Quote:
Originally Posted by PHC1
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I hope I'm putting this in the right place ...
Thank you all for your kind welcomes … I’m ready to start my journey to audio nirvana and I need your wise counsel and advice. Currently, the only audio setup I have is a whole house audio system that uses an HTD-1275 12 channel amp and HTD music controller. We stream music from iTunes and Tidal (which we’re just getting into) via an airport express connected to the music controller. I would like to begin to build a high quality 2 channel system. First, I would like to start with digital only, since all of my current source material is on CDs and we stream a lot of music, and maybe at some point in the future add a turntable. Since I will be starting with digital, I was thinking of starting with either the Aurender A10 or N10. As I understand it, if I got the A10, I would not need an external DAC. If I went with the N10, I would need to add an external DAC. If that’s the case, I was thinking of the Esoteric K-01X, which seems to get glowing reviews and only lacks MQA (which may not even be a shortcoming). Please provide feedback on these and whether I need to demo these before making a decision on one or the other or if it makes sense to consider something else.
My next consideration is where to put the new system. We have two choices here: My wife would like to keep it in a smaller room (dimensions are 16’ L x 15.5’ W x 11’ H). We currently use this room as a bar with one wall having cabinets with glass doors. The other walls are plaster. Seating would be about 10’ from the speakers. While I’m not against that, I see another possibility in a much larger room (dimensions are 37’ L x 17’ W x 10’ H). This room is one big room that has our kitchen, family kitchen table and family room. The walls are dry wall and windows/doors to the outside. At the far end of the room in the kitchen area, there is a tile wall with cabinets and a 48” Wolf oven and vent. I don’t know if that will have any adverse impact on the sound. I estimate that seating would be about 10-11’ from the speakers.
After deciding where to put the system, I guess the next step would be to select candidate amps and speakers for audition. I’m wide open for suggestions, although I tend to like McIntosh amps and Sonus Faber speakers — but again, I don’t have any basis for leaning in that direction and have never done an amp and speaker audition.
Please let me know if I’m way off the mark or if I’m going about this all wrong — I’m looking for your input and guidance.
Thank you all and I look forward to reading your input!
Gene