry I have been away for so long. I didn't realized there have been some comments posted on my system. Dmloring: Thanks for your recommendations, I will definitely try the speedbox for my turntable as you suggested.
I like your system. A few years back I bought an Arcam CD73 that I still love and use in my system. Very musical. The dealer I bought the Arcam from also sold Dynaudio and I felt that they paired well together. It seems you recently entered (or re-entered) the vinyl world as I have. I purchased a Music Hall MMF 2.2. If you wish to improve your turntable, I highly recommend purchase the speedbox II. Remarkable improvement in clarity and timing. A dedicated phono amp is another great upgrade. For a cheap improvement, I'd recommend investing in some vibration isolation for your CD player and turntable. I've found that even inexpensive sound isolation devices, like Vibrapods/Vibracones, result in significantly lower noise and more refined bass.
