Stereo setup within 50-60K

[rituraj]

It's time for a stereo setup, which I will use for listening mostly Bollywood 80-90 or new songs (Full of Drum, piano, guitar etc etc). Room size is 14 X 10. Can someone please suggest me to choose one. Now my queries are as follows :

1. If I choose a pair of bookshelf, will I get adequate bass ? Or should I choose FS ?

2. Is there any provision available to connect a Sub with stereo amp, if I choose bookshelf?

3. What's the difference between powered speakers like Sonodyne and passive speaker (I mean audio quality wise)?

4. Is there any specific reason to choose CD player as source? What if I use a player like WDTV, because I will play downloaded 320MP3 or FLAC files.

5. I dont have idea about those pre-amp, power amps etc etc. I would be thankful if someone can provide me a link to understand these things, because I am sure, somewhere in this forum this topic has been discussed.

6. Are Dali speakers considerable ? Many says these are VFM and musical for HT, what about for Stereo?

I am sorry, If I asked too much.

 

[hydra]

Welcome to the forum, rituraj!

You definitely know exactly what you want! It is good to see that you've put some thought into providing the relevant background information and into asking specific questions

1) For your room size and budget, I think standmounts/bookshelves will be the best fit. Both in terms of the room, and in terms of bang for the buck. Even if you had a higher budget, I wouldn't suggest that you go for floorstanders in this room. You will get adequate bass if you use good stands, proper speaker positioning and a matching amp. I used to use a pair of PSB Image B6 with a Nad 326BEE on Soundfoundation stands in a room of approximately the same size, and I used to get way more bass than really necessary.

2) Yes, many amps have a built in subwoofer out. The NAD 326BEE is one such amp. Even if your amp does not have a sub out, nearly all subwoofers will take line level input (from your source) and give a line level stereo output to your amp (or the sub will take speaker level inputs) so that you can use a subwoofer with your existing 2-channel system. It is a good idea to get 2 speakers and an amp first, and then scale up with a sub, if you find it necessary.

3) There are conflicting opinions on this, and I think the answer would change depending on the exact systems (active speaker vs. speaker + amp) being compared. I personally prefer a separate amp & speaker setup.

4) If your primary source of music would be FLAC & MP3, perhaps a CDP is not for you (maybe you'll want one later, heh heh). I used to use a WDTV too initially. The analog outs of the WDTV (I used a Gen 1 many moons back) was very bad, and I used to use an Optical Output from the WDTV with a Beresford Caiman DAC. A WDTV with an inexpensive DAC (or a nice used DAC) sounds fairly good. It can be improved upon, for sure, but it is a very good start. Maybe later you can thing of using a PC with a nice sound card or a DAC as the source. BTW, I don't mean to say that CDPs don't sound good -- quite the contrary. It's just that in your budget, and usage pattern (source files), they don't quite fit in.

5) http://www.hifivision.com/amplifiers/10034-pre-amp-power-amp.html

6) I personally have not listened to Dali speakers for any reasonable period of time. I've listened to a pair of floorstanders playing a movie and that was not a bad experience at all. There are many fans of Dali speakers here on the forum, both for music and movies.

All the best!

 

[Audio_Freek]

Hydra,

I Pray God to give you some memory loss atleast while you suggesting and clarifying the Doubts on such doubts.hyeah:

Now i could comment only one thing to this Post


"+1 To Hydra"

 

[rituraj]

Thanks a lot Hydra for your valuable time and reply. But onething - "perhaps a CDP is not for you (maybe you'll want one later, heh heh)". I need the answer WHY

 

[hydra]

Thanks a lot Hydra for your valuable time and reply. But onething - "perhaps a CDP is not for you (maybe you'll want one later, heh heh)". I need the answer WHY

You're welcome, rituraj!

About the CDP, since you mentioned that you plan to use downloaded FLAC and MP3 files, I assumed that you do not have a CD collection to use with a CDP.

And about the comment in brackets, well, we all think we'll start small, that we will be limiting ourselves to this and that. Once we taste how well music can sound, we usually scale up pretty fast.

Though you're now listening only to FLACs and MP3s, you'll probably soon start listening only to FLAC, and then perhaps somewhere along the way, you'll get a taste of how a good CDP can sound with well recorded CDs. You'll also then form an opinion for yourself about what sounds better -- CDs or FLAC (or any lossless files). That opinion will determine what direction you will take for your future source (CD-based playback with a CDP, or PC/Media Player based playback).

In any case, with your current budget, I think all of it is best spent on a pair of speakers and an amp.

 

[forever.pramod]

Well explained

 

[forever.pramod]

We explained

 

[rituraj]

Thanks for your nice explanation. By the way, my confusion was about the line you wrote inside the bracket and I got the answer now ..