. . . what would you buy?

To clarify: you had a grand to build a home sound system for primarily listening to music, what bits would you buy to get the best possible sound quality?

Assume that you are going to build up your music catalogue from scratch depending on what system you decide on (budgeted separately).

tbh I'd start by saving a load more cash. £1000 = £300 each for a source, amp & spkrs, and that's without leads. At that price point you may as well buy whatever looks nicest in the shop.

Not trying to be rude or dismissive, but it's not much for a sound-system.

The usual arguments were to buy the best source possible as it's harder to replace what's missed out at the start. In my case I upgraded to a decent CD player knowing that the amps from the same manufacturer would work well with it (they did), then looked at spkrs that complemented it, with a bit of guidance from a handy shop that had good demo facilities where it was possible to try different spkrs with that combination of source + amplification.

Expensive leads are simply a scam, no need to spend anything much at all on leads - and any decent retailer would throw you some perfectly acceptable leads in if you bought the lot from them.

But £1000 should buy you a pretty decent sound system.

Yes yes, but I was getting at the idea that bell wire to cheap nasty RCAs aren't good enough, not that it's necessary to spend £100 on leads for a £300 cd player.

Whilst I'd agree with you where HDMI leads are concerned - not least because as it's a digital signal the quality of the cable makes no difference, the standard leads supplied with hifi kit are particularly poor quality. So anyone spending £ 1000 on a system *should* set aside a budget to upgrade the leads to something a bit better.

As a bare minimum the speaker cable should be upgraded to 79 strand cable (rather than the in-the-box bellwire). And the standard RCA leads should be upgraded to something with better shielding.

What the amount set aside is, should depend on a few factors:

- how many sources are being connected to the amp i.e. 1 source, means one set of cables, 5 sources means 5 sets.

- speaker cable will depend on the length required i.e. 10 metres of cable is cheaper than 25 metres of cable.

You could probably get a decent sounding system for £1000 but that's not much money in the Hi-Fi world, my stereo speakers alone cost that much.

You said a "sound system for primarily listening to music", so does that mean that you may also want surround sound capabilities for watching DVDs or Blu-rays?

Think more detailed requirements are necessary before offering any suggestions.

[quote=AlanO;80960142

As a bare minimum the speaker cable should be upgraded to 79 strand cable (rather than the in-the-box bellwire). And the standard RCA leads should be upgraded to something with better shielding.

[/QUOTE]

Why 79 strands? What is important is getting the impedance down. 2.5mm mains cable is as good as anything.

As for RCA cables the cables supplied with sources are generally good enough. You don't think manufacturers of high end equipment would spoil their product with crappy cables surely?

Agree.

I forget the specifics as to why now - but seem to recall that 79 strand was the accepted 'entry' point. Yes you could use lesser, in fact you could use solid core or bell wire, but the results were poorer.


Yes they did and I suspect still do. When I was in sales some 25 or so years ago it mattered not whether the punter was looking at a £100 hifi or a £ 1000 hifi - the basic cable interconnects were identical. There was absolutely no variation - even across the brands - Sony, Pioneer, Kenwood, Technics - all supplied exactly the same basic interconnects at every price point. Even if you bought kit from the 'high end' makes such as NAD you still received the same bog-standard RCA cables.

I bought my first system for £370 from Richer Sounds (in 2001) and loved it. I've since replaced it with kit costing around £700 and don't think it sounds much better. I was wondering if you started again with a grand whether you'd get much improvement.

No, we can leave surround sound out of the equation. A friend of mine actually built a surround sound set up using 'proper' speakers earlier in the year but it cost quite a bit more than a grand!

Concerning cables - ok, so say you spend £20 on the speaker cable and £45 on three reasonable RCA leads - that's £65 out of the budget.

Cheap nasty phono leads (not called RCA in the UK) are perfectly fine for line level signals, it's a VERY non-critical connection - certainly no point in spending anything more than a few quid on them.

Likewise with speaker leads, nice thick copper is all you need.

Pretty silly spending £300 on a CD Player though, even a cheap one far exceeds the quality of any speakers you can buy.

The scam that you should spend silly money on leads was put about by the magazines, who take advertising money from the manufacturers.

My first choice would be a CD based system. In my experience it's easier to get better performance from that format than it is with vinyl or streaming at this kind of price point. Second, everything changes if you start to include second-hand, and I think the question then becomes unanswerable because there are far too many options. For the sake of clarity, brevity and sanity ( ) in this exercise then the choices should be restricted to new product only.

Next, we need to define what "sound system" means. Personally it's a 2 channel Hi-Fi but others might be thinking along the lines of a surround system. If so then IMO that's not a system for "primarily listening to music". I would also include here the condition that any system incapable of showing up why the typical freebie phono cables and bell wire is inadequate really shouldn't be included. Likewise anyone who hasn't yet heard that kind of difference in a proper budget Hi-Fi system probably hasn't the right kind of experience to make suggestions about what to buy. That might sound harsh but in all honesty would any of us here be happy taking a recommendation of what to order at a really good quality restaurant from a dining companion whose only experience is comparing Maccies versus BK versus KFC?

A good music system then won't come from Currys/PC World, and I wouldn't expect it to come from a large department store either. It might not even come from an independent electrical retailer the kind of which you might find under the Euronics umbrella unless they have specialist knowledge and an equipment selection that is more specialised than the TV/AV brands. What's required is a dealer that carries a range of pure 2 channel Hi-Fi brands within their product ranges, and a place with at least one dedicated listening room along with the knowledge and experience to demonstrate effective product choices. In short this is either a specialist Hi-Fi dealer or a company with a dedicated Hi-Fi department. Companies such as Richers, Audio-T, Sevenoaks come in at the shallow end of that pond. The real players though are the sort of companies you find that stock Rega, Roksan, Creek, Avid, Arcam, Teac, and similar as their bread & butter ranges.

As a rough short list then I'd audition something along the lines of a Marantz CD6005 CD player (£300), Onkyo 9010 amp (£180), Monitor Audio Bronze 2 speakers (£249). The remaining budget would be allocated to stands and cables. Decent budget speaker stands are a must as far as I am concerned. Allow £50-£90 in the budget for them. For interconnects then a pair of Chord Crimson @ £65 would be appropriate. (I have Chord Chrysalis in between my CD player and AV amp and it's still easy to tell the difference between them and a set of the freebie phono leads.) Speaker cable, something 79 strand and of a decent gauge appropriate to the length will do fine; either a 1.5mm or 2.5mm CSA pure copper. Personally I think Van Damme Blue is a good basic choice, but if we are going for pure Hi-Fi rather than AV then it's worth a listen to Chord Rumour 2 as long as long as the cost doesn't top more than £100 for the length required.

The above would be a decent starting point for auditioning other gear, but as a system in itself it should do everything right in a musical sense to get the most from CD.



It's not so much about sound as just being able to use the gear straight out of the box after purchase. But I think one has to consider the sort of gear where cables are thrown in free. It's the type of product that's likely to be bought without a demo, so a take-away product if you like. I think that means a different set of expectations compared to something where the dealer service level is much more complete.

I wouldn't take the presence of freebie cables in the box as an indicator of a product's quality per se because it could come from the culture of the company. For example, Sony sells (or at least used to sell) CD players from under £100 to over £2000. Each would come with free leads because "that's the way they do it". Rega sells CD players from £500 and above. None come with freebie leads because they expect the dealer to demonstrate a range of compatible 3rd party accessories in order to build a complete solution that gets the best from product. It's different approaches.

What sounds best is very subjective. Remember overhearing an argument in a Hi-Fi shop many years ago, a customer was claiming that his old system sounded a lot better than his new more expensive system and the shop assistant said that it was just different, not better or worse. Apparently his old system had a warm sound and the new one was a bit cold/clinical sounding.

In my opinion, the speakers are the most important element in how a system sounds, followed by the amp and then the CD player. I would suggest trying to listen to a variety of speakers within your budget and build your system around them. Alternatively, you could ask somewhere like Richer Sounds to suggest a system which is within your budget and maybe they will set up a demo for you. Don't forget to take some suitable CDs of your own so you can assess the sound quality.

There is much debate about whether there is any significant difference using expensive speaker cable and interconnects, but the budget for those you suggested seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The above is my opinion and other posters will no doubt have different opinions, the most essential thing is to try to audition as much equipment as possible until you find something that YOU really like the sound of.

My sound and AV system consists of this, well the previous model the 677 but it cost the same when i bought it.....http://www.richersounds.com/product/...ama-rxv679-blk

My speakers are the previous model of these which give amazing sound reproduction......
http://www.richersounds.com/package/...kages/pah01309

I play my CDs through my Panasonic Blu Ray player.

The cables I use are high speed HDMI cables and thick speaker wire given to me free when I bought my speakers.

I have this lot connected to my Panasonic CX 802 50 inch LED.

