[Closed] Hi Fi question, should I get rid of old separates for modern compact thing

I don't know the answer your looking for, but when my 26year old Technics amp blew up due to faulty earth. I took in it to get repaired and asked about replacing it. The man said I wouldn't bother, it was £80 to fix and a new one to match it's quality would of been £320.

Some of the Denon mini systems have very good little amps in and have done for 30 years - pair them with some decent speakers and it will probably sound better than your technics.

There should be loads of advice coming as several people here have a setup like that.

I've got a Marantz M-CR510, which does the job for me after moving from my old 80s separates. RJ45, WiFi and USB inputs but no CD or DAB (I just stream radio off the internet). The next model up (610) adds a CD player and DAB plus another pair of speaker terminals. There's RCA inputs but they're line level. Worth a look IMO.

I would question your need for a CD player at all - there are heaps of streaming options which include internet radio (no need for Dab) - I personally think Sonos is a great solution.

Will it sound as good, probably not - will you listen to more music? Likely.

I wouldn't argue with TurnerGuy, Denon have always made quality kit; my very first CD player was/is a Denon, because it sounded far better than any others at that time*, ie Pioneer, Technics, etc. it's still upstairs, and still works, I just don't use the system now.
Don't buy Denon speakers, get some B&W, KEF, Monitor Audio or Mission boxes, or any of a large number of small-ish quality boxes. Something around an LS3/5A size, or a bit smaller, so you can put them close to a wall.
*c1984

I spoke to a guy in a shop who reckoned that advances in both digital and analogue electronics meant that compact systems now are better than similarly priced separates of 20 years ago. The fancy all in one thing I looked at came with a microphone so you could run a setup utility and configure it for your room. Given that the room you listen in is a massive part of the quality experience, this seems a sound idea (no pun intended). No idea if it works but it's very plausible.

I fancy an Arcam Solo set-up myself.

Have a look at the Denon RCD39 M39DAB. It can be had for under £200 without speakers. I hung some bookcase Gales off mine and it is excellent. Ticks most of your boxes and has a tiny footprint too.

I've recently bought a b&w zeppelin air!
In a nutshell what a fantastic piece of kit.
No need for CD player or tuner, if you've got
An iphone you can stream everything through
Apple airplay. Sound is fantastic!

configure it for your room.

only really for where you are sitting though.

It is still best to arrange some soft furnishings to the sides of the speakers, thick carpet/rug in front, and try to keep the speakers away from the walls.

Although, funnily enough, some of the sophisticated room 'correction' systems like the speakers to be in the corners, or at least the subwoofers, as it is easier for them to compensate the without having to deal with the reflections you would get if they were away from the walls.

I have a Tact 2.2x pre-amp which does all that although I only use it in bypass mode...

No. Keep the Hi fi, keep the cds and vinyl.

OP, which KEF speakers?

You'd possibly get a more accurate sound from cheaper, modern stuff.

Would you be better off getting a turntable rather than a CD player?

Id be surpirsed if any £500 all in one had decent amp and speakers.

Just make sure you have directional power cables.

The speakers aren't KEF, they were my old ones, just looked they are Gales I got from Richer sounds years ago, good sound though. I still have a lot of cd's inc. some really good compilations I get sent regularly from brother regularly who is really into his music. Still having second thoughts but that Marantz 610 seems tick a lot of the boxes, be good to go out and actually try one first

Id be surpirsed if any £500 all in one had decent amp and speakers.

we're talking about around 300 on the mini system without speakers, and then £200 on some speakers.

Obviously speaker cable might be a bit more... Seriously though, as those systems tend to use bell wire type stuff.

Still a non hi fi amp...

cynic-al - Member
Still a non hi fi amp...

Still a non hi fi amp...

I'd be surprised if a decent modern £300 mini wasn't at least a match for the kind of 90s Technics kit that included a graphics equaliser in the lineup.

I bought an audio pro all room managed to get it with 30% off so it was a good deal. All you need is a phone, iPad or computer to stream music and the sound is amazing, what hifi gave it 5 stars.

http://www.whathifi.com/review/audio-pro-allroom-air-one

http://www.audiopro.com/products/allroom-air-one

Dunno whether you should but my Denon M38DAB paired with a set of Wharfedale 10.1s sounds pretty good to me and cost less than £500 all in so I reckon the newer version that Derek mentioned above would work a treat

Do Denon systems not come with Mission speakers any more?

Don't get rid of the 1210

CZ, the OP asked about quality, did he not?

Personally, I think if you're concerned about hi-fi sound, then a proper hi-fi set up is called for.

I've got a great sounding DAB/CD player in our bedroom that most people would be happy with for their main listening source, but it can't touch what I've got in the lounge (MBP through a DAC into Denon 4400 monoblocks into some monster Dynaudio floorstanders). As Cynic-al says, it's not a hi-fi amp, and you're going to be hard pushed to get better sound for £500. Not impossible, but it won't be easy.

