Upgrade thoughts......

Hi

Having fallen off the upgrade wagon just over ten (!) years ago, I am starting to think it may be time to climb back on.......

My current system consists of:

CD : Rotel 965BX Limited Edition

Bought early 90's when new - it was one of *the* players to get at the time..... Very smooth sounding player.

Power Amp : 1960's Rogers 12wpc Valve

Don't know a huge amount about this one, rescued it from the original buyer's attic about 12 years ago, put in a new set of valves and a couple of resistors / capacitors that looked a bit worn and (apart from a new set of valves every few years) its been in daily use since! Its the classic push-pull design with 2 x EL84 and an ECC83 on each channel, valve rectification and an increadibly clear yet warm sound. Best I've ever heard it next to was a pair of Musical Fidelity MA50s (I think that was it - they were very highly reviewed at the time) monoblocks - which sounded distinctly 'fuzzy' next to the Rogers. Needless to say the MA50 owner had replaced them with a Valve amp a few months later...

Pre Amp : DIY passive

Not much to say about this - couple of very high quality pots (best I could get at the time) in a box.

Speakers : Monitor Audio 452Md

Bought a year or two before I got the valve amp, big floorstanders with a nice warm yet detailed sound. Had to replace the tweeters recently with some new Seas units (which sound very similar to the originals) due to No 1 Son hitting the old units with something.... (I still cringe every time I see that VW ad on TV just now ! )


So. I am pondering where to go from here. Would a modern CD player beat my trusty old Rotel into a pulp, or what about speakers with the more modern drive units? I've also been having a look at some of the valve amp kits out there.....

Any thoughts anyone?

Cheers

Paul.

 

Hi Paul,

Welcome to the forum. Do you have a budget in mind?

Cheers, Robbo

 

Hi Robbo, and thanks.

Budget kind of flexible. Short term wouldn't want to spend much more than a grand, longer term could be more......

Cheers


Paul.

 

How about something along these lines :-

s/h Arcam Alpha 9 CDP for £300ish
World Audio 6550 integrated kit
s/h Proac Tablette 2000/sigs

You should be able to get this lot for around £1K or so. I'd say budget a bit more for cables (say £100) but others here may disagree. This system will be slightly on the warm side, but you could go for a different CDP (or keep the rotel).

 

this would be the kit I would reccomend if youve already fallen for the valve sound and you dont need huge watts.

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/kits/300bsesound.html

You should notice quite an improvement.

I would personally go for the integrated version, for neatness sake.

The kits range from about 700-750.
NB They build for around 200 extra if you're not a DIY'er!


Chris

 

I've been looking at the WO kits for a while now, and the 6550 had definitely caught my eye....

(aside - anyone heard their new "budget" £200 kit? Might be an interesting addition to No2 Hi-Fi sometime....)

The Hi-Fi collective ones look rather interesting too.

What sort of improvements would one of these kits make over a vintage model like mine?

Thanks

Paul.

 

IIRC the WAD £200'er uses the same valves as the Rogers (ecl82) so should sound very similar. If you want an improvement do go for something higher up their ladder. Mind you if you had £700 to spend now just buy Richards KIT88 it's a corker.

 

Glad you made it over Paul, more guys into your kind of kit here, rather than HFC, oh and welcome.

 

hi again

Have heard the budget kit, and as Lilolee said it looks quite similar to what you have.

If you want gob-loads of power Id go with kt88's as mentioned, but if you want clarity and all the usual valve attributes with no muddiness look at single ended. The hifi collective single ended is better value for money IMHO than the world audio one.

NB Both WO and hificollective amps were designed by the same person (andy grove), and the hificollective brand is owned/run by the former manager of the WO offices here in MK!

 

Hi Paul,

The MA452's are large stand mounts, so the first thing you should do is get them on decent stands. The optional wooden stands they came with are terrible and suck the life right out of them - put them on These Stands and they will really open up.