The sound is amazing

I have a semi decent old set up of Technics CD, Rotel amp and Mission speakers. It was one of those recommended combos in the Hi Fi press a few years back.
It sounds good, if a little bright (biased towards higher frequencies) for my liking.
So I borrowed some larger Wharfdale speakers from a friend to see the difference, which there was, a big one, the Wharfdales sounded crap.
So much subtle detail present through the Missions were completely missing from the Wharfdales, such as hearing a singer take a sharp intake of breath between lines or the rasping sound of a finger running over a guitar string in between notes, and just general ambience from faint echoes.

The point is the sound is only going to be as good as the weakest link in the chain from source to speakers and there's no way of judging that unless you take your favourite music to a specialist Hi Fi store with a listening room who let you listen to different set ups. Trouble is those kind of stores usually charge far more than the discounters so it's up to you if you want to waste their time and then buy elsewhere.

As for speaker cable, I thought the consensus amongst sound engineers working in the film and music industry was that bog standard mains electricity cable was as good as it gets at a fraction of the cost of specialist cables.

I would get something like this

http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.c...14URoCzDvw_wcB

Denon AVR-X3200W cause it would be cinema ready.
&
http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.c...onze5-bok.aspx

Yamaha RX-A1050 Aventage

http://www.audio-express.co.uk/produ...QZwxoC7Fvw_wcB

It might be a little over budget but will be future prof and who uses CDs now days.
Or maybe a cheaper amp

Or have some cheaper speakers if it must be in budget
http://www.richersounds.com/product/...co-2050i-graph

Q ACOUSTICS
2050i

And then the system can be upgraded to.

As you get older your hearing deteriorates...is it worth spend so much more and getting little benefit?

Yes it is. The finer details may be less noticeable but the sense of space and width + depth around the speakers and the feel of a decent bass line, doesn't go.

HiFi is just an opinion - if you find something that you really like and can buy it without sacrificing the kids' dinner money, fill your boots. If music is something that comes from the corner of the room from a couple of small speakers on a bookshelf and you enjoy that, that's fine too.

Sadly, I wouldn't spend £1000 on a home audio system. The kit I've got is around £300's worth which is just a Denon Amp, a 1980's TT that I revived and the TV. I have another couple of stereos in the house, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom but they're just background music.
I don't get to spend enough at home to justify a relatively costly (note I'm not calling £1000 expensive, but to me it would bee costly!) set up, but I could justify spending a considerable sum in the car. I spend far more time listening to music in the car than anywhere else. Even though I know a car isn't the best listening space it is where I get the most enjoyment from music. Actually, tbf, I'd probably spend the money on a newer car first, then worry about the audio!!

If I had to spend it at home, it'd be spent on some decent speakers to go with the current amp, probably some Acoustic Energy 103 floor standing ones at about £550 as I've always liked the sound from them. Then I'd add a network audio player, probably a Sonos Connect at £279, maybe not the best sound quality, but certainly the best control system I've seen. I don't need a tuner as the Sky box handles that, but I might add a CD player, nothing extravagant maybe a DCD520 at about £180 from Denon to match my existing amp. Comes in at about £1008 but sure I could find the speakers, CD for a little less. If I had to buy an amp too, I'd switch the 103 speakers to 101's at £275 and buy a Denon PMA720 at about £230, could use the change for some better cables.

Or even better use their time and then buy from them if they have something you like. You may well end up spending less anyway if you get something you like rather than something that is just more expensive.

As an aside which one of these sentences is truer:

'It's better to have a decent source (lets go with CD player) and poor speakers as the source can make poor speakers sound decent'

OR

'Its better to have decent speakers and a poor source as decent speakers will make the source sound decent'

OF COURSE decent source and speakers is the best scenario but I have always gone with high end speakers can lift the quality of any system.

IE would you rather have a £100 cd player with £1000 speakers or vice versa?

Speakers make FAR the biggest difference to a system, because they are by FAR the poorest component - it doesn't matter how much you spend on a pair of speakers, they are still appallingly poor compared to anything else. For an obviously example, try looking at the frequency response of them, or the distortion figures (if you can even find any).

As for a £100 CD Player, that's a pretty pricey one anyway

Good, I agree, so much emphasis on wires/components/sources but put any or all of it with crap speakers and you are on a hiding to nothing...

Interesting to read the debates. Seems that everyone has a different view on what priorities you should have when spending money. I didn't know that there were £300 CD player units these days, let alone that anyone would think it worth spending money on it rather than speakers.

side question - what are the best options in that price range for playing a digital music collection?

Maybe that was because they all realised it didn't make any difference.