Another New Member Looking for Advice (preamp and speaker setup)

Thanks for the feedback.  Knowing my current funding limitations, anything you'd suggest? 

@8thsin, contact skip at www.audiothesis.com he's in Arlington.
he's having a get together at his house oct 20, there will be a lot of systems and speakers to listen to.  food and drinks for all, a lot of people are coming from out of state to attend.

@8thsin

I’m not a fan of older Rotel 10xx series gears myself but the new current 15xx series class AB amps from Rotel such as the RB-1582 Mkll amp, RB-1590 amp, RMB-1585 five-channel amp or the RA-1592 stereo integrated amp are awesome. These amps have been vastly improved over the older 10xx series Rotel gears.

If you go with the B&W 804 D3, the Rotel RB-1582 Mkii power amp + Rotel RC-1590 stereo preamp/DAC will pair well with these speakers. Or the Rotel RA-1592 stereo integrated amp (has DAC) will sound pretty good on the B&W 804 D3. When it comes to electronics and amp this will be your cheapest option for these B&W 804 D3. I wouldn’t run these off an AV receiver if I were you.

Of course there’s a lot of room for improvements when it comes to electronic choices for these B&W 804 D3. If you can find a used Classe Delta CA-2300 class AB stereo power amp and a used Classe CP 800 stereo preamp/DAC in used after markets these will be a great choice for the B&W 804 D3 and will be a step up sonically from the new current Rotel but Classe cost lot more than Rotel. The CP 800 preamp is optimized for use with its USB DAC input.
Classe and B&W 800 series D3 are meant to be paired together. The B&W 800 series D3 speakers were voiced using Classe amplifications. They sounded very good together.

Or alternatively you can also get a PS Audio Direct Stream DAC and connect it directly to the Classe CA-2300 power amp and use a built-in volume control in the PS Audio Direct Stream DAC.
The PS Audio DSD DAC is spectacular and is highly regarded by many and is a better choice than the Classe CP 800 stereo preamp/DAC.

But if you’re willing to spend lot more yes you should go with the Wilson Sabrina. Sonically these are way superior to the B&W 804 D3. They aren’t in the same league IMO. But if you go with the Wilson Sabrina I probably wouldn’t go with the Classe amp. I would look elsewhere. Classe amps are perfect match for the B&W but I don’t think it will be a good match for the Wilson.

Frankly speaking, B&W, even the latest 800 series D3, aren’t my to go choice for music. IMO there are way way better more musical and more natural sounding speakers than the B&W 804 D3 that cost much less than the retail price of these B&W 804 D3. Even sub $5k models from Herbeth, Spendor, Acoustical Engineering, PMC, ProAc, ATC, Sonus Faber Olympica line, Vienna Acoustics Bach, KEF are better choice and will sound more musical than the B&W 804 D3. Focal Sopra line is better than the B&W 804 D3 IMO.
However, the latest B&W 800 series D3, and the new 700 series S2 are quite a bit better than the previous 800 series D2 models or the CM series, which has been replaced by the new 700 series S2 since B&W finally stopped using kevlar for their mid-range drivers. They now use a new material called continuum for their mid-range drivers.

But again, when it comes to speaker choices it’s all about personal preferences and tastes as well as musical tastes. I’m not bashing B&W.
As a matter of fact, I do own all B&W 800 D3 speaker surround system in my dedicated home theater room. B&W 800 D3 series are one of my favorite high end home theater speaker system but not for music. For critical listening to music I would go with something else other than B&W. Just my 2 cents.

Go to the show! There are plenty of audio shows around the country. Rocky Mountain is right around the corner. I’m looking forward to CAF next month. Spend the whole weekend listening to different amps.

I'm in agreement with mboldda1 in terms of touching base with Skip.  He is just one of many good dealers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  Get out and look around and meet them since you live in an area that still has many B&M shops.  Instead of looking for advice on Audiogon reach out to those dealers and the local audio clubs and listen first.  There are plenty of people in your area that can point you in the right direction.

Go to RMAF. It'll be worth the road trip. You'll likely discover there are far more musically satisfying speakers out there than anything B&W produces.

B&Ws are designed as a HT/music compromise, as most big-name towers are. 

This is great!  I really appreciate everyone's response here.  I'm definitely going to take a step back and rethink things given the above.  

@caphill - I really appreciate the detailed post and there is a lot to  unpack here.  I'm definitely not stuck on Rotel, but was more going for bandaid fix to my current system.  Probably not the long term wisest idea.

This upcoming weekend I was planning to review some Golden Ears and ProAcs, as I've never heard them.  There seems to be about 10,000 brands that I