I guess it depends if your priorities have changed - are you after convenience and simplicity, as well as helping your son out, or do you want it to blow you away sonically?

Yes I guess priorities have changed over time, happy for son to have it all as I know he'll use and appreciate it more than I ever do these days plus he and mates seem to think old proper hi fi and vinyl is cool. I guess I want more convenience & simplicity, something that takes up less space but still an alright sound. That said I think my hearing is crap anyway from years of working in noisy work environments - a mate has some very poncey Linn system which he never admits how much it all costs but I suspect well in to 5 figures, it does sound good but not that good to me over my old technics stuff which cost peanuts compared to that.

Yeah - as with most things, the law of diminishing returns comes into play very quickly with hi-fi gear. A budget integrated amp, streamer and speakers could be found for not much more than £600, giving ample room for upgrades if you so desired and wouldn't sound that much worse than your mates Linn system.

We've had a mini-Denon system for over 15 years now. It came with (debadged) Mission speakers.

Up to now the sound has always been brill, and as loud/clear as needed - but we've moved and now have a lot larger open Mill-type house and it just doesn't have the 'volume' to fill it.

Not changing it though.

My 1987 Technics Amp finally died a couple of years back and I replaced it with a Marantz PM5004, which was noticeably better!

derek_starship - Member
Have a look at the Denon RCD39 M39DAB. It can be had for under £200 without speakers. I hung some bookcase Gales off mine and it is excellent. Ticks most of your boxes and has a tiny footprint too.

+1

I bought one for my lounge, and went back to get another a month later to play my computer through. Excellent little box, and whathifi agree.

Dab is rubbish - we already have an outdated standard and internet radio is far better anyway

Itunes will sound rubbish played through anything decent as it is compressed to buggery

so it doesn't really matter what equipment you use for these type of sources

But CD's and vinyl plus FM will sound better through your old Technics than a lot of the new cheap all in one systems

The reason people (and many non-audiophile shop assistants) think new cheap hi fi equipment is better is because they have grown up listening to clipped sanitised flat sounding electronically compressed music files and confuse the fact that it is clean sounding with good audio.

Itunes will sound rubbish played through anything decent as it is compressed to buggery

iTunes will only sound rubbish if the source files are rubbish, all iTunes is doing is providing an interface for managing and playing the files. All my files are stored as wav files and they sound great played back through iTunes. Likewise the stuff I've tried compressed as flac and apple lossless both sounded fine.

Sorry , I meant the bought stuff at 128

Yes, properly ripped CD's sound great through a good set up. I use a squeezebox to stream in various codecs to a fairly cheap Arcam and Richer sounds speakers - sounds good to me

I thought even bought stuff is 320 these days?

Dab is rubbish

To counter the arguments others have made I reckon you'll stuggle to find something that sounds as good. Amp and speaker technology hasn't really changed as far as I can see and if it had a 1210 turntable it was probably a reasonably high end set up.

We've had a mini-Denon system for over 15 years now. It came with (debadged) Mission speakers.

Up to now the sound has always been brill, and as loud/clear as needed - but we've moved and now have a lot larger open Mill-type house and it just doesn't have the 'volume' to fill it.

Have you tried bigger speakers..? My Denon DM38 happily drives a pair of MS Avant 914i floorstanding speakers.

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In response to the OP do you even need a system of any kind? If you have a TV in the room then a soundbar and sub, could offer a compact solution (use your DVD player for CDs). Sure it ain't pure hi-fi, but they are way better than tinny speakers, and offer a range of connection options such as Bluetooth, phono aux, radio through TV etc.

Another happy Denon owner here.

It's not just good for it's size, it's good full stop.

Ours is about 10 years old but sounds excellent with both Mission 700s and the smaller Mission made speakers it came with.

It just sits under the TV, makes films and games sound better as well as being a cracking little hifi.

Not sure if it'd sound better than your separates though, Technics made some good stuff. 🙂

Have you tried bigger speakers..? My Denon DM38 happily drives a pair of MS Avant 914i floorstanding speakers.

Exactly! The bigger the speakers, the less power it takes to 'drive' them.

Counterintuitive but it's the same reason that the bigger the sail, the less wind it takes to make the boat move.

Denon RCD-N8 CEOL can be had with or without a CD player, has DAB, i-phone dock and is wifi enabled so you can play any stored music.
Great bit of kit.

Exactly! The bigger the speakers, the less power it takes to 'drive' them.

I didn't think it was as simple as that?

I understood that it was down to the impedance i.e. the resistance of the speakers.

8ohm speakers offer higher resistance than 4ohm speakers, so "pull" less current from the amp. 4ohm speakers will "pull" more current and can potentially damage a weaker amp.

