Hey guys, my first post on here, love everything about this place! I'm not sure this is the best subforum to ask this, but it kinda made sense to approach the problem from amplification angle.
Here's what I'm up to. I now have a pair of Harbeth P3ESR speakers hooked up to a Yamaha A-S500. Sources are CA, phono and (smart) TV, in falling order of importance.
Now what's changing soon is, I'm getting a subwoofer. The P3s sound simply beautiful, but I think I want just a bit more bass.
My room - it's a relatively small living room / dining room / kitchen rectangular affair. Listening distance from speakers is 2.5 - 3m, so not exactly near-field, but pretty near. Speakers are almost to the frontwall, 20-30cm away. I also listen mostly at very low volumes. Quiet conversation level and regularly down to whisper-level. I almost never listen at high volumes.
So what I can't figure out myself, here's the new setup I'm thinking about:
- MiniDSP SHD - this should be able to take care of streaming instead of CA (Roon mainly, but I could still connect the CA to it digitally), hook up the phono via the analog input pair (will need a phono preamp), hook up the TV via digital. I'm betting a lot on Dirac to fix my unfortunate room problems.
- Some NCORE power amplification - along the lines of AUDIOPHONICS HPA-S250NC or MPA-S125NC.
- Money is not particularily important, but let's say I don't want to go the NAD M33 route becase that's too expensive.
Now what I'm worried about the most - is the SHD capable of attenuating the signal enough (without noticeable loss of quality), so the NCOREs can play at the volumes I'm comfortable with? If the above setup is not advisible for my situation, what else can I do? Basically my only requirement is Dirac for all mentioned inputs, with separate subwoofer output (volume controlled together with mains, but DSP controllable separately). Well and volume/source controls should be IR.
Seems to me like SHD is definitely the way to go (basically NAD C 658 is the only alternative, which I'm too scared to venture into, according to all the negative stories), so the power amp stage might be the real question - should I rather be looking at Class AB or even A, to use after the SHD preamp?
Hope I can spark some conversation, I've been thinking about this a lot and it would really help me to get some insights from others.
Here's what I'm up to. I now have a pair of Harbeth P3ESR speakers hooked up to a Yamaha A-S500. Sources are CA, phono and (smart) TV, in falling order of importance.
Now what's changing soon is, I'm getting a subwoofer. The P3s sound simply beautiful, but I think I want just a bit more bass.
My room - it's a relatively small living room / dining room / kitchen rectangular affair. Listening distance from speakers is 2.5 - 3m, so not exactly near-field, but pretty near. Speakers are almost to the frontwall, 20-30cm away. I also listen mostly at very low volumes. Quiet conversation level and regularly down to whisper-level. I almost never listen at high volumes.
So what I can't figure out myself, here's the new setup I'm thinking about:
- MiniDSP SHD - this should be able to take care of streaming instead of CA (Roon mainly, but I could still connect the CA to it digitally), hook up the phono via the analog input pair (will need a phono preamp), hook up the TV via digital. I'm betting a lot on Dirac to fix my unfortunate room problems.
- Some NCORE power amplification - along the lines of AUDIOPHONICS HPA-S250NC or MPA-S125NC.
- Money is not particularily important, but let's say I don't want to go the NAD M33 route becase that's too expensive.
Now what I'm worried about the most - is the SHD capable of attenuating the signal enough (without noticeable loss of quality), so the NCOREs can play at the volumes I'm comfortable with? If the above setup is not advisible for my situation, what else can I do? Basically my only requirement is Dirac for all mentioned inputs, with separate subwoofer output (volume controlled together with mains, but DSP controllable separately). Well and volume/source controls should be IR.
Seems to me like SHD is definitely the way to go (basically NAD C 658 is the only alternative, which I'm too scared to venture into, according to all the negative stories), so the power amp stage might be the real question - should I rather be looking at Class AB or even A, to use after the SHD preamp?
Hope I can spark some conversation, I've been thinking about this a lot and it would really help me to get some insights from others.