I will try to expand on what Dinyaar has suggested.
Well, the first place you start (unlike me) is to start with a budget. You have a budget of, say, 150K. Now let us see what you need and how much price you can allocate for each part.
1. Source - CD Player
3. Source - Turntable
2. Source - Cassette Deck
3. Power - Integrated or pre and power amp.
4. Output- Speakers
5. Accessories - Speaker cables and connectors
6, Accessories - Power conditioning
Let us take out the known factors and then arrive at the variable,
1. Cassette Deck - a reasonable deck should cost you around 15,000 to the max. Dinyaar had rated Technics, Sony and Denon as good decks.
2. Stabiliser and line filters - An APC UPS of about 2KVA should come for about 5K, and a TrippLite EMI/RFI Filter should cost your around 5K.
3. Good speaker cables come about 100Rs a feet. You would need 30 feet - that is another 3000.
4. Connectors - though these things vary in price, a good coaxial RCA cables with gold plated connectors would be a max of 5K
5. Phono Input - This will cost you around 5K.
So that is 40,000 allotted for the accessories. You now have 110K left. With this you should buy speakers, amplifier, and CDP.
SPEAKERS
In your choice of music, there would be no problems with Hindustani, Hindi Film Music, Rabindra Sangeet, and even Jazz. All these genres have limited number of instruments, and what you should look for is clarity across the lead singer, and the accompanying instruments. If your choice were limited to these, it would have been easy to go with a high end bookshelf, attached to a good subwoofer.
The issue is primarily with Western classical. This genre has a number of issues: - one is the number of instruments; second is the sudden silence, third is the sheer volume of music when 100 instruments are playing together, and finally it is the need to simulate the surroundings whether it is a church or a auditorium. I would say only a 3 way floor stander can accomplish this, and that too preferably with a 8 inch woofer driver. Some speakers come with two 5 inch drivers, and they can also perform well. To handle the sudden silence you need speakers with very quick response time, and with zero reverberation.
Look for speakers with a frequency response of 20/30Hz to about 30KHz. The frequency range should cover the lower and upper limits of the frequency response and should not vary by more than 9dB. Sensitivity should be around 90dB. For more details on what these mean, refer to the following link.
http://www.hifivision.com/speakers/1589-frequency-vs-db.html
So there you have it. You should go in for floor standers. A pair of reasonable floor standing speakers would cost you around 50,000. A short listed set would consist of the following in ascended order of their estimated price. All these can handle 100 watts, mostly at 8 ohms.
Wharfedale Diamond 8.3 17,000
Mission M33i 17,500
Warfedale Diamond 9.6 30,000
KEF IQ5 37,500
Monitor Audio Silver R56 58,000
KEF IQ7 60,000
Acoustic Energy Aelite 3 63,000
EPOS M22 70,000
Dali Ikon 6 72,000
KEF IQ9 80,000
Also take a look at some these bookshelves
Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 12,500
Monitor Audio Bronze Br2 30,000
B&W DM601 S3 31,000
Epos M12.2 37,000
Dali Ikon 2 50,000
B&W CM1 54,000
Dynaudio Audience 52 58,000
Dynaudio Focus 110 80,000
You are left with 60,000.
POWER
Pre amp/power amp combination from the likes of Parasound would be about 140K. So that is ruled out. The one combination that may fit your budget is the Rotel RC-1070 pre and the Rotel RA-04 power at 34,000 and 31,000 each. Another pair is the Rega Cursa that will set you back by 90,000.
The better option is to look for an integrated amp. Some of the options are:
Maranzt PM6001 25,000
Cambridge Audio Azur 640C 29,000
Marantz PM7001 29,000
NAD C352 37,000
Rotel RA-05 37,000
Cyus 6vs2 60,000
Cyrus 8vs2 80,000
All these amps shell out between 50 to 75 watts of pure power to each channel.
CD Player.
What we are doing here is looking at players that can play only audio CDs, and CD-R. CD-R are those that you record at home. Some of the CDPs may be able to play MP3, but there is no guarantee. So who do you do for MP3, SACD, and DVD-A? Simple. Buy a universal DVD Player. These will play literally any disc you throw at it. And for SACD and DVD-A you also need an AVR. We will leave this for a later investment.
Good CD Players vary in prices. The difference in prices comes from two aspects - the capability to render good to excellent DAC conversion, and the capability to do high order sampling of the media to bring about accurate rendering of the music. Remember such CD players have a negative side called transparency. If the source material is bad, they will just send it as it is to the amplifier. Some choices are:
NAD 521BEE 18,000
Arcam Diva CD73 44,000
Marantz CD 5400 21,000
CAmbridge Audio Azur 640C v2 22,000
NAD C542 28,000
Cyrus CD6s 65,000
Cyrus CDXt 80,000
The total budget will now be around 200K. So what is to be done? What I would suggest is that you first listen to a few good bookshelves such as the B&W DM 601S3 and the Epos M12.2. Take a Beethoven or Mozart with you. If you like the sound, you would save about 30,000. You can then use this money on the pre/power or integrated amps, or CD Player. I have given a large price range - somewhere between 15,000 to about 80,000. Do some home work on the specs, shorten the list to what you think will be good, and start auditioning.
In terms of amplification there are also the tube amps. Two good affordable companies are Cayin from China and Lyrita in Delhi. With tube amps, you have look for very special speakers to handle the low output of these amps. Unless you have heard and have a liking for tube amps, I would veer away from them for your kind of listening. Yes they are excellent for Jazz, and even Orchestral music, but a solid state amp will do well for these as well as for the other genres you like.
I have nothing against tube amps. What I am attempting here is to give you a complete system. I have also left out the turntable, as I am not sure what is available in India and what is good. I am sure another member will chip in with information on turntables.
Please keep us updated on your progress.
Cheers.
