I've recently bought a musical fidelity x150 amp and am wondering what cd/speakers would go well with it. Ant suggestions? Currently have warfdale pacific 30's and arcam 73, both of which i plan to upgrade.
cheers

Hi Matt
Just a thought - before you dump the 73 you could ask Arcam about their upgrade costs. If you have the 73T, the Sony transport is O.K. and so you might also wish to consider adding a DAC... Otherwise consider a matching MF CD player - they seem a good fit with the MF amps.
For speakers - I think you'll get a better response from the Forum if you give a few preferences (budget, stand mount or floorstanding, musical tastes, room size, preferred volume, etc...).
One interesting experiment is to borrow a subwoofer and try that in your system (only use very mild settings indeed) - with this you may find that this makes the Pacific's treble sound "better" (yes, I know that this sounds strange!!).
Why not take some CDs along to Sevenoaks (they sell MF/Arcam, etc.) - so you could test drive some of their speakers with similar CD/amps to your own...
Cheers, Ken.

Hi Matt
I agree with Ken on the upgrading rather than changing idea, from memory I think it's about £300 to take a CD73 to CD82T spec, and £550 to take it to CD192 spec, the other path which was suggested to me while looking into upgrading my CD82 was to consider an offboard DAC.
Personally I wouldn't worry about changing the speakers till you have tried the DAC/CD player change and got used to the sound so you know whether any speaker change is really worth the money.
Regards
Mark

Having partnered both my MF X80 and A3.2 with them, i can genuinely recommend my Focal jm Lab Chorus 714s.which, by sheer coincidence, i am selling.see ad in floorstanders section.
Cost a tad under £500
sell for £330 ono
Great speakers!

Ken, Mark and icehockeyboy cheers,
I'm keen to get away from the arcam sound and would be looking to spend about £800 on a cd and up to 1500ish on speakers. the intention would then be to up grade from there with dacs,adding a power amp ? buffer etc in time. musical tastes vary form metal to jazz but not pop, so generally i'm after a neutral instrumental sound though do enjoy dance as well. speakers wise would be looking at floor standers as the kits in a largeish room of 20'x 12' and listening volume is not restricted.
if anyone has further suggestions they'd be gratefully received

Now selling my MF Xray v3 which is not only a top cdp, but the matching one for your X150........Approx 4 months old.....cost £900...yours for £625 ono.

Hi Matt
Pushing your budget - but what about the Marantz SA-15S1 (and the platinum finish is neat!) - A very new player so I haven't heard this yet (rec. about £1100 less any discount) - but it is well reviewed... I have an old (about 15 years!) CD11, which originally had a rec. retail of about £2.5k, fitted with a Trichord Clock 2 upgrade...
Not worth upgrading the 72 if you don't like the Arcam house sound. One DAC I have really liked (especially with Jazz/female vocalists) is the Meridian 563 DAC.
The eventual appearance of the Cambridge Azur 740C (£500? or?), avoiding the What Hi-Fi hype, may be interesting... with 2xAD1955, 24 bit upsampling, balanced XLR output...
Speakers... so much choice... but don't rule out the B&W 800 series - the 805S is a stand mounter but should be agile and finely detailed (this only came to mind as I remembered that I heard the 563 DAC through the previous range B&W 705 - very believeable). Over the years (as my hearing has faded!) I have come to prefer stand mount speakers - they just seem to breathe more easily, have a larger 'sweet spot' and sound faster (due to less baffle, or the stands isolating the units from the floor, greater cabinet rigidity, or..). It sounds corny to describe... I generally hear more detail in the layered percussion of, say, a Rippingtons CD from 'bookshelf' speakers than (same price) floorstanders.
Good grief I'm rambling on a bit here...
Cheers, Ken.