I’ve been doing my listening through a Sony STRDH190 integrated amp for a year or so, and it’s not been a bad experience. Not at all. The phono preamp is pretty good. But the amp itself hums, and sends a pretty good hum through the loudspeakers as well. Now I know, it’s only a $200 amp, so it’s not really Hi-Fi, but I’m at an age (and a state) where my hearing is pretty impaired. I have tinnitus and hearing loss, so I’m not going to spend 5K on a Hi-Fi system component. I’ll spend that on several components, sure. But not one one piece. I do, however, want good shit. Just not necessarily the best, like I might once have wanted.
Anyway, I’ve digressed. The Sony I bought because I guess I trust the name. It’s also a helluva good-looking amp. It’s solid black with two knobs on it. And the dimmer has an option to shut off the display after a couple seconds. So when you volume up or change inputs or whatever, it will reflect that on the screen, then go dark. So it looks killer. But like I said, it hums. Fuck that.
So I finally upgraded. And not by much. But I got the Cambridge Audio AXA25 power amp. It’s 25 watts per channel. If you laugh I’ll punch you in the ear. My loudspeakers (a couple of Yamaha NS-6490 three-ways – again, hold your fuckin’ laughing) are right in the middle of the sensitivity range that works perfectly with this amp. So watt per decibel, it gets loud. I haven’t even turned the volume knob past noon. But I said ‘not by much’ because I meant price. It was only $225, but it had the exact features I wanted. I didn’t want a built in phono stage. I have a separate phono preamp. (The Cambridge Audio Alva Duo @ $299) It also doesn’t have a built-in DAC or anything else I don’t need. No display to light up the room with some shitty 80s LED readout of what source I’m on. Just knobs. And all analog inputs. Fuckin’ beautiful.
The CD player is also an upgrade. It’s the Cambridge Audio AXC35, so it stacks nicely with the power amp. I love the look of my devices sitting on my shitty homemade MDF cabinet. That’s another story, but I had to build the cabinet because my turntable is so deep front-to-back, and I had an exact dimensional requirement to fill.
My turntable, the Audio-Technica AT-LP7, comes in at $800, or at least it did when I bought it. My most expensive piece of audio gear, to be sure, but I really like that it’s all manual. There’s no automation at all on it. And the dust cover comes completely off. I love this piece of gear. It’s so smooth and beautiful. And with the upgraded cartridge I put on it, the AT VMN40ML with MicroLine stylus, it sounds amazing. Crystal clear audio. I’m so in love with my setup right now.
The next thing I want to invest in is a good set of cans. My phono preamp has a headphone-in jack and a volume knob to control said headphones, so you don’t have to turn on your power amp to listen to music. The only headphones I have right now are Bluetooth. And we know what Bluetooth does to music. I’m also looking into the Cambridge Audio network media player. It looks pretty slick.
So my whole setup comes in at right around $2000 as of right now. That’s not what some would call Hi-Fi, but I dare you to sit in my listening space, observe my sound stage and say you don’t feel something! Listening to those first licks on Dire Straits’s first album as Down To The Waterline opens up, man. It sounds like magic. I’m proud of my system. See, the thing is, when you spend less on components, you can spend more on records and CDs. Zing!