For amplification, Bryston products are a solid, no-nonsense option that fits within your budget. Again, they're all over audiogon.com.

scott wrote:I used to work in a Hi-Fi shop for 3 years, and got to hear a lot of speakers ranging from like $300 a pair up to $80K a pair. The best speakers I ever heard are the Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mkII. They were, when I worked there, something like $3,200 a pair. Bookshelf. Best...speakers...EVER.

I was surprised, happy, and jealous when I checked out Carl Saff's website and saw that he uses a pair. I guess more jealous than anything. :)

Dynaudios are certainly wonderful. No argument here.

For heaven's sake - don't buy super high accuracy speakers like Dynaudio or Linn (and to a lesser extend B&W) without a proper amp to drive them. And you don't feed a high quality amp a crap signal, since it just amplfies the crap.

Garbage In - Garbage Out. Pay attention to the source, then the amplification, then the speakers. Be wary of big tall floorstanding speakers, they look impressive, but without a decent high current amp to drive them, they will sound like crap. Flabby low end, honky nasaly vocals, crash cymbals that sound like broken glass. Be wary of cheap (sub $1000) high current amps - they are likely flawed in some important musical way.

for $4K, you can get a decent CD only system, or a decent LP system. You probably can't do both. Just go and listen to a ton of stuff. If a hifi shop won't hook up the exact components you want, and leave you in a room alone with your CDs for a half an hour, go some where else. Bonus points if you are in a room with no other speakers besides the ones you are listening to.

I would focus on Mid-level british hifi. Things like Rega CD Players, Arcam or Mission or Quad amps. Quad, Mission, Spendor, Rega, Totem speakers. Used Linn components. Listen to everything. If you can, take stuff home and listen in your home over a weekend.

Good luck. $4k is enough to get a tremendously involving and musical system - you will enjoy it.

Edit-

Sorry tim - i disagree. Half the money spent on speakers is wrong. In my experience, such an allocation will generally yield a system that is veiled, with unnatural highs and lows, and less musicality. Very "hifi" but not realistic. I would say 1/3 or less on speakers.

But I think we can agree that the key is to listen - listen -- torture those poor sales guys.

scott wrote:The best speakers I ever heard are the Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mkII.

The best sounding speakers I have ever encountered were a set of Tannoy Gold Monitors (not sure of the exact model number) which dated from the 50's or 60's. They sounded absolutely huge, and had a very solid low-end.

I'm not a big fan of the sound of small speakers. The bass usually just doesn't cut it, although space is obviously a problem with bigger models.

the$inmusicisallmine wrote:Sorry tim - i disagree. Half the money spent on speakers is wrong. In my experience, such an allocation will generally yield a system that is veiled, with unnatural highs and lows, and less musicality. Very "hifi" but not realistic. I would say 1/3 or less on speakers.

But I think we can agree that the key is to listen - listen -- torture those poor sales guys.

Well, fair enough. I suppose it's nice to have such definite ideas about things.

In my experience, spending less than about half of my budget on speakers would result in upgrading my speakers a lot quicker than I would want to do so.

Also, it's easier to upgrade and experiment with components if you have a set of speakers that you have heard under a variety of conditions and are confident is a good investment. Easier to buy components used, get them shipped to you, etc.

It's important to remember, also, that this is a system. Bryston amps, for example, are of high quality and generally sound good, but I couldn't bear them with my Magnepans. You need to get stuff that works together, and to do that you do need to try out a bunch of shit.

Believe it or not, I typically go for used gear. I don't mind scratches, etc., and you can often find better older gear for lower prices. You can usually fix any issue, recone speakers, swap out components in crossovers, etc. cheaper than you can buy a brand new 'audiophile' system.

Of course, my 'hi-fi' is on the lower end of the scale:
Marantz 4400 tuner/amplifier (200 bucks)
JBL L-100's (350 bucks, the ones with titanium/wildly-bright drivers)
Projekt 1.2, stock /w/ crappy Oyster cartridge (300 bucks...planning on picking up a Grado Platinum, and maybe a Rega Planar tone arm)
some british hi-strand speaker cable (40+ bucks)

This system is a little veiled, fairly warm, and has soft imaging. If any of those terms mean anything at all...it is a lot of fun, though. Vinyl sound good. Believe it or not, the all-analog inputs on the Marantz make the CD player sound considerably better...'warming' it up a little.

Do you like to solder?

how about a Bottlehead Foreplay III preamp and a pair of Paramount 300b amps... then get some Audio Note AN-K loudsspeakers.

http://www.bottlehead.com/et/et.html
http://www.audionoteusa.com/speakers.htm
or
http://www.audionotekits.com/

some of the best Audio I have ever heard...

and I've heard up to $150,000.00 systems!

DIY

These look interesting, to say the least....any more input?

thanks for the input. is Marantz stuff any good?

I really like the Marantz...it is quadrophonic (I don't implement that aspect of it). It also sports an actual osilloscope in the display, which gets me laid on a daily basis...

I haven't really compared it to much. For the price, it wildly, completely destroyed the Sony piece of shit I had a great time throwing full-force into the dumpster.

hueylew wrote:thanks for the input. is Marantz stuff any good?

no, not really.