Thanks for all the suggestions so far--including the welcome suggestion of doing nothing. That suggestion reminds me of Basho (always a good thing):
"Exhausted, I sought
a country inn, but found
wisteria in bloom."
Otherwise, yes Prima Luna comes up a lot in my research. Don't know of Belles (yet). And a CJ power amp (MV60) is a most enticing idea.
Regarding the Conrad Johnson PV10, I'm only using the phono stage at present. The Linn Classik is an all-in-one unit with a CD onboard (plus radio plus alarm clock!).
Regarding the power amp v. integrated question. I like the PV10's phono stage and I bet the unit is nice for CD too. Should the Linn Classik leave this little set up (if that happens) then I would switch in a Rega Apollo CD player I have in a second system and put it through PV10 as well probably.
You can probably guess from my components --Rega, Linn, Conrad Johnson, Vienna Acoustics-- that I'm a mid-fi music lover desperate for "musicality" in the mid-range (even at expense of detail, esp. in high freqs) and woody warmth and "liveness" in the sound.
Is this about "coloration"? Perhaps. Most of the music I listen to has five or fewer closely-miked acoustics musicians playing live in a somewhat reverberant studio setting: think ECM or Columbia's 30th Street studio, or Rudy Van Gelder's joint.
"Exhausted, I sought
a country inn, but found
wisteria in bloom."
Otherwise, yes Prima Luna comes up a lot in my research. Don't know of Belles (yet). And a CJ power amp (MV60) is a most enticing idea.
Regarding the Conrad Johnson PV10, I'm only using the phono stage at present. The Linn Classik is an all-in-one unit with a CD onboard (plus radio plus alarm clock!).
Regarding the power amp v. integrated question. I like the PV10's phono stage and I bet the unit is nice for CD too. Should the Linn Classik leave this little set up (if that happens) then I would switch in a Rega Apollo CD player I have in a second system and put it through PV10 as well probably.
You can probably guess from my components --Rega, Linn, Conrad Johnson, Vienna Acoustics-- that I'm a mid-fi music lover desperate for "musicality" in the mid-range (even at expense of detail, esp. in high freqs) and woody warmth and "liveness" in the sound.
Is this about "coloration"? Perhaps. Most of the music I listen to has five or fewer closely-miked acoustics musicians playing live in a somewhat reverberant studio setting: think ECM or Columbia's 30th Street studio, or Rudy Van Gelder's joint.