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Friend needs advice for $8,000 system

My friend is starting out from scratch with an $8,000 budget. He listens to all sorts, but mainly indie rock. He's keen on the Magnepan .7 speakers and lives in a small apartment, so listening room about 4x3 metres. Don't worry about cables. We just need a power amp, a turntable, a cartridge, a phono stage, NOS tubes, and a DAC.


How do we achieve:


Truthful tonality/timbre


Truthful harmonics


Liquid sound


Transparency


Speed/Dynamics/Pace/Rhythm/Timing


Soundstage Coherence



All for $8,000 new.



Cheers!


uberdine
mtdining's avatar
mtdining
131 posts
 
People seem to think any engineer can take off the shelf parts and compete with decades of experience. It is aldehyde the chef, not the ingredients that make magic in audio.
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,897 posts
 
@phcollie recommended a very competent system. The odyssey integrated, while all SS would save you some coin and allow a low end tube phono stage. Ignore the ego driven personal attacks. Music is rarely about that kind of thing, or should be.
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,897 posts
 
Another possibility is a nice SP series ARC preamp with built in fet/tube phono. The last one I bought was $1250 with checkout by my favorite tech. add a stout but classic power amp - say a recapped Bryston, the Chord DAC and a Rega 3 table and you might get close to budget. 
uberdine OP
100 posts
 
Wow. Thanks for the help all.

tomic601, goheelz and phcollie, that's pretty much what I'm thinking, a mixture of all your recommendations. Thanks!
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