everything sounded great until the upgrade


In short: I loved the sound of my modest system, until I upgraded my amp. Now it  sounds pretty horrible. It went from a warm sweet embracing easy-to-listen sound to knives and forks trying to escape from a bathtub.

So...

1. I can just unplug this new amp (used) and sell it

Any other options? I could upgrade my speakers but I have no budget for that.

2. I could sell the speakers and use money to buy used ones that go with the amp. 

3. Lastly I could change the source, but was it the culprit - to begin with?

btw - the sound of the "new" amp is decent with my turntable, and terrible with my CD player.

(If I wrote brands and models it would throw the discussion into "A sucks, B is great")

grislybutter

The caps are dry there are sitting in jamicon caps, Chinese grap.

Take them out and put mundorf i did it last month and you dont know whats happend.

For shure that it is the problem the caps are super dry if you shake the amp maybe you can hear it.

@grislybutter    Why didn't you try the amp in your system before laying down your bread?

It's incredible how many people here buy upgrades without listening to them.  It's little use listening at the dealer in his system unless he can replicate yours or you take your kit in and set it up.  Even then the rooms are different.

No dealer of any worth will refuse to lend equipment to loyal customers.

One basic item that would have an impact and provide the sound you describe. Make sure that you observe correct polarity on both speakers, + to + and - to - It is an easy mistake to make sometimes. Double check.

Another vote for a separate DAC. Wife killings only last a few days, good audio is forever! It seems complicated at first to find something that you think will be the right fit. If you live in the sticks like I do it's even more difficult. Decide your source(s), Learn about sampling rates. If you think you will be happy with CD quality, 44.1 and that's as far as you want to go then you only need to find a DAC that can perform that operation well. No need for DSD capabilities if you'll never use DSD. If you think you'll want to stream hi-res at some point then get something that can do that. Start looking at used gear sites such as Audiogon and US AudioMart to see what's up for grabs in your budget. Read as many reviews on each item as possible to get a flavor. Spend as much as you can reasonably afford.