Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new amplifier and speaker setup. I already have a cd player which i feel is adequate.
I have about £300 - £400 to spend and want to make sure i get my monies worth.
I'd like a sub-woofer to go alongside two speakers, probably bookshelf speakers.
Can anyone recommend a few bits and pieces for me so I can get started.

thanks

Rob

The Marantz Pm7200 amp is available for around £240. Hook that up to a pair of Acoustic Energy Aegis Evo One's or Monitor Audio Bronze B2's at around £180 and you'll have a spanking good sound for not a lot of outlay .
Or, as an alternative try the NAD C320BEE amp and Richer Sounds are advertising these for £180 respectively. If you can get them for around this price with some of speakers above you'll be laughing!! As before tho' audition them both before you buy. I auditioned the Nad along with the Cambridge Audio 640A and Rotel Ra-01. Eventually I bought the Rotel as it made me smile all the through the audition!! Not the the NAD isn't good - it's excellent but I really preferred the Rotel. In my opinion the Cambridge was crap - real review hype and no substance to my mind. The Rotel Ra-01 is available for around £250 so that might be an option too. Also don't forget to budget for speaker cable and interconnects. QED Silver Anniversary at £5/m and Van Den Hull "The Name" at £40 are great budget choices.

What is the CD player you'll be using?

Regards and Happy listening.

Ash

Jason Kennedy has reviewed both the Rotel RA-01 and the Cambridge Audio Azur 640A for us. Check out what he thinks in the Reviews section.

thanks for the advice
i've been looking at the av receivers as well now, which would give me the option to add surround speakers at a later date. Would I lose a lot of stereo quality buying one of these instead?

Not necessarily, some can be very good, though typically you'll need to spend a little more to get the same results as a stereo equivalent. A cheaper one that's definitely worth checking out is Sony's STR-DB795, which has received high praise all over the place.

hi.im thinking of getting some floorstanding speakers for my set up.the more i look the more mind boggling it gets.just wondered if any body might have some suggestions for speakers around the £300 mark.would it be worthwhile me bi-wiring them while im laying the cable.i will need about 13mtrs of cable so any suggestions on decent good value cable would also be appreciated.it will all be hooked up to a teac ah300
yours hopefully john

any advice for a pair of decent floorstanding speakers about the £300 mark.also any info on decent cable to use
i will need about 13 metres.i want to bi-wire them as well
cheers john

In my opinion i'd go for a pair a decent standmounts and some quality stands for that sort of money (although that depends on the size of your listening room). Something like the Monitor Audio Silver S2 will give you a great overall sound or the Quad 11L's which are great if you listen to tracks with lots of vocals as they are very sweet in the mid-range but are bass light. If you like the sound of floorstanders I'd go for the S2's to get better bass response.
Although I can bi-wire my speakers I opted to go for single-wire QED XT-350 at £15/m rather than a cheaper bi-wire cable. QED do a Silver Anniversary bi-wire at £7.50/m (I think), I've got the single version in my cinema set-up and it's pretty transparent, but maybe a ltlle light in the bass.

In my opinion you get the best 'bangs per buck' by spending your budget on a high quality stereo cable. Whilst bi-wire does indeed sound better than stereo cable the key issue is what sounds better: a quality stereo cable or twice as much of an inferior bi-wire cable. Our experience is that the quality stereo cable will win nearly every time.

Unfortunately, I may have allowed two postive speaker cables to touch and my Rotel 371 amp has expired. I have changed the two anti-surge fuses but it's still dead as a doornail and I suspect that it may not be worth repairing. I listen mostly to chamber music or Oscar Petersen type jazz but like to crank things ujp a bit for such as Louis Verne organ pieces.

Any suggestions for a new amp? I have in mind Cambridge 640A, Sony SDB900, NAD 352, Marantz PM7200 or Rotel 01....all available sub £300.

To complicae matters, I sometimes connect he two positive spare speaker outputs to a 12 inch tannoy corner horn for an amazing sound with the Oscar Peterson.

The Cambridge 640A has had some excellent reviews and is widely regarded as a great all-round performer - AVReview is giving one away at the moment:

www.avreview.co.uk/Comp/Comp.asp?C=6

If the Rotel is really dead and your going to throw it out mail me and I'll take it off your hands and pay postage!;)

ben

I have just purchased a rather expensive component video cable to connect a Pioneer DV656A DVD player to a Philips PF9975 LCD Television.

When I select the component source, I get a message "picture source not available."

Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

decent floorstanders,in the £300 range,try ebay,s buy it now,and look at the Mission 753 or the dated 702