Sensible integrated's

For the short term, I'm looking to build a sensibly priced system. Having had over 10K wrapped up in Hifi was beginning to make me feel uncomfortable, so fortunately found a buyer for most of it and somewhere else to use the funds.
So back in the real world, I'm after an integrated for around the 1K mark. This will be used with a pair of Red Rose Rosebud 2's and a modified Naim CD3.
Having had experience with Arcam, Exposure, AVI and several others, I thought about something slightly more obscure - an undiscovered treasure would be nice! My thoughts are so far

1) Anatek A50
2) Croft integrated
3) Sugden A21a

Anyone any experience with these or any others.

Thanks
JTB

 

NAD S300?

Might also find a krell KAV300 of some form for £1k.

 

look into a 2nd hand moon 3i - seriously good. possibly and accuphase integrated too but may be beyond the budget. the nait 5i may be worth a listen too. the lavardin is well regarded and can possibly be had for your budget and i believe that central audio has a bow wazzoo for under 1k which offers style as well as great sound.
cheers

julian

 

Sonneteer. Depending on budget and preference, you 4 choices: Campion, Alabaster, Bronte, or Orton. They're all excellent.

http://www.sonneteer.co.uk/

-- Ian

 

Second hand Accuphase?
Seriously, though, Croft and Sugden both get excellent reviews. Not sure about your choice of speakers, though: very smoooooth.

 

Isaac - Love the S300 but the mild hum put me off (though only after having owned one on 2 separate occasions!)

Julian - Moon 3i - heard that its basically a rebadged version of an older model and nothing to write home about, though the 5i is meant to be a real winner.

BTW, anyone experience with Plinius?

 

Add the Rotel 1062 to your list and treat it as the cheap amp the rest must beat by a decent margin. Imho it is a bargain at £600.

Cheers

Jason

 

2nd hand ATC SIA2-150

 

Jack,

As you asked for an undiscovered treasure, then the following tube amps 35 watts PrimaLuna Prologue One (GBP 750 new) or the 45 watts PrimaLuna Prologue Two (GBP 900 new) would be my recommendations. The Rosebud 2s will respond well to either of these delightful amplifiers. There are not many amps around the GBP 1,000 that can do what these amps do. In fact, I would say that the Prologue Two challenges and betters many amps between the GBP 1,000 to GBP 1,500 mark. However, all said and done, YMMV. The amps are distributed in the U.K. by Absolute Sounds.



Enjoy the music,

Lawrie.

 

I had an A21a for a few years matched with some Epos E11's. Nice sound, big fruity bass and with the right CDP could sound quite sweet. With the wrong CDP however, it could sound vicious! Also it lacked a bit of swing if you know what i mean!

 

Lavardin IS.
A cracking good amp and 1000 ish will get you one

 

hi there.

i don't really know your speakers so i can't work with that but I would suggest the Primare A30.1 as a pretty good integrated that you might find second hand around the price you want (with a bit of luck of course).

another idea is bel canto. they have really good integrated amps, and i am sure many people here can tell you more about them. i'm just not sure if they will be too expensive even second hand.

then you also have the valves route. if you like the sudgen sound you might really like valves and they tend to be a lot better than similarly priced solid state amps... one i heard that was pretty good was the audio innovations s500... but i am no valve expert so i'm sure there'll be others.

i heard lots of praise to the plinius amps, but never actually heard any myself...

hope it helps.
:beer:
Jack

 

Last year I decided to ditch my 3 box amp. in favour of the one box option. It was a treat on the eyes and sounded just as good if not better. I eventually opted for a Swedish Advantage S100. This 100 watt beauty retails at £2550 but I came across an ex dem. for £1700. There's one or two on the second hand market for juat a little over a grand. Designed by Mike Bladelius who also designed the Primare mentioned above. The only way I would go now is to try for a used Advantage power and drive it direct from the S1 cd player (built in digi. pre amp.) keeping it a two box cd system. Good luck!

 

I listened to the Moon 3i, and it was bettered by Krell 300i, tho Moon 5i was very nice. Henry (Godfather) raves about his 5i

 

I meet Mike Bladelius the other day whilst listening to his new speakers, really nice guy. Funny enough the demo gear was S1 into a couple of the powers. If I were to start this game again I'd seriously look at a set up like that.

All demoed at http://www.hificonsult.se/butiken.html

 

As a Krell KAV 300i owner, if your into the music rather than control and speed, (system, environment and taste dependencies aside) I agree with the advice below and would have a serious listen to the offerings from Electrocompaniet, Primare and Moon.

Anyone want a KAV300i?

 

just to be boringly and worryingly predictable, here is a good valve amp for 700 (in kit) built for about 850 ish.


http://www.hificollective.co.uk/kitshome.html

undiscovered treasure?

300B, single ended, hard wired (no pcb), quality components - I'd say so!

 

just krell 300i
krell need good matching, good speaker and good source.

 

Message to Philip,
Hi,
I'm interested in knowing what powers Mike Bladelius was using. I expect it was the S250 Monos. which replaced the M300s. Can you confirm? How did it sound to you?

 

Hi Virkon,

I was mainly listening to their QRS range, both the Saturn's, (http://www.hificonsult.se/qrs_saturnus.html) and the slightly lesser Callisto (http://www.hificonsult.se/qrs_callisto.html). I also got a listen to some Chinese stand mount speakers with a ribbon tweeter, (forgotten their name, but I think they were in HiFi plus this month), but these sounded pretty dire to me.
The Saturn's were really nice with a good level of construction and finish for the price. The two inward firing bass units, (sorry not too sure of the technical name) gave them an excellent bass quality in relation to their size, which is actually quite high on the WAF. Mid range was present, clear and open, although I thought it could get a little muddled during complex orchestral pieces. The top end was not quite as clinical as I would like, but it was very listenable and would suit long-term home use very well. Overall I was very impressed by them and look forward to hearing them again at Arken (http://www.hififorum.nu/arken04/) next month.

The Callisto's shared a lot of the aural signatures described above, and to be honest although not in the same league as the Saturn's, when one considers the price difference they are actually quite a bargain.

I have listened to their monster Jupiter's (http://www.hificonsult.se/qrs_jupiter.html) and I have never heard three-dimensional imaging so clearly before. These speakers are incredible, both in their actual size, (almost 2 meters high) and more importantly in their ability to reproduce music, (not HiFi) in a fashion that simply defies belief in their realism.

Hope that helps.
PK

Edited to add: Bugger just read your mail again, and the Monos used were in fact the smaller S150's. The whole range seems to major on power and timing. I would think that they would sound pretty good with a wide range of other components as they come across as a neutral sounding.