Advice for a two channel amp


I would like to upgrade my amp. The one I have now is a Marantz SR5400, it's a 6.1 channel setup and the only great thing about it is the built-in DAC, which renders pretty great sound. What's not changing is the speaker set - Bowers & Wilkins 602 S3 - love the sound of these speakers. I want to upgrade to a two-channel amp and add a turntable to my set up. So, in essence, I'll be playing music mostly from my iPad 2 or my iPhone when it's just for background noise. And when I really want to tune everything out and put on a great record, I'll use the turntable. The speakers are rated at 85W, so anything from 100/ch is good. So far, I've only found the Nad amps to be quite good in my price range, but they are rather dull-looking and the sound is not quite as natural as I'd like. I am a big fan of the mid-heavy, natural-sounding setups - not too crisp, not too muffled. I wouldn't use an equalizer, or anything, just want a simple setup - amp, speakers, turntable and probably Sonos. That's it for now. Any advice is greatly appreciated. I'm still a bit of a novice in this whole thing :)
vladsky

Showing 2 responses by zd542

"$1K for amp and turntable? So the integrated amp has to have a phono stage too?"

A couple of things to keep in mind if you are approaching TT's from the perspective of a DJ. I believe most DJ style turntables take a different kind of cart. They don't get mounted to the headshell like most "non-pro" TT's. Also, I know some DJ TT's have a built in phono preamp. If so, you need to know if you can bypass it. If not, you'll be forced to use the internal one on the TT.