Purchase of NVA Products

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

There is only one way with recommendations, you have to set a price point. Obviously laws of diminishing returns apply but if you spend more with nva then you get more, otherwise i wouldn't have bothered to make it.

Others here have done it, notably recently Phlakaton http://hifisubjectivist.org/search.php? ... 4&start=50 link here to read his posts and the process he went through. He is coming this afternoon to collect his first upgrade.

[terrybooth]

To make that into a shopping list (for my own interest because I bought mine in bits)

BMU £500
LS5 (gives you an upgrade to LS6 or TSCS) (2metre biwire) £170
SSC (gives you and upgrade to SSP or TIS) (70cm) £52
A70s or A80s £960 or £1200
P50sa or P90sa £300 or £640

So between somewhere around £1982 and £2562 get's you started (assuming my maths is correct).

[_D_S_J_R_]

Is the Audiolab stuff UK or Chinese made? UK up until 1997 or so if memory serves. NVA would give you a clearer, less 'stressed' presentation (I can't describe it any better). The Audiolabs were great at the time and very well made and reliable, but selling out to Tag wasn't a good move and now the old designs are all but cloned in China for peanuts.

CD players are a personal thing. it's my current view that a current sub £200 Denon will give you 95% of what Red Book can give in an un-coloured and straight-down-the-line manner that NVA products will relish. That indefinable '5% something' that's in top end players is/was coming down in price and the best Cambridge models may do very well, but it's also my view that modern Top End is window dressing a cheap circuit, although I admit that huge effective power supplies aren't cheap at all! The vintage Sony's as regularly mentioned here are worth every penny though, but you may have to look to Germany for good examples as so few came over here in the early 90's sadly.

[omdurman44]

Been a while...Other priorities put me back a year....Buying the stepped 90 pre amp this month...Going to be a bit of a process over 6 months...Februay a pair of 80 mono bloks....And so on..I currently own a Marantz s11(2) cd player..Any thoughts on compatibility?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

No problems.

[omdurman44]

Been a while since I added to this post....Now is the time to proceed with my dream hi fi...
Happy with mychoice of NVA products....Just need to resolve the cd issue.....It seems this is not such an easy thing....
Older Sony models seem to be the advice..Although The Roksan Caspian gets support...
Any other thoughts please.....I was thinking the high end Rega might fit the bill...

[Classicrock]

Older Sony - great players superb build but in many (even most) cases spares impossible and no manufacturer support. When they go wrong can be expensive door stops. For less money mate a Cambridge CXC transport with a vintage or budget DAC or even one of that brands more upmarket streamer/DACs (if you want streaming, music files and digital radio). I don't think the sound will be that far short of the £100K DCS stack I have heard.

[_D_S_J_R_]

The best of the late 80's CD players seem to last forever. My Denon 1520 which uses a version of Sony's rapid transport, seemed to be going home, but was easily fixed with a very careful laser clean - the lens cover was coated in a fine film. The early 90's Sony models reduced the button count but the internals were just as good I think. Modern machines as mentioned above should 'sound' really good, but won't have the battleship build of old.

[Quarknosis]

What are the issues with the CD player that makes you want to change it? My advice would be to wait until you have an NVA mono blocks then listen to the CD player through it. Then come back for further advice if you are still unhappy with the player. The Marantz CD11 seems to be a well built model and looks like it would perform well as a transport if you decide to go with a DAC.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

If you get to listen to a Sony ES player from the 80's, minimum 5 series or pref 7 series if poss you will know that modern players cannot compete in *musical* terms. And they don't go wrong, the lasers don't fail, well very very rarely, but they get dirty and especially oily, especially in the hands of a smoker. It is careful cotton bud dipped in isopropl application, but needs a small strip down to get to it.

Belts are more of a problem but again easily fixed.