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$800 to spend on speakers, $1500 on whole system

I am new to community and am seeking advice on my first good sound system. I am looking to spend $500-800 on a used set of two speakers for my living room, which is not very large. I cannot decide between bookshelf speakers or a floor speaker. I will be listening mostly to digital music, and I could use recommendations on a DAC and receiver. I would like the receiver to be bluetooth if high quality receivers come with this feature, but that's not a deal breaker for me.

My Ideal system would have two speakers at $500-800 and with receiver, DAC, cables, and anything else I would need totaling around $1200, but $1500 maximum. I figured I would start with speakers and go from there.

I like to listen to most music, except rap. Heavy metal, funk, jazz. Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks

pawadalla
chrshanl37
835 posts
 
The peachtree gear sounds pretty good I had the original Nova and liked it better than some other entry level integrateds. Having the on board dac is a nice feature as well. If I were going to build a system in that price range I would look into a used Nova pre and pair it with some active monitors from Adam.

pawadalla OP
10 posts
 
Great suggestions. Thank you. 
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
Those are some good suggestions too. Personally I favor new DACs because USB DAC technology continues to develop rapidly along with decoding of higher sampling rates available at lower prices.
chrshanl37
835 posts
 
How do the dacs in the nova pre and the nova 65 se differ in their ability to handle higher sample rates? They are both asynchronous usb dacs.  

marktomaras
544 posts
 
I agree with the peach tree recommendations. I had a decco in my office driving a pair of very modest PSB bookshelf speakers, and the combo was great. I had my computer plugged into the peachtree unit via USB.  The Nova is even better.  

There is a refurbished nova 65se on eBay for $699.  I would jump on that.

http://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/321936858478

Get a $95 transparent performance USB cable, and you have $700 for speakers & cable.  A short run of audioquest type 4 is a nice budget cable, far better than basic cable, and that should run $100.

for $600 speakers, I would look at these Totems:

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/monitors-totem-acoustics-model-1-2016-02-06-speakers-33434-boca-ra...

Good Luck!
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