Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Beginner needs advice on audio system set up

You didn't mention wether a tuner is required. If you don't need a tuner, I would look at an intigrated amp. You can always purchase a tuner later if required. For 2 channel you can get a nice Rotel amp on Ebay for a few hundred bucks. My experience with Rotel is that due to their product's basic design, usually only serious music lovers tend to buy them, wich means they also tend to take care of them. And the Rotel stuff are built like tanks, very durable. I have owned both the RA810 and the RA840BX 20 and 50 watts respectivly. Don't let the low numbers here scare you. They are hight current amps and have lots of power to drive the M60s. And sound great!!! I think the most important part of an amp is the power supply, so make sure you research the powersupply of any component you buy.

You might also consider Cambridge Audio or NAD (although I don't think they are build as well) still have great sound.

I would be more careful with a used CD player because CD players have moving parts that can wear out. But any CD player from the mentioned companies should sound quite nice.

A tube amp will give a warmer sound and "may" seem more natural, however something to keep in mind. Tubes also add noise, and classical music tends to have many quit passages. Just something to be aware of.

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take it from someone that just went from seperates to a receiver. There is no comparison, good seperates are way better then a receiver.

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Ah, but that's just it. How can you know separates are way better than a receiver if there was no comparison? And I'm not talking about a casual listen to one, then swap the wires and listen to the other kind of comparison. Yes, yes, I'm picking at your words, but to get a real sense of which is actually (if at all) better, you need to make sure both are level-matched to within 1db of each. And then to get an even better sense, the person with the most at stake -- i.e. you who purchased the upgrade -- should not be aware which device is playing when. This is essential in order to remove brand/price/personal bias from your comparison.

Get an integrated or separates. Pretty much all receivers suck for pure two channel music listening (although Marantz has had a good history). Most people who ditch receivers for separates come to this conclusion.

This nice thing about Axiom is that they are sensitive speakers and can be driven by a low amount watts.

You could hit your budget with a NAD integrated and NAD cd player used and a little bit over if you buy one of the two new. I like the NAD stuff with Axiom because it's a bit darker sounding than Rotel gear.

If you want to save on software, are planning to gets tons of it, and willing to spend the time learning turntables, you should get a turntable. The amount of nice classical records out there for $1 to $3 is astonishing. And many are recordings that will never be on cd. The downside is time spent cleaning records and money spent on various sundries (fluids, brushes, etc.).

"Always, welcome. No, you haven't misunderstood what you read about separate components, but what you read has no factual basis. Receivers provide us with audibly flawless amplification within their power limits and using two or three separate boxes can't improve on that."

No factual basis? Alan says:

Specifications (distortion, noise, etc.) of preamp-processors and power amps are usually a bit superior to an A/V receiver, since there is better internal physical separation of wiring pathways (more room), hence less chance of interference (and resulting noise) from nearby hum-causing component parts. And having separates also means that you can upgrade to a larger or different power amplifier while keeping your preamp-processor.—A.L.

I have M60's and run them with the NAD C320BEE integrated amp. For $500 Canadian (new) the amp deserves all the great reviews it gets and IMO this really is a nice combo if you're on a budget. I don't have experience with the NAD C521BEE CD player, but it gets a lot of good reviews too.

If in the US, some good prices can be found on www.SaturdayAudio.com. List price for C320BEE = $399 and C521BEE = $299, but if you call they will likely give you a deal.

thank you guys for the inputs. There got to be a reason that seperates cost much more than receivers. I tend to make a compromise to go for integrated amps.

It looks like NAD C352 integrated amp could be a good choice for me. But the user review for this product on audioreview.com is not that good, the overall rating is only 3 of 5. I am wondering if I should go for HK3480 that has a lot positive review (someone even think it is comparable to a $1000 integrated) or go to ebay to find a integrated Rotel such as RA1070 for a half price.

Thanks. I tend to go for integrated now. I saw a Rotel RA1070 today on ebay. Any comment on this one? I went to Rotel's website, could not even find this product under the integrated category. Is it a discontinued product from Rotel?

I have the NAD 352 integrated and don't let those reviews fool you. The NAD website has a number of glowing reviews on this unit. I am running it with the 60's and the sound is great. I don't know how big your listening area is but the 80 watts has been plenty enough for me and my neighbors.........

You certainly can't go wrong wiht the H/K 3480.If I were to have a limited budget of $1500 for a whole system this would be on top of my list for power.