I am no tech expert though!

Yup - size of speaker means nothing regarding how much power is needed to drive them. You need to take into the sensitivity of the speakers amongst other things.

I would doubt it's worth it but you are going about this wrong.

You should get out and have a listen to what is available. Make your own mind up on if you think it's worth changing or not. Sleep on it, don't decide there and then in the shop.

Listening to views here will only cloud your judgement and make it harder to decide for yourself.

I'm just looking at getting a technics CD player with a set of mackie active studio monitors.
The sound is fantastic on a colleagues setup

i have one of the earlier 'compact' denon systems, which are sort of like miniature separates, but designed to work together. so if you hit play on the cd then the pre-amp, PA and cd player fire up, but it leaves the tape deck ( yeah, yeah ) off. sounds great, and still does, but lives in the garage now, as the cd player died. from there i spent a similar amount of money on a linn classik and a pair of B&W speakers. sounds awesome, however it has 'issues' now, and linn have rather unhelpfully decided they no longer support such old units. 🙄
when this finally dies it will likely be an arcam solo unit for me. it was a toss-up between one of those and the linn when i bought that, and the functions they've built in to them now are amazing.

Dab is rubbish

doesn't have to be - it depends on the playback device, etc.

I listen to MP2s recorded from DAB all day from a Cowon i10 player and Shure se535 headphones and it sounds pretty good, and my old Videologic radio (Pure before they changed their name) can sound pretty decent.

Don't forget that BBC VHF radio 3 transmissions, which people used to praise, are transmitted over a 15bit network, so they aren't CD quality either.

I didn't think it was as simple as that?
I understood that it was down to the impedance i.e. the resistance of the speakers.
8ohm speakers offer higher resistance than 4ohm speakers, so "pull" less current from the amp. 4ohm speakers will "pull" more current and can potentially damage a weaker amp.
I am no tech expert though!

The impedance is (mostly) just the electrical behaviour of the speaker. What matters most is the acoustic behaviour of the speaker. The sensitivity number you see quoted is a simplified (and marketing tweaked 😉 ) statement of that. I'd guess that my home hi-fi speakers are around 88dB sensitivity. One of the biggest loudspeakers we make at work is 100dB sensitivity. That means with 1W input you get that many dB SPL out. If you double the power input you get another 3dB out, so to make the hi-fi speaker reach 100dB you'll need 2^4=16W into it.

Very few small hi-fi speakers can handle 16W in the lows without becoming somewhat non-linear (various distortion mechanisms). My 50W hi-fi amp can probably push this pair of speakers with 5" woofers to about 103dB at best. Meanwhile stick a pair of pro-audio speakers with 2x12" woofers on that same amp and they'll hit 103dB with 2W and the amp will run out of power at 115dB, comfortably twice as loud (10dB = doubling of loudness).

The joy of very very big hi-fi speakers is that they need so little power to drive them that you can vastly reduce lots of the distortion mechanisms inherent to sound reproduction - if speakers are equally well designed and equally expensive then the bigger they are, the more real they tend to sound.

Who is it you work for CGG?

A few differences in opinions to be expected but I do want something smaller/easy to use so will go and look and try some of the Denon/Marantz units coupled to decent speakers or one of those sound box things recommended. We have the usual high street places around here plus a Richer Sounds and a specialist hi-fi place to check out but considering my hearing isn't that good anyway, I imagine I won't be able tell a huge amount of difference in quality for some.
Surprised by DAB comments, I do like it for 6 Music, 5 live, radio 4 etc on kitchen/van/shed radios but I do also listen to stuff on line at work like 'music machine 2' which seems pretty good.

I have a Denon M39 with a pair of Dali Zensor 1s, pop in to a dealer and check out what they can do for your budget/have a listen,you may be surprised,don't rush.

trip to Richers at weekend to listen they have the denon M39 and marantz 610 with speaker package deals, the dali zensors or Q acoustics 2020i which all seem to get really good reviews

Be careful going to Richer Sounds - unless they can demonstrate in a quiet room then anything they demonstrate will probably be run at a higher volume than you are likely to use at home because the shop background noise will be higher than at home - and everything normally sounds better at higher volume.

Check if you can have a cooling off period in case you make a mistake - sometimes they do that with their extended warranty thing.

well I got the Denon one with Dali speakers from Richer Sounds at the weekend for £289 package deal, they did a tenner off for signing up on line for the newsletter and chucked in some decent cables. It sounds really great on DAB and off iphone/pad but not so good for cd's for some reason. I had to get a better DAB aerial off ebay as the piece of thin wire supplied was crap, fine now. And, my old system is still in the family, so everyone happy. Thanks for tips.

I have a Denon RCD-M38 with Mission MX1 Speakers in my office at work.

I haven't regretted it I'm sure you will enjoy yours.