I'm looking to replace my Sony hi-fi (almost 10 years old) in the future with something a lot nicer, and have started narrowing down the various components to a few in my price-range. Being a bit of a newbie in the area and only have What Hi-Fi available at the local Tesco (yes I know, you don't need to tell me...), any help, suggestions and alternatives would be appreciated, as I'm only basing these decisions on a bit of research and my unhelpful knowledge of live sound equipment. Please note that I am on an incredibly low budget but would still be grateful for any help . CD Player- DENON DCD500AE or NAD C525BEE Amp- NAD C320BEE Turntable- PROJECT DEBUT III USB PHONO (only got onboard sound atm and wouldn't mind having digital copies of my vinyl) Speakers- Mordaunt Short 902i Then probably some QED interconnects or something similar...likewise for the speaker cables. <A88>
Shamelessly bumping this as I posted it at a stupid time last night and it's moved further down the page than most people would care to look. I know there are plenty of people who are authorities on this stuff (dom_ and Mister Tad etc)... <A88>
I dunno about authority, just a couple years ago I posted my very own hi-fi help thread . It has grabbed me by the short and curlies since then though, and I'm very much into it. Without first hand experience of the bits above, the best advice i can offer is to audition everything and anything that grabs your interest. I must have listened to at least £100k worth of hifi stuff before I decided on what I was going to go for. Richersounds, superfi and alike are only moderately helpful when it comes to auditions, independent hifi shops are generally far more helpful so you may want to find some and give them a tinkle. (Sevenoaks may be worth a try, despite being a big chain, I've found them reasonably helpful) If you would consider second hand, its definitely worth a look. Components tend to be around 1/2 the price of new and its not like this kind of stuff ever goes out of date. So long as they have been well cared for you can't go too far wrong.
Yeah I've been scouring eBay quite a bit for components- things like turntables are a bit harder to source in that price range but I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't get some of the kit from there. Thanks for the advice so far. <A88>
As Mister_Tad says, you really should audition the components before buying, especially speakers can be very room dependent, so try to get a home demo. At the budget end you really can't go wrong with Nad; others you could look into: Rotel RA-04 is looking good for £250, and has a partnering CDP, also worth looking at are Marantz and Cambridge Audio Azur range.
