Incubus - The Essential Incubus (2012) FLAC
Vespasiano Jilg
I second the pro-ject recommendation. The pro-ject line was one of the first that came to mind when I read your post. They have a good range in terms of cost and across the board stellar performance. Also, pro-ject has surprisingly good customer service.
maybe i just dont have golden ears or something but i have AV-123 LS6s (retail for $5,000 and are huge) and i play a bunch of mp3s that are at minimum 192kbps VBR and they sound fine. i wouldnt get hung up over ripping all your music to FLAC, 320kbps VBR is more than enough. my music all comes straight out of my motherbard via optical into an onkyo 807 to an emotiva XPA-3. I dont use any fancy DACs.
I think people worry far too much about having a good quality bitrate. ive done comparisons for myself using incubus flacs (not the greatest band but well mastered especially in the vocals) and i could not tell the difference between 320kbps and flac in a blind test.
B&W is good but i think theres better out there for the price, namely dynaudio, dali, jm lab, monitor audio, PSB, and quad. Make sure the dealer gives you at least a 10-15% discount on the speakers. If you want the best bang for the buck and zero hassle well just buy some jamo C80x series from amazon (out of stock though), or these from vanns
-rc50?s_c=site_search
Ive only been an audiophile for about 4 years now but i can safely say you should spend the most on your speakers, they are 99% of the sound. A sufficient amp should be neutral and let the speaker do its thing, a sufficient dac will make the last 1% difference.
As for formats, I think vinyl is just about preference. You can argue with someone all day about vinyl or CD being better, but there is no disputing the fact that they are different, and any time you have two different things people are going to have a preference, and then tout that preference as superior to the alternatives.
For me one of the big things of preferring vinyl over digital is what the music genre is. I feel like the type of music you want to listen to can have 2 different sounds weather being played on vinyl or tape and in the end i have favorites that i only play digital or on vinyl. Both have advantages over the other in many ways.
what a deck. its long been the best deck on the market. A friend just got an SME and that is taking it up a level. I have a Rega5 which has a nice sound and I couple that with a Cary 300 SEI for a warm, liquid sound of tubes and vinyl.
Just a quick note in regard to people who feel that vinyl is an obsolete medium. A few years ago the Smithsonian started buying up all of the vinyl they could. The reason for this is because they found out that vinyl, as a medium for storing media, actually lasts longer (in ideal conditions) than a cd. Cds deteriorate quicker than vinyl.
I had the opportunity to listen to vinyl and cd on system that must have easily reached the 150K zone. The speakers were Avantguard Trios and there was a Hovland preamp in there (gorgeous looking amp and preamp btw you should look these up just for how stylish they are). The Cd player was 20,000 dollars the record player was modest by comparison at $7k and $4k for the needle. It was astonishing how good everything sounded. It is what I hope music sounds like in heaven. It really was that much better than ordinary you have no idea.
b37509886e