New amp and speakers
 

Gordon MacPherson wrote:
Hi,
Thnking about replacing my very old Cambdge amp and Ditton 44 speakers. Up
to around £1500 to play with. Thinking about the B&W 863 speakers and no
idea about an amp. Thoughts please

Thanks,

Gordon



sounds a pretty good set-up. Are there any specific deficiencies you
could identify to help eliminate the obvious bad choices. Some of that
£1500 might be far better spent on the room.

d

New amp and speakers
 

Hi,
Thnking about replacing my very old Cambdge amp and Ditton 44 speakers. Up
to around £1500 to play with. Thinking about the B&W 863 speakers and no
idea about an amp. Thoughts please

Thanks,

Gordon

New amp and speakers
 

"Gordon MacPherson" wrote in message
...
Hi,
Thnking about replacing my very old Cambdge amp and Ditton 44 speakers. Up
to around £1500 to play with. Thinking about the B&W 863 speakers and no
idea about an amp. Thoughts please

Thanks,

Gordon

You must be mad, absolutely bonkers! Get down to Richer Sounds and save
yourself £1200. I remember watching a test on TV were people sat in a room
blindfolded. They listened to a cheap stereo, a more expensive one and a
real person.
The only difference they could tell was between a person and a recording,
nothing else.
Richer Sounds sell loads of outdated Cambridge gear. Never heard of the
speakers!
Don't forget your £500 a metre speaker cable which only makes everything
sound good because you're told it does.

New amp and speakers
 

john m wrote:

You must be mad, absolutely bonkers!

"john m" is a troll expecting an audience. Don't feed him.
Google 'Tiscali Idiot'

--
Adrian C

New amp and speakers
 

Gordon MacPherson wrote:
Hi,
Thnking about replacing my very old Cambdge amp and Ditton 44 speakers. Up
to around £1500 to play with. Thinking about the B&W 863 speakers and no
idea about an amp. Thoughts please

/me looking out of the window. "Wow, that bird's got a nice ***"

Oh, ummm, ah...

What music, reproduce bass?, what vocals?, been to live concerts? what
room size? Play vinyl? How many inputs? How many tape loops? Want
multiroom? Cinema?

Not a lot of excitement here - tried the forums?

--
Adrian C

New amp and speakers
 

Gordon MacPherson wrote:

Thnking about replacing my very old Cambdge amp and Ditton 44 speakers. Up
to around £1500 to play with. Thinking about the B&W 863 speakers and no
idea about an amp. Thoughts please

B&W good, or something from the likes of Monitor Audio. Also worth
looking at the Mordaunt-Short Avant 908i at £500. These have a matching
centre and bipolar rears available if you want to go to 5.1/7.1 at a
later date.

Amp... something from Arcam, A70 or A90.

Don't forget some decent speaker cable - opinions are divided on this
group but it does make a difference. Audio Innovations Silver Bi-wire at
£5/metre is good, or if you can run to it Chord Rumour 4 at £20/metre.
I've used both, had the AI stuff originally and upgraded to the Rumour 4
when I got the Arcam AVR250 amp.

--
Squirrel Solutions Ltd Tel: (01453) 845735
http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/ Fax: (01453) 843773

Registered in England: 05877408

New amp and speakers
 

"Glenn Richards" wrote in message
...
Gordon MacPherson wrote:

Thnking about replacing my very old Cambdge amp and Ditton 44
speakers. Up to around £1500 to play with. Thinking about the B&W 863
speakers and no idea about an amp. Thoughts please

B&W good, or something from the likes of Monitor Audio. Also worth
looking at the Mordaunt-Short Avant 908i at £500. These have a
matching centre and bipolar rears available if you want to go to
5.1/7.1 at a later date.

Amp... something from Arcam, A70 or A90.

Don't forget some decent speaker cable - opinions are divided on this
group but it does make a difference. Audio Innovations Silver Bi-wire
at £5/metre is good, or if you can run to it Chord Rumour 4 at
£20/metre. I've used both, had the AI stuff originally and upgraded to
the Rumour 4 when I got the Arcam AVR250 amp.

--
Squirrel Solutions Ltd Tel: (01453)
845735
http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/ Fax: (01453)
843773

Registered in England: 05877408


Whatever you do go listen first.

You will find that many modern amps - especially Arcam - to be very
bright compared with the Cambridge. I would suggest looking at Marantz
or NAD, both of which you will find at Richers.

As for speakers, again you will find modern speakers much brighter -
often called 'more detailed' - but unless you get something quite big
you will find them either lacking in good bass or suffering from
'one-note' bass compared with the Dittons. I went from BC1's that are
not unlike the 44's to a pair of Kef Q55 to get better detail: true it
is more 'detailed' and the imaging is undoubtedly better, but after
about five years they are starting to grate and I'm thinking of pulling
the BC1's out of retirement. Again - and even moreso with speakers -
listen before you buy.

Don't bother with expensive/exoctic cables - just get some decent 4sqmm
or 6sqmm flex, the longer the run the thicker. If the run is short (a
metre or two) then 2.5sqmm cable will do perfectly well. Go for a 79
strand or better if you can and don't pay more than about £1.50/metre.


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

New amp and speakers
 

"Glenn Richards" wrote in message
...


opinions are divided on this group but it does make a difference.


I love that!, "opinion is divided, but I'm right"

In your opinion of course.

David.

New amp and speakers
 

"Woody" wrote in message
...

Don't bother with expensive/exoctic cables - just get some decent 4sqmm or
6sqmm flex, the longer the run the thicker. If the run is short (a metre
or two) then 2.5sqmm cable will do perfectly well. Go for a 79 strand or
better if you can and don't pay more than about £1.50/metre.


2.5sqmm is perfectly adequate for any normal domestic installation.

David.

New amp and speakers
 

David Looser wrote:

opinions are divided on this group but it does make a difference.
I love that!, "opinion is divided, but I'm right"

Heh, ok, posting written rather quickly... but you get the idea.

In your opinion of course.

In my experience, yes, speaker cables do make a difference to the sound.
As do interconnects to some extent. Seems that some people can hear a
difference and others can't - just like some people (myself included)
have perfect pitch and others don't.

There are people who really can't hear differences between various hi-fi
components. Although one of the more entertaining examples was a couple
of years ago when a know-it-all friend insisted that there couldn't
possibly be a difference between £100 worth of Technics CD player
(SL-PG590) and £1000 worth of Arcam CD/DVD player (DV79). So I hooked
both up, played a piece of music on the Technics (Duelling Banjos off a
Hayseed Dixie CD IIRC, was what I had in my hand at the time)... all
fine during the intro but when the bassline kicked in the whole sound
became overblown.

I then swapped to the Arcam and the difference was fairly amazing.

My friend's response? "Oh, you're using those fancy Chord interconnects
on the Arcam, you're using a £10 Cambridge Atlantic on the Technics."

Riiiiight...

--
Squirrel Solutions Ltd Tel: (01453) 845735
http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/ Fax: (01453) 843773

Registered in England: 05877408