At the start of 2008, I had the following system, which I was very happy indeed with:
- Modified Naim CD3.5
AV5103
AV5125 with Keilidh Aktiv cards
Keilidh's with Kustones and 038/2 tweeters
All connected with K400 and Linn Black ICs
Mk1 Centrik, Tukans & Aktiv cards - boxed up, waiting to be part of a surround system
The first purchase that I made was a second AV5125, through one of the last posts made on Topica, with the intention of being able to aktive bi-amp all five speakers in a surround setup.
However, before starting to use the new amp, I found a pair of Rosewood Kabers on eBay from Peter Tyson, which I managed to pick up for a very reasonable price. The price seemed a little less reasonable by the time I had the tweeters changed, had them coverted to Aktiv, and bought 5m of terminated K600 to connect them up, but such is life! Of course, at this point I realised a problem, which is that I couldn't find any stereo Kaber crossovers, for the very simple reason that Linn never made them :( so next on my list was finding an external Crossover. Fortunately, Grahams HiFi turned out to have a relatively recent one in stock, and some spare Kaber cards, so £200 later I had the aktiv crossover too, and once it was all delivered and connected, I was able to really enjoy the extra detail and ability to follow the tune which I was getting. :D
I'm hoping to merge my AV and stereo systems again next year (when we're planning to buil an extension) so I'd been trying to work out how to use a new BluRay player in my system. Unfortunately the 5103 doesn't have 6 channel inputs, so there seemed to be no way to get any fo the new "HD" surround formats into my system, which left me looking for a new preamp too. I missed out on a couple of Kinos's but eventually managed to pick up an Exotik for just £750, which seemed a bargain to me. Nice sound, not radically better than the 5103, but a slight improvement, and with the 6 channel input, there's a lot more potential for future improvements.
Finally, today I've had delivered an Akurate DS :D which I found through this forum (thanks PopPop!). All I can really say is "Wow!" :shock:
So, at the end of the year, this is what I'm currently listening to while typing this post:
- Akurate DS
Exotik
2x AV5125
Aktiv Tunebox with Kaber cards
Kaber's with Kustones and 038/2 tweeters
All connected with K600 and Linn Black ICs
Mk1 Centrik, Tukans & Aktiv cards - still boxed up, waiting to be part of a surround system
Many thanks to everyone on the forum who's given me good advice about various topics during my upgrade quest. Now I'm off to enjoy some music!