Your best 2-channel system for 6000$ total

06-04-12: Tpreaves
Folks gave you some good advice on your other thread.

Yes, you already got the right advice on your other thread. Your Parasound/PSB combo is so much better than your upstream components they're just revealing those shortcomings.

First of all, ditch your cheap Blu-ray for an Oppo, whichever one you're willing to pay for. Second, don't expect great sound from your cable video feed, though a better AV pre/pro could help.

I don't know what you're using for cable, but electronics are all about signal transfer. Some entry level Transparent may be a good place to start there.

It will be interesting to see how you make out. I recently finished re-making my system, which now falls somewhat in your ballpark. Speakers, amp and preamp cost $2900 used.

Soliloquy 6.3i speakers
Coda Model 11 amplifier
VAC Auricle preamp w/ phono

Which would leave you ~ $3100 for your Sources and cables. I'm very happy with the sound I'm hearing. I put this together as a "budget" system, after selling off most of my more expensive gear, yet this rig is still very musically satisfying to me.

Thanks to All. Currently i am using low cost blue jean cables throughout....is that an issue?

My room is 14' wide, 20' long and has a slanted ceiling 8' - 14' on the other side. The speakers face "long ways" and i sit about 12 feet away from them. The floor is carpet but there is NOTHING on the walls and only a couch and chair in that room....any recommendations?

I am going to keep the speakers, amp and avr and get a good cd player. Need something that sounds great with rock and blues.

I'll let others address your slanted ceiling, but my room is only 12' x 16' and the PSBs didn't sound right until they were 4' from rear wall, 8' apart, and listening position 8' from spkrs. An equilateral triangle. BTW, It took me about 2 months of changing positions, moving treatments and toe-in.

I used to have the Bluejeans speaker cable - they are not bright or forward at all, rather the opposite. So don't change cabling until you've fixed your other problems (room, speaker placement, source, amp).

Please read each guide on this page as a primer on acoustics and speaker set up. It makes a huge difference.
http://www.realtraps.com/articles.htm

Some bad news, all this "direct pass" stuff would do is bypass the (probably extremely crappy) filtering section of your AVR's preamp section. But your (probably extremely crappy) source signal is still going through the (probably extremely crappy) preamp section of your AVR.

Room, speaker placement, new CDP, new preamp, in that order.

When you do get to gear, you might want to shortlist something like the Audiolab 8200CDQ, which is a combined CDP/DAC/Preamp.