Oops--it was the A12 I bought for him. So thumbs up on the A12. In general, at your price point, the best electronics are likely to be Rotel, NAD, or Schiit. Within NAD, I would check C316BCC (old school purist choice) and D3020 (with DAC). With any of these, I recommend buying from a local dealer who will allow you to return easily if you do not like it; or at least someplace like Schiit that has a great audiophile reputation and allows returns with a modest restocking fee.
For whatever reason, every time I audition KEFs (especially head to head with other comparable speakers), I come away a little underwhelmed. My head tells me that I should be really liking them, but they always seem a little... I dunno... lacking. Strictly a personal taste thing.
It’s a very sophisticated listening experience. A lot of listeners can’t hang. Kidding of course. I honestly haven’t listened to anything Kef outside the LS line.
Denon's top-of-the-line 2-cchannel amps and SACD players are still top-notch. More importantly, they've maintained their traditional balanced sound profile, which the Brits, in particular, love -- as do I. KEF went Hollywood. Good stuff, but not to my taste.
Wrong answer. Proper one would be to find a wife who has expensive hobby which requires a dedicated workshop space. This will balance both sides' space and expense requirements.
I made sure I got the TV and the complete surround system... and a couch. I think I left a dog and a Proton D940 receiver with some Infinity speakers behind.
100 percent lossless files? Why not get some sort of streamer and active speakers? Super simple, yeah?
Sorry, i'm not up on streaming tech (i'm a records and CD person) but why can't you get good fidelity from a good quality streamer and active speakers? It's certainly easy to exceed your stated budget with just those two components, for starters.
Yeah...though it is difficult to get proper bass management* and room correction without an AVR, to extrapolate from @rodentdog. My observation is that the speakers/subs make the most difference by a long shot since they are less accurate by orders of magnitude than everything else, so the biggest chunk of money should go towards that. As @goldwax said I'd certainly consider active speakers (the Buchardt A10 Anniversary surely should be wonderful). Unless you want that horn sound like the Klipsch, then back to the AVR. If you go Klipsch, the newer generations have significantly more sophisticated horn designs by Roy Delgado who I once hired to design an automotive horn, he sure knows what he is doing
LX521.4 open baffle (which I use; stunning) and if you cannot afford one of those, the LX Sirius, upgradable with addition of various bass extension options. LX521® -The Reference - LINKWITZ.store LXspeakers - LINKWITZ.store RMAF 2014: Reichert on Sunday
Being a Mission fan, I'm keen to audition these... nice price, but 2 hours away from me. 91db sensitivity. So I probably need 80w to drive them properly. 1993 Mission 763i Floorstanding Bass Reflex Speakers Excellent...
If you are a DIY guy, there are other routes. If you are not a DIY guy and prefer a turn key solution... Elac Debut Floorstanders. 800/pair...This Andrew Jones design was probably groundbreaking in terms of bang 4 the buck speakers out there when it was released. It would meet your sound signature requirements for speakers and it actually beat out speakers that cost magnitudes more for the EISA award. Me and a couple of fat cats who had burnt endless sums of cash on hifi pursuits sat there with our jaws on the floor when Andrew demo'd these for us some years ago. Debut 2.0 F5.2 Floorstanding Speaker Rythmik L12 subwoofer, 629, still the best bang 4 the buck subwoofer for music listening, as of 2023 Rythmik L12 - sealed HT sub Yamaha A-S801 amplifier w/ decent DAC implementation, 599... The designer of above mentioned speakers tends to use Yamaha amps when he designs budget friendly speakers. It should pair well with above mentioned speakers. YAMAHA A-S801 2-Ch x 100 Watts Integrated Amplifier w/DAC Silver Streamer/mini PC, 289 You have all the freedom in the world to tweak yourself into high heaven with a gizmo like this. Amazon.com Sum Total = ~2317 USD Optional: If you want the DAC to go up a notch (i.e. the built-in DAC of the A-S801 didn't cut it), Topping E70 Velvet, 450 TOPPING E70 VELVET AK4499EX Desktop DAC (Digital-to-Analog-Convertor) New Total = 2767 Spend whatever else you can on room treatments. After this level of fidelity, you could start to get into some serious wallet abusing to get anywhere better.
I auditioned that used KG-4 pair. I was one of the best speakers I heard all day. So cl ad was placed by a stereo shop. Good, right? I show up during business hours. Boxes are stacked all over the place. He has three very nice systems set up to audition speakers. But no real proper listening environment. Argh. I figure, at least I'll learn something. We finally settled on James Taylor "Hourglass" as source. I'm very familiar with that record. It's recorded decently well (although perhaps not perfectly wrt to the snare drum on most cuts, as I found out during this audition). I auditioned: Three different Vandersteens. OK. A couple of Paradigm floor towers. I just loathe Paradigm. They are flat out bad sounding stiff lifeless speakers. I fundamentally mistrust the opinion of anyone who has anything nice to say about them (except for the price). A nice set of Magnepans, which had the second best soundstage (after the Klipsch KG-4s). I liked them better than I thought I would. Last up was the Klipsch KG-4. I was expecting to find this speaker lacking finesse (due to high efficiency) and was fully prepared to be fatigued listening to them. Nope. I thought they were crazy musical. So Klipsch-ophiles... are the KG-4s typical of the Klipsch sound, or are they an anomaly? I could see myself being pretty happy with those speakers and maybe the Rotel A12 or NAD C338. Although the reviews of NAD support are brutal and scathing. I should check out that Schiit you mentioned. I did attempt to try the Bluesound Node. Seriously bad software on the device side. Really, it sounded pretty poor when I was able to get sound out of it.
