wulbert
pfm Member
I've been trying to visualise what my next hi-fi system will be. Last night I sort of "impulse" bought a Rega IO amplifier. I saw a picture and thought the size was exactly what I want and reviews seemed positive.
My priorities are:
Small, streaming capable (so that I can find new music, and my wife will use it), keeps residual value, fairly cheap, future-proof, sounds "relaxed", "smooth", "warm","musical" etc (whatever all that means). I'd like to be able to use headphones too. Not immediately, but maybe once we move house and I can set up my Old Man's Chair-Space somewhere. ( I have a pair of Sennheiser DT770's 250 ohm)
Total budget around £700 - £1k (what I got selling off some other gear). The Rega IO was £330.
I was thinking of an ifi ZEN One Signature DAC, Hub thing to handle the digital stuff (£350)?
I already have a Cambridge Audio CD4 SE (£70) I bought a few weeks ago. Also have a pair of KEF LS50's (too hard for the Rega io to drive?) and a 1980's pair of KEF Carlton 2's that I like but have no wife approval and have been mainly stored since I bought them. Even the LS50's she says are "too big". So one or both pairs of speakers may be getting sold.
I'm thinking of putting the system in the kitchen where I can listen to music whilst cooking and tasting beer. Will investigate soon if the LS 50's will sit on top of the kitchen cabinets or somehow be able to be hidden away. Maybe sell them for smaller bookshelf speakers?
Ideally I'd like a half-size CD player to fit the whole system on the kitchen cabinet bookshelves. I was attracted to some ancient TEAC CD players but they are getting very old. Seems to be a dearth of small, good, affordable CD players/transports...why are they so effing big? The CD4 SE only occupies half of it's box and is mostly fresh air inside.
Any thoughts/comments? (I realise this is a garbled mess of ideas with no real direction....welcome to my life)
My priorities are:
Small, streaming capable (so that I can find new music, and my wife will use it), keeps residual value, fairly cheap, future-proof, sounds "relaxed", "smooth", "warm","musical" etc (whatever all that means). I'd like to be able to use headphones too. Not immediately, but maybe once we move house and I can set up my Old Man's Chair-Space somewhere. ( I have a pair of Sennheiser DT770's 250 ohm)
Total budget around £700 - £1k (what I got selling off some other gear). The Rega IO was £330.
I was thinking of an ifi ZEN One Signature DAC, Hub thing to handle the digital stuff (£350)?
I already have a Cambridge Audio CD4 SE (£70) I bought a few weeks ago. Also have a pair of KEF LS50's (too hard for the Rega io to drive?) and a 1980's pair of KEF Carlton 2's that I like but have no wife approval and have been mainly stored since I bought them. Even the LS50's she says are "too big". So one or both pairs of speakers may be getting sold.
I'm thinking of putting the system in the kitchen where I can listen to music whilst cooking and tasting beer. Will investigate soon if the LS 50's will sit on top of the kitchen cabinets or somehow be able to be hidden away. Maybe sell them for smaller bookshelf speakers?
Ideally I'd like a half-size CD player to fit the whole system on the kitchen cabinet bookshelves. I was attracted to some ancient TEAC CD players but they are getting very old. Seems to be a dearth of small, good, affordable CD players/transports...why are they so effing big? The CD4 SE only occupies half of it's box and is mostly fresh air inside.
Any thoughts/comments? (I realise this is a garbled mess of ideas with no real direction....welcome to my life)