YW, lawlass (perhaps an attorney of the female persuasion?).
Unless I missed something, you will also need a pre-amp (with phono
stage if you want to spin vinyl) to switch sources and control volume. Rather than drop $1K on a CDP, I would go with a music streamer. Neal Van Berg of Sound Science is in Castle Rock, I think, and he often has trade-ins. His Music Vault streamers are set up to rip CDs and also can access streaming services like Tidal, Roon, Spotify, etc. They store the files with an auto-back-up and I think they sound fantastic. I've been a customer for about 10 years now and cycled through 2 upgrades to my original unit. Very pleased with his products and first rate support via phone, email and log-me-in.
B&W 801 vintage speakers in small space
I have vintage 801s (1979) powered by a similarly aged Stasis II, both still awesome with no service issues. All of my other components are history. I have downsized to smaller space, with an open great room listening space of no more than 1000 square feet and need to revamp my system. Seeking suggestions for whether I should trade for something else or complete my system building on these. What other components should I consider? I am a novice here, just love the sound these old friends produced, even bi-amped with my old Beomaster and Beogram (both long gone). I need and welcome advice.
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Lawlass, in the event that you prefer a CD player rather than an approach such as the one Michael (Swampwalker) suggested above, among a great many possibilities in the listings of used players that are presently being offered for sale here the one that particularly catches my eye is the following listing for an Ayre CX-7eMP. Although the $1595 asking price exceeds your stated budget somewhat, you would be getting what was originally a $3950 component produced by a company that is extremely well regarded not only for the quality of its products but also for its support, should a problem ever arise with the unit which would make that necessary. https://www.audiogon.com/listings/cd-sacd-players-ayre-acoustics-cx-7e-mp-2018-01-21-digital Scroll down about 1/3 of the way on the following page to see a summary of Stereophile’s comments, extracted from various reviews they have done of this player and its predecessor versions: https://www.stereophile.com/content/recommended-components-2017-edition-disc-players-transports-medi... I have no knowledge of or affiliation with the seller, but I see that he has feedback which is both excellent and extensive. Best regards, -- Al |
Regarding a turntable, I would consider the SOTA Comet, the Clearaudio Concept, and various models from Rega. Although together with a good phono cartridge the price of the first two will approach $2K if purchased new. You can see these and many other models at www.needledoctor.com. BTW, regarding my mention of Ayre, I’ll add that they are located in Boulder, Colorado! Best regards, -- Al |
Having made a couple of suggestions that were well over the stated budget I’m now going to go to the opposite extreme in recommending a preamp. The Antique Sound Lab Line Two DT ($450) is a very simple one-tube line stage (meaning of course that it would have to be used in conjunction with an external phono stage for purposes of playing LPs). A few years ago I used its very similar predecessor, the Line One, in my main system for a time when my much more expensive preamp developed a problem, and I found it to be remarkably transparent. Also, the one tube it uses (a 12AU7) is fairly inexpensive, and if you chose to do so you would have the ability to fine tune the sound by substituting currently produced or vintage equivalents. I was happy with the Line One even with its stock tube, though. Its relatively high output impedance and relatively high gain would be suitable matches for your Stasis 2 amplifier, and for many other amplifiers, but if you were to eventually replace the Stasis 2 you would want to avoid models having low input impedance (e.g., 30K ohms or less) and relatively high gain (e.g., significantly more than 30 db). I’ll leave it to others to suggest a phono stage, hopefully costing in the vicinity of $500. Given your budget, the phono cartridge you choose would most likely be a moving magnet or other high output type, so the phono stage needn’t provide the capability of supporting low output moving coil cartridges. Best regards, -- Al |
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