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Gear / Technical Help => Playback Forum => Topic started by: heathen on December 21, 2017, 01:41:23 PM
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I'm considering setting up a dedicated listening room in a spare bedroom. The room is approximately 12x12, so it's on the small side.
I'll be using a Raspberry Pi as the playback device 99% of the time, and won't have my turntable in this room. So all I really need is the speakers and a good integrated amp. Obviously the integrated amp should have a quality DAC and sufficient digital inputs (USB, optical, coax).
This will be purely stereo, and I'd prefer to have a pair of full-range speakers rather than a pair of bookshelves and a sub. I'm not totally opposed to 2.1 though...it's just not what I'd ideally like to do. Obviously I don't want to go overboard with the speakers...they should be well suited for the small room size.
So, I'm looking for ideas on the integrated amp and speakers. I don't have a solid budget in mind, but $3,000 feels like it should be enough to get a good setup. Any recommendations are appreciated!
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Overall this is a pretty broad request, and a personally subjective decision. Consider used gear for best bang for the buck. Check craigslist for local deals, audiogon, etc.
Like recording, location and setup geometry is at least as important as the playback gear. Determine your setup constraints to better inform your choice of gear. If it's a dedicated listening room for one person figure out how to setup a good near-field listening arrangement, likely with as much distance between the speakers and walls as you can manage. As for gear I feel the primary thing is always transducers - microphones and speakers. The other stuff mostly supports them, including the room and stuff in it.
If you have other stereo gear, put it temporarily in that room and play around with setup geometry for a while. Try everything including absurd ideas. Listen and decide what works and what doesn't. All that should further inform your purchase decisions.
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i have an integrated Music hall Mambo if you are interested. Class A. I got it from a member here cheap as it had a rough UPS trip and it got banged up pretty good. So its a little ugly but overall works and has a remote.
the ONLY issue is that one of the channels cuts out a little sometimes which is corrected by increase in vol and its fine. Ive been meaning to replace the speaker binding posts as I believe that is where the overall issue is.
So if you are handy etc
I would let it go really really really reasonably if you wanted it for your playback and it would mean you could devote almost all of your budget to speakers
;D
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another suggestion would be
something like PI > Fiio as dac and or playback bucket > Little Bear or similar tube pre > AMP > Speakers
currently I run similar
little bear > Outlaw Audio mono blocks > VR2s
the tube amp is the size of a pack of smokes
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You have a healthy budget. Would you consider buying used?
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You have a healthy budget. Would you consider buying used?
From a local store, probably, but I'm not interested in dealing with Craigslist/Audiogon. There is a local place that has a used pair of Revel F206 for around $2,500...I'm going to try to give them a listen because the last time I heard a pair of Revel speakers I was really impressed.
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Try this:
KEF LS50's
PeachTree Decco
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Alternative speaker might be FOCAL Aria 906.
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I'm curious why you recommend bookshelves as opposed to floor standing?
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Because they are great sounding speakers and you have a small room. BTW, since your room is square you will need to treat it.
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I listened to several speakers today and none of them blew me away. Some were great, but nothing that really wowed me. I did check out some bookshelves, and was amazed at how well the B&Ws compared. Unfortunately they didn't have the B&W 705 set up so I might search those out to test. They also didn't have the Revel F206, which I'm very interested in trying.
I like the Cambridge CXA80 integrated amp a lot, and it should be sufficient to drive any of the speakers that will be appropriate for such a small room.
Room treatment will definitely be on the agenda, though it's something I know nothing about. One step at a time.
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I ended up just getting a new integrated amp for my main room. I'd like to focus on treating the main room though I know nothing about acoustic treatments. Any tips on where to start? My Googling has mostly turned up information about treating home studios, but I will need to do something more visually appealing and less comprehensive.
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I ended up just getting a new integrated amp for my main room. I'd like to focus on treating the main room though I know nothing about acoustic treatments. Any tips on where to start? My Googling has mostly turned up information about treating home studios, but I will need to do something more visually appealing and less comprehensive.
http://www.gikacoustics.com/audiophile-2-channel-listening-room-acoustics/
http://www.gikacoustics.com/basics-room-setup-acoustic-panels-bass-traps/
Of course, they reference their products, others manufacture bass traps and, resonator/diffuser/absorbers.
http://realtraps.com/art_front-wall.htm