This system has evolved over 36 years. The PIoneer tuner was purchased in 1972. The Infinity RS1B was purchased in 1985. The VTL Deluxe 300 replace a Conrad Johnson Premier 5. The Spectral DCM 20 replaced a Audio Research SP 11 which replaced a SP 10. The Cosmos IV replaced a Star Saphire. The Titan i replaced a 5 year old Lyra Titan. The SME V was purchased when that arm first came out. The last addition was the Hovland Music Grove 2 phono cable which replaced the VDH cable which came with the SME V. The room is custom built and measures 32 long, by 10' high and 17 feet wide with a sky light over the equipment side of the room. Custom built record cabinets line one wall. The TV and equipment stands are custom made of 1 1/2" particle board with a laminate finish. I keep looking for a replacement for the RS1B without spending $150,000 but so far I have not found anything with the bass and dynamic response of the RS1B. This is a vinyl system but the TV in incorporated into it for two channel use. I gave up on the 5 channel system since the extra 3 channels degraded the sound quality.
I use this for Blue ray, dvd and cds. I do not like cds thus no big buck player. I have tried many and have decided the best cd player is no cd player.
The Spectral DMC20 is compatible with the Cardas interconnects and the VTL tube amps and the Perreux bass amps. You should talk to a Spectral dealer about your specific questions. It is my understanding that a miss match between the preamp, amp a and cable can cause the amp to oscillate. Spectral may talk to you directly but they usually want you to go through a dealer with questions.
I was surprised how much difference the Hovaland phono cable made in the smoothness of the system. Whenever I am in NY I stop by Lyric HiFi and listen to their big system which does sound better than the RS1Bs, but as Mike Kaye said to me "you cannot change the law of physics" by which he meant that you must move a lot of air to accurately reproduce low frequencies. There is no inexpensive way to do that and most of todays speakers do not even try to reproduce the bottom octave of sound.
