david ellwood
Kirabosi Kognoscente
Lp12 se Nait and kans
I could easily get away with a Mac and DAC as source
This has been a hard road. Don't skimp the amp/speakers is my best advice.
Streamer/Spotify echoes my approach, I remain in that holding pattern for almost 2 years. Why buy a DAC/NAS when the AEx DAC is so good and streaming services invest millions in failsafe storage? You only need storage for music not yet streamed, in my case I buy Warp/ECM/Tzadik to store locally.
...a word of caution. Expect dead ends based on old habitual thinking. Catastrophic loss may change you physically, mentally, psychologically; you may ping pong through trying to recover, restore, repair, replace and it might might make you very ill, (In my case endocrine failure from hypoxia, lung damage from exposure to toxins and issues/damage from acute CO inhalation resulting in loss of muscle and body mass, consequential depression, PTSD and other things I'm not ready to share. These creep up on you and take time to spot and get a diagnosis and treatment - it doesn't end after the fire.
A preamp is unnecessary when there's volume control on your tablet/phone. The moment you go analogue things rapidly get expensive and nerdy and need space. Racks of gear can be replaced by a fag packet sized streamer of any breed you like: fancy open source? roll your own raspberry pi/hifiberry/volumio, buy an airport express or Sonos or any of the myriad streamers you like the look of and be done with it, it takes a dedicated person to mess things up at this level.
The big question is: can you adapt? The world, technology (and hopefully you) have moved on. The democratisation of high end HiFi continues irrespective.
I could be quite happy with RP3, BrioR, Apollo R, Ela with a nice clean cartridge.
Currently listening to some Elas I picked up on eBay on a nostalgic impulse as a friend's father's LP12/Naim amplification/Ela was my intro to hifi. They are not exactly in perfect nick but may actually be my favourite speakers I've owned and I have previously spent a hell of a lot more on speakers than the £80 they cost me!
Currently listening to some Elas I picked up on eBay on a nostalgic impulse as a friend's father's LP12/Naim amplification/Ela was my intro to hifi. They are not exactly in perfect nick but may actually be my favourite speakers I've owned and I have previously spent a hell of a lot more on speakers than the £80 they cost me!
I am really happy with them, I have been auditioning various speakers recently as none of the ones I owned when we bought this house really worked in the living room. The Linn Majik 109s had been leading the pack, but the Elas are bloody close, so much so that until I A/B them in this room I can't say they're not better! Watching The Dark Knight on BluRay last night they amazed me again (I have a projector and screen, but have so far resisted going multichannel) you might need a sub to make you feel the low bass, but the Elas do a good job of letting you hear it without sounding distorted!
Lovely design and a real shame they aren't still in the Rega range in some form.