Advice on Budget System for newbie

I did exactly what S7horton suggested, bought a used Audio Refinement complete for $525 and a slightly used Music Hall CD-25 for $350. I recommend both very highly in that price range and they look great together, if that's important to you. I've used them with Soliloquy 5.0's and Proac Response 1s' and was extremely happy with both setups.

And I third the CD-25 (also known as the Shanling CD-S100)! It's the very best player I know for the money.

I think the other guys' recommendations are excellent, if I may say so. The Audio Refinement gear is very good value IMHO. I'm only chiming in to reply to your question: how much do you divide the budget between amp / CDP / cable ?

My personal answer is, spend all you can on the source.

After all, you will be upgrading again, eventually, won't you? Getting the best source you can means you will be happier with it for longer. The next major effort can be on the amp, because you will still enjoy your source. And the quality you have upstream will be revealed when you upgrade downstream.

Compare that approach with the opposite : a downstream upgrade makes you painfully aware of an inadequate source.

If I were in your shoes, I would consider spending the whole pile on a CD-S100 Mk II, and a cable. I have a review of this player here at Audiogon. But then I have access to the Canadian sources for it ; AFAIK it is not available retail in the U.S. :-(

Canadian Shanling distributor's page

CD-S100 / 100 MkII review

Nevertheless, with all that said, moving from your Nak to a CD-25 and an amp like the Audio Refinement will still make you very happy. Tell us about it, when you get your upgrade home, if you get the chance.

I know this thread is sounding like an ad for the CD-25 but I did want to chime in one more time to reinforce what Tobias is saying. My experience is that, with a limited budget, a dollar spent on the source gets you more improvement than a dollar spent on the amp, cable or speakers. It's not that the others aren't important and you certainly have to find a balance, both sonically and financially, among all of them.

One of the advantages of the CD-25 is that, while it's an exceptional player at its price in stock form, it's easy to make it much better with commonly available ugrades. Spending $50 on a pair of better op-amps that you can easily install yourself takes it to another level of quality entirely. I haven't found any upgrade to the other components that will even come close to matching the improvement for anything like that amount of money.

Again, from my experience in swapping out a lot of moderately-priced components, If you had $800 to spend on a source and amp you'd be much, much better off with, for example, a $600 CD-25 and a $200 entry-level used Rotel integrated amp than with a $600 integrated of any brand and a $200 player.

Cable differences are important but more subtle. It's easy to start with any of the moderately prices ones like Audioquest or DH Labs and experiment as you go.

Sfar what about high end systems? Just Curious what your thoughts are in this area.

Reason I ask is I have a very good class A amp, $3000 monitors but am running this with a $350 CD player.

I have a very good Eastsound player (compares well with $2500+ players) that I should be receiving in the next week.

Upgraded the speakers first and big improvement. Next upgraded the cables then amp both big improvements.

Now curious how much difference a good CDP will make as the final upgrade?

Thanks for your input.

You didn't ask me, Maxxc, but I think the rule is pretty much the same for all systems. The difference is that at the high end, you are not going to have to put up with sound that is actually toxic. Even if you upgrade starting downstream, a true high end source should already be pretty easy to take.

Upgrading is so expensive ( cost of new component plus loss on resale of the old component, minus resale value of the old one ) that it makes sense to plan for the best sound possible at every step. Unfortunately that can mean passing on speakers, for example, while you save for a source. It can be hard to do.

I think you will be delighted with your coming source upgrade, and you will be able to hear it at its best. Imagine if you had upgraded your source first, though. Your amp upgrade would have been double fun!