Upgrading my Linn set up HELP advice please

P.S. you asked about an AA DAC, and again my advice is to get the very best you can squeeze out of your wallet. IMHO you need to do more research on DACs before you choose one. You may do better with a two-box upgrade, but OTOH you may not. (A tip: if you do go for a DAC, try to find an Apogee DA1000E if you can.) However, if I were you, I would not let the appearance of a deal on a possibly-interesting DAC distract me from my main search now, which is for a preamp. You will not recognize your system once you have found that.

tobias......you said i may want to look where else if i want a better system for the sort of money i have....
i hate to be nieve but could you lead me in a direction there.
obviously i could spend my money wiser elsewhere as it takes a lot of money to fuel a linn system.
could you maybe recomend a cd player,intergrated amp and stand mount speakers in the mid price range....
cheers guys
lot of help

Well, take Lugnut's advice and try to find a Supratek Syrah. That's the elsewhere I was thinking of.

As for an integrated... if it were me looking, I'd want to hear an Audiomat (French), or for less money, a Cayin or HIT Audio (Chinese). These are tube machines with around 30 wpc depending on the model. If I preferred solid state and maybe more watts I'd want to hear Vecteur, YBA (both French), a SimAudio (Canadian like me) or a Shanling SLM-40 (Chinese). But I don't know... the Pretek / Powertek is good equipment and replacing your Pretek with a Syrah might cost no more than any of these options and give yousound just as good, with an easy upgrade to the amp later on.

It's hard to be asked to recommend a whole system. I don't know what kind of sound you like. I had a Shanling CD-T100 player (about $2G) that I liked a lot, and in Canada you can get two other Shanlings which are equally good value for money at lower price points. As for monitors, I'm listening to an Aurum Cantus Leisure 2 pair at the moment and they're very nice. I would also be interested in Harbeth's current LS 3/5A-type, and a long time ago I heard the Totem Model 1 and enjoyed it, but it needs lots of power.

It's a pleasure and a compliment to be asked for advice and I respect any naive person who has the courage to say so.

that canadian hifi is very good stuff.
when i went home to the uk in 2002 i went to an audio show in london,they had a Sim Audio Moon set up....a cd player into a intergrated running into an expensive pair of tannoys (believe it or not)...
the sound was unreal!! the speakers absolutly dissapeared,it sounded like the sound was coming from the walls or was it the air? it was just around me...Weird!!!!!
beutifull sounding and very good looking kit.

Yes, I've heard that effect from Moon equipment before. You feel that you are in a room with invisible musicians. Reminds me of a passage in, I think, the Morte d'Arthur: Galahad or Percival, in the Grail castle, hears celestial music from an unknown source.

It's certainly very pleasant not to be distracted from the music by the audio gear. My own system is getting that way now too, I'm happy to say, so the Holy Grail of great music from invisible artists can be achieved with stuff from other manufacturers too.