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How to upgrade in pieces - or - tell me about your journey!

Hello

I am getting started on my journey into Hifi here and I would be willing to spend about 10k over the course of a couple of years to get my system from where it is today to something a step or two above. I intend for my system to always be a stereo system at heart and also for it to stay all digital (no intention of tape, tuner or vinyl - or eveb a CD player).

My current systems is a Sonos playing Tidal or lossless FLAC files from a NAS drive. The audio outputs of the Sonos get connected to a Jolida JD-202A which is a 40W class AB tube integrated. The speakers are Energy floorstanders.

I am happy for how the system sounds with a limited number of things - such as vocal heavy folk or classic rock (pre-70s) recorded in mono. It sounds integrated across the drivers with no one element of the speaker standing out. The soundstage is narrow, but the imaging is not bad.

Unfortunately, a vast majority of the music I listen to includes
  • A lot of baroque music. So the orchestra sizes are relatively small, but the vocals and melody lines are very nimble and need to be easy to follow for the counterpoint to show.
  • modern electronic music - not dance floor fillers - but more experimental stuff ranging from IDM (Autechre, Chris Clark, Squarepusher) to ambient (Brian Eno, Max Richter)
  • A good bit of classic jazz from the Miles Davis, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Herbie Hancock school.
  • Lots of modern pop & rock - including bands like Wilco, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Sufjan Stevens, The National, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead who include pretty much whatever the hell they want in their music.
My goals are to get a cohesive & well-integrated sound with lots of growl in the lower frequencies and a lots of treble with no "heat" or sizzle to give that sense of extreme clarity. Imaging & dynamics are more important than a massive soundstage, though I would like off axis sound to not be completely unlistenable so that me & a couple of friends can all sit or stand by the couch and enjoy the music. I am much more interested in clear, fast and articulate bass and to have that which exists have power rather than the speaker trying to reproduce things they are going to do a terrible job at. I am happy to supplement my speakers with a JL or REL sub in the future.

So based on wanting to hear the clarity I hear in my headphones (HD650 with a headphone amp) with a similar amount of articulate bass, I want to upgrade my main stereo system in pieces. I want to go about it in the following fashion, knowing that there will be times in the middle of the process where the system will be less than ideal.

  • First, purchase a DAC (looking at the Ayre Codex) & start feeding the Sonos output through that into the amplifier.
  • Second, upgrade the speakers. I am looking to eventually end up with fairly high power solid state, so I am considering the Revel F206 or F208 speakers. I know they will fail to deliver much with my amp and be on the quiet side, but I hope that once I swap out the amp, they will start to sing.
  • Third, find a power amp that can do at least 200W into 8 ohms. Perhaps the Bryston 4BSST2, Plinius, Parasound A21 or Benchmark power amp. Or maybe even a Mcintosh 402. Connect the DAC-pre directly into it via XLR to drive the speakers.
  • Fourth, replace the sonos with a Aurelic Aeries Mini and use the USB out of that device into the Ayre Codex as I hear that it makes a much better sound.
  • Lastly, consider putting a pre-amplifier into the path if necessary and I need expansion options (or if the sound quality of the dac suffers badly due to chopped off bits at low volumes)

So my final system would likely look like

Aurelic Aeries (Mini) -> Ayre Codex DAC -> (Ayre Pre-amp) -> Bryston/Parasound/Plinius/Benchmark/Mcintosh amp -> Revel Performa 3 F208.

I expect this whole process to last me about a couple of years.

Does this sound like a journey worth embarking upon? Anything there that sounds to like it would be a really dumb idea?
badri
jl35
4,136 posts
 
Have you listened to all of the components you mention?
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,610 posts
 
What model Energy floorstanders specifically?

Also please describe room.   How big, dimensions, any special features that might affect acoustics.

What are you not getting with the bass currently compared to your goal?

If it were me, I'd start with getting the bass effortless and sounding good.  That's the hardest part.  Poor bass can obscure other things that might be heard otherwise.   Or speakers may not be capable of producing enough bass in a larger room alone.

Then tweak the other details.  DAC upgrade might be a good idea but not until speaker/room acoustics sound right as is.  

A 40 watt tube integrated should do a decent job in up to a modest size room with most speakers but to optimize things you might need speakers that can go louder and clearer off 40 tube watts, especially for the modern electronic music.  Or a different amp.  Or add powered subs to what you have.   Many ways to skin the cat effectively.


badri OP
69 posts
 
@jl35 I have heard the codex alone in isolation, yes. Also, the speakers (the revel f208). That is why those pieces I am more certain of - and for everything in the future, I have names and lists and ideas more than clearly identified pieces.

What I was really looking for feedback on is if the path seems like a reasonable one to take, given I don’t have a ton of cash to spend right now buying the whole rig (even if I knew all the exact pieces I wanted, which I don’t).

So based on that, I wanted to know what any of the experienced folks on here thought of this approach.

For example, I know that the Revel speakers will need a WHOLE lot more power than my amp to sound good. So while I am running them with my existing amp, I will need to make sure I don’t attempt to drive the amp too hard and hurt the speakers by clipping.

So I am looking for guidance/warnings/gotchas along those lines - or maybe your own experiences on how you built your system piece by piece.
jl35
4,136 posts
 
I like the idea of starting with speakers. Sometimes when buying used, the buying order can be determined by finding a good deal.  You have certainly picked good stuff, though need to make sure they all work well together, which is the hard part...
badri OP
69 posts
 
@mapman I do not know exactly which speakers they are since I got them second hand from a friend who was disposing off stuff from his basement. ;) They look almost exactly like the C-300 images that I can see online.

They have one mid-range/woofer driver and 1-tweeter. I cannot find any other 2-way, 2-driver floorstanding designs in the current Energy lineup, so I can only assume that it is the discontinued C-300.

The room is roughly 13'x13'. So overall around 150~160sq ft. However, it has two doors that open out into a bedroom and a kitchen - both of which are large spaces which are about 160sq ft and 150sq ft respectively. The door to the kitchen, at least, is always open. The speakers will be about 2 ft from the back wall and about 3 ft from side walls.

The bass as it stands just feels muffled and plods along like a someone is plopping a giant bag of sand every time there is a kick-drum in the recording. With deep basslines, I expect to hear clarity, growl and movement and instead I head muffled thuds. The whole things just seems to move like it has heavy chains tied to it's feet.

This is why I want the speakers to produce the bass that they do clearly, with speed and slam. What they do not want to produce, I will be happy to augment with a good sub in the future.
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