Upgrade Suggestions - Entry Level Setup


Hi everyone,

Here's my current setup.  I have this itch to upgrade something but wasn't sure what.  My room is pretty small (10X12 feet), so I really like the small form factor of the speakers.  Not to mention, I love the Dali sound. 

Given that, what are some quick wins / pocket-friendly upgrades to improve SQ? And what will be some medium to long term upgrades?  Basically, where would you go from here?  Based on your suggestion, I am going to try to audition and see what I like.  Thanks folks!

PM
prashanth13485
Once you have all the basic stuff, which you do, and are reasonably happy with it, which you are, then the next logical step for long term satisfaction is to start tweaking the most out of it.

For years my first recommendation was always BDR Cones under everything. That still stands but the competition is a little tighter these days. In terms of inexpensive, easy, and impressive they are still quite hard to beat. You would need 12 to do everything but can buy them 3 at a time no problem. I would order one set of MkIII, one MkIV and you will be able to use both just fine but having each to compare will guide you to knowing which to order when you get more. Which you will. They are quite effective. Under everything. And they last forever. 

Next get a set of Synergistic Research ECT. These will improve dynamics, detail and imaging, and reduce grain and glare. They are easy to move around and another item you can keep and use forever. 

Next I would get Synergistic HFT Speaker kit. You can use 1/2 kit per speaker to start if you want. That's what I did, to experiment and be sure they are effective. They are really effective! Also they come in different versions and the speaker kit includes most of them. So you can try them on the walls. They all come with 30 day guarantee so no worries but they are so easy to move around it makes sense to experiment a lot.

Then there's the wild card, acoustic panels. Wild card because you said nothing about your room, home, apartment. Many hardware stores carry Owens Corning fiberglass acoustic panels. OC703 is a standard used in many expensive professional acoustic panels. In raw panel form its cheap and easy to experiment with. If you can buy just one panel to play with that's totally the way to go. 

It would have been easy and obvious to recommend Synergistic Research cables to replace your fancy lamp cord. But these are even better. They will improve your system right now, so that when you do get around to upgrading the wire it will be so much easier to hear and appreciate the improvement. Unlike everything else you can do these are all forever upgrades. You will never outgrow them.

Look. There they are. All of them. 
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367


After you've read all the shilling for synergistic research garbage a medium upgrade would be a better integrated amp with a DAC as the DAC in the Node2i isn't very good. 
djones51,

"After you've read all the shilling for synergistic research garbage.."

I wish I'd said that.

A better amp ( more features and power) is one obvious answer.

Another would be a speaker upgrade. Nowadays there are quite a few high quality bookshelf (or even narrow footprint floorstanding) loudspeakers out there. 

If you want to stick with mini-monitors then your Oberon 1s will be hard to beat. So congrats on making a good buying decision there.

Since there's really little point in making incremental upgrades so you might as well wait until you can move on to some known high quality designs from the likes of Harbeth, Spendor, Rega or even pro audio designs from Neumann, Genelec, Yamaha etc. I'm sure there must be many others too.

When it comes to loudspeakers, there really is a bewildering choice out there. Like yourself I'm kind of stuck for upgrades too.

I guess once you get to the likes of Tannoy DCs the next serious step up is likely to be a very difficult and very costly one!

Here's what the legendary Dr Floyd Toole has at home.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thescreeningroomav.com/single-post/2019/03/06/The-Ultimate-Real-Wor...
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Hi,
you may also consider KEF LS50 they will give you more authority and better bass. From there a better amp would be my second upgrade when ready.