Creek Destiny Integrated vs. Current Aragon System

Dear Jhold,

I, as you suggested followed-up on the Naim Nait 5i integrated. Everywhere I looked, this little number was receiving fantastic reviews. Has anyone else heard this amplifier? Opinions compared to the Creek or Ayre?

My quest continues. Thank you all for the help!

Buy a used Nait 5i for a good price on Audiogon (they have been going for ca. $850 - 950 depending on condition). Treat it well. If you don't like it, you can sell it at minimal loss. These amps hold their value, for good reason.

You might also go to the Naim forum. You will need to register to search but it's easy to do. Not all posters to the forum are proselytizers for Naim -- you can usually get opinions from a variety of perspectives. Here's the URL (substitute period for [dot]):

http://forums [dot] naim-audio.com/eve

I had a Naim 5i for several months. Wish now that I would never have sold it in my jumping around testing different amps. It has a very immediate yet natural sound for a solid state piece. It was connected to Talon Peregrine X Mark II speakers and made great sound just short of the better tube units I have had. The Talons are simply fantastic speakers that allow you to get super fast and down to 20 hz bass with 95 db efficiency and a coherency throughout the frequency spectrum that makes other Dynamic Speakers (I still admire the Advantgard Duos and Trios) sound broke. Prior to the Talons I had B&w 801 series 3 for 8 years. They needed oceans of power to gain control over them. Never again will I buy speakers that hold you hostage to power hog amps that do NOT have the immediate, delicate, fast and detailed sound a smaller amp with simpler circuit can buy you.

I've used a Aragon 24K (P&G volume, improved PSU) for a couple of years and was pretty happy with it. Then I bought an Audio Research LS-2 preamp and realised that the Aragon wasn't as good as I thought and had been holding back the potential of the system for a long time. So I suggest to try some other preamps in your system and listen if you hear any improvement. The 4004 seems to be pretty good, so I'd hold on to that. That being said, any older (power)amp might benefit from some TLC. Have the caps checked and replaced if necessary, adjust the bias etc. That might improve things as well.

Thank you, Satch. I have the exact same Aragon preamp you have described. Others have suggested Tube amplification as an option for improved musicality. Perhaps a tube preamp may give me some of that "Tube Magic", that is if my 4004 can reproduce, with some accuracy, the sonic qualities of a tube preamp.

Anyone with some additional thoughts on this? Does a decent preamp exist for around 2K? Is a tube or hybrid a good idea, or should I stick with a better SS connected to my 4004?