What to add to my system for best sound?

Welcome Julie,

It's been mentioned a few times already, but knowing the room set up and your musical preferences would help a lot.

The Axioms can stay for a while, you could've done a lot worse. You mention a lack of detail, that may be partially improved by using some decent speaker wire. CD Changers are notorious for providing convenience over decent sound; if you subscribe to the garbage-in garbage-out theory any problems emanating from the source will never be fixed downstream. If I was in your situation and had $1000 to spend I would allocate $350 for a good stand-alone CD player and $550 for an integrated amplifier, spend the extra $100 or so on some interconnect and speaker wire. I’d buy the stuff used right here on the ‘Gon to stretch my buck too.

You’ll get a lot of recommendations, here’s my two cents worth... I'll start with the CD player:

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlplay&1076520598&class&3&4&

Nice player, HDCD compatible too. Nice feature if you own some HDCD disks. $340 asking price

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlplay&1076090457&class&3&4&

I like this player lots, will mate nicely with a warm sounding integrated $425 asking price)

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlplay&1076022594&class&3&4&

If your budget is a little tight you'd do well to consider a 63SE. Sure it's a bit dated but a fine player for the money. $180 asking price

There are other CD players worth considering as well, this is a good starting point. Be aware that some players are more laid back sounding, not sure you want or need that in your system since what you're looking for is more detail.

As for an integrated, again there are a few options to consider. At the ~$500 mark two that are listed here:

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?ampstran&1076434310

YBA design at a fraction of the cost. I've owned one of these in the past, very nice unit. Yes it's a bit warm sounding but if you have a slightly more detailed/forward CD player it should match nicely. $575 asking price

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?ampstube&1076542209

Depending on your musical tastes a tube integrated may make sense. One of the advantages of a tubed unit is the flexibility, you can change the tubes and dial in the sound to your tastes. Tubes look cool too. $526 asking price

Some cable ideas, bear in mind cables can be negotiated a little more aggressively:

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?cablintr&1076612368&class&3&4&

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?cablintr&1076379016&class&3&4&

Silver will add detail, but .5 meter may not be long enough.

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?cablintr&1076687579&class&3&4&

Nice cable and ought to mate nicely with the CD/Integrateds mentioned above

Speaker wire… I’ll assume 8’ is enough for your set up and you can use spades (better connection than most other termination schemes), but bananas are acceptable too.

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?cablspkr&1076216607&class&3&4&

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?cablspkr&1075894880&class&3&4&

So…how would I spend your $1000 (I love spending other people’s money):

Music Hall CD-25 player $340
Audio Refinement /complete Integrated $575
Goertz MI2 speaker cable with silver spades $150
JPS Ultraconductor interconnect $70

With some negotiation you can probably get this stuff for $1000

Any one of these choices will provide a big improvement and will hold their value reasonably well. Yep, once you get into this hobby you'll be changing your system over time. Negotiate with the sellers, but be reasonable. Best, Jeff

Hi Julie

Lots of good advice posted, I helped my sister find and setup a system very much like yours last year. I spent a couple of hours setting it up for her and I must say that I was impressed with it's over-all sound (so was she).

A couple of months latter I was over for a visit, I walked in and noticed she had moved the speakers to were they looked better (out of the way she said). This system has now lost it's soundstage, bass has a boom to it and the mids and highs have become lost into the back-ground.

This and many other sites have much good info on room acoustics and speaker setup. These things can be done with little or no cost and will be easy to hear even with the gear you already own.

I agree with the above posters that a nice integrated amp and better source will make your Axioms sing to a higher note with correct speaker placement with-in your room.

Dave

I have a different opinion than anyone else:)

I have built two different systems in my life, so I dont want to give any confusion about my skill at this! all I can tell you is what my ears heard!

my first system was
NHT SuperTwo speakers running off an old crappy receiver, so I got the upgrade itch and picked up:
Parasound HCCA 1500a (~600$)
adcom 565 pre (~300$)
ah tjoeb 99 cdp and some JPS ultraconductors (~300$)

Thats how I decided to spend my 1000$ and to be honest the sound improvement was tiny. I think the biggest difference was the nice sound from the ah tjoeb cd player...so after about 9 months I sold out all the gear and figured I'd try again with a bit more money and hope for some better results!

my second system I started with Tyler Acoustic Ref Monitors after reading some great reviews (~1300)
I plugged these into the same crappy receiver I had running off a random dvd player and instanly the sound FAR eclipsed the sound from my last system!! and I mean FAR eclipsed it!
every single thing about the sound was better.

SO right there I'd say dump every penny into your speakers.

However I can go on! I got the upgrade bug again soon after and after reading all the talk on here about how upstream gear makes such a difference I went on a spending spree!!
I picked up:
CAL CL15 cdp (~700$)
Rogue Magnum 66/88 (pre/amp) (~2000$)

I did a few a/b comparisons with my crappy receiver/dvd player and my new 2700$ gear and the difference just isn't there...its not even close to the leap in sound I heard from upgrading my speakers.

SO! I figured it must be my cable sucks, my rat shack interconnects/speaker cable etc.
So I picked up some signalcable (~70$) speaker cable and a pair of (~130$) MusicLink Plus interconnects and they have made an audible difference!
Everything is sounding great these days, I've kept all the gear and need to do another a/b switch with my old crappy reciever/dvd player, but I'm gonna bet the difference will once again be negligible.

SOOO!!! what I have experienced is that (room treatments aside) 96% of the sound quality I now have has come from getting better speakers, 2% has come from cable upgrades and the other 2% I attribute to an upgraded cdp/amp/pre

Feel free to flame me and tell me my ears suck:)
I'm just telling ya what I hear

Julie,
Welcome to audiogon. Some simple suggestions:
1. Play with the speaker placement and room treatments first. There are some great posts about this.
2. As you can tell from the previous posts, there is no right answer. Trust your own ears.
3. A music system is only as good as its weakest link. Try to decide how much money you're willing to spend on hardware and balance that amount over the entire system. Save money for software (the most important part).

All the best to you with your quest for sonic nirvana.

Joel

I have a cheap $100 CD player (Yamaha - which I hope to upgrade soon) and a pair of Klipsch speakers I bought 8 years ago for $300 (your Axioms are better). I just bought a Jolida 1501rc integrated hybrid amp (tube pre-amp and ss amp) and was amzed at how much it improved the sound..check Underwood Hi-Fi for a good deal.

I would second the above recommendation...upgrade to a better amp and spent $400 on a CD...maybe Music Hall, which people seem to love.

David