Regards,

Matthew

 

Paul,

The first thing to do is upgrade your CD player. (I shall leave which CD player to others to suggest)
Second thing would be re-building your Rogers amps. The Rogers amps had very good transformers fitted that most of the small cheap kits don't come close to the transformer quality that you have. (Over 50% of sound quality from a valve amp is transformer quality)
3: replace your speakers only after you have the amps working at there best and try to get a home demo of any speakers. (I shall also leave which speakers to others to suggest)

Alan

 

Hi Guys

Some interesting ideas....

Hi AK, and thanks.

Interesting to hear about the WO and HFC amps. Definitely something to bear in mind as a possibility.

Matthew - very interested to hear about the stands - TBH it never occurred to me given that the speakers 'came with' these wooden stands. I'm really tempted to give that a try and I think that might be my first step.

Alan - its been suggested I try a new DAC (m-audio superdac was suggested) as a way to 'upgrade' my current machine.

Also interesting to hear about the Rogers transformers - as I said I don't know a huge amount about this amp except it sounds rather nice.....

I'm thinking getting the amp serviced might be a good idea. Who would you get to do such a thing? Anyone know anyone reasonably local (Edinburgh area) who'd be able to do such a job?

Thanks for the thoughts

Paul.

 

Hi Paul, don't know of any hifi dealers in Edinburgh who deal specifically with valve amps. But I do know that Loud & Clear (0131 226 6500) service and repair components and it also might be worth contacting Hifi Corner (0131 556 7901) or Sevenoaks (0131 229 7267). If they can't do the work themselves they might be able to recommend someone local who can.

 

Unlike AlanL I would audition replacement CD players very carefully against your Rotel. It may be old but as long as it still functions well you should find that it holds its own against some pretty esoteric kit. I've had a Rotel like yours in a Naim system and could have easily lived with it. In fact one radical view might be to spend some dosh first on stands for all the kit before you think of changing any of it. Why do you want to upgrade?

Bob

 

Thanks for the Edinburgh info BL21DE3...

Bob, you're the second person to say something like that about my old Rotel. Frankly I'm both surprised and pleased to discover it still holds its own today, despite its age.

Which makes me think maybe I don't need a new CD right now - although a new DAC might be fun.

Re stands for the whole kit - its currently on a shelf secured very firmly into a solid stone wall (we live in an old cottage), so I suspect its fairly well insulated from vibrations already?

"Why do you want to upgrade?"

Good question Initially I was thinking some new kit might do some interesting things to my now slightly ageing system. From what people are saying I'm getting the impression that unless I want to go out and splash some serious cash, I'd be better off just 'tweaking' what I have now....

Thanks

Paul.

 

Paul,

The one thing you are discovering now I am sure is that on internet forums there are always widely conflicting and diverse points of view, and so it is very easy to get completely confused. The only thing is to trust your ears I'm afraid and take all points of view with caution.

Except mine of course which are always correct.

 

And also rememeber be in denial when your 27 stages of mana are beaten by a non isolated pair of speakers

 

I am pretty sure the 965BX was the rotel I recently heard on the end of £45K worth of electronics and speakers and it sounded mighty fine, so I doubt it's going to be out of it's depth with any projected upgrade.

 

WM bub's off on holiday, so that will ahave fallen on deaf ears, we had a good noght last night, he was a bit defensive when I started to pull out the faults I heard with hid sysytem, well he did it to mine, not saying there is no merit in the mana stuff but , i think his problemn is positioning the 52. Just my 2p worth.

Paul told you the advice was better on here you will either have to buty wisely s/h or keep waht you've got and tweak it, it may take a whiloe but your gonna havefun in the process.

AK

 

I'd have thought that the best positioning for a 52 (and the CDS2 for that matter) would be in a dustbin.

TBH, I am surprised that he didnt throw you out of his house when you even so much as raised a doubt about the perfection of his system. How can you improve on zero distortion and the best CDP in the world? That man is delusional, I tell you. Well I suppose I would be too if I had spent so much money and staked my credibility in such a fashion.