upgrading ??

[tigiblet344]

hi all wonder if anyone out there can give me some advice.

gyro se
Audio tech AT33 ptg and shure m97xe
B & W dm4's

i have just purchased an icon audio ps1.2 mm and mc valve phono stage, it give out 1.2 volts and has a volume pot so i can do away with the pre amp, so far so good.

i fed it into my tag 60p and it just floored my tag pa10, sorry pa10 ebayed now. this made me think is the 60p giving me all i can get from my set up.

well i had one of those little class d amps kicking about so i had a play, its a scythe sda1100. only 12 watts p ch. only cost me 19 quid in a sale. the B & W's are pretty efficiant.

i was blown away the sound quality is just unreal, it does lack a bit of power. but does go loud enough.

im now tinkering with the idea of monoblocks and the class d/t route seems to be a very affordable way to go, and will hopefully give me the kind of sound i want.

does anyone have any recomendations.
im drawn towards rotels class d offerings, they use B & O ice chips, good company with decent track record and from what i can gleen from the www the amps are good
the only other way i have thought of going was a valve power job.

[PeterW.]

That is about 30 questions all rolled into one post - and the only answer I will suggest is:

Take your time.
Listen to a lot of things.
Speakers (and other transducers) are key - the difference between electronics after the basics are met is marginal at best. Point being that two well-designed, properly built 100watt SS amps will sound largely the same as will two similar tube amps with the same parameters. Will they sound different from each other - most likely. But that is also driven by the signal fed into them. The brute fact of the matter is that most electronics are better than the signals available.

But no two speakers sound the same. And no two phono cartridges sound the same. There are those that believe (I am one of them) that no two tuners sound the same - although many will sound 'the same' based on the quality of the signal they receive - and no two tape decks sound the same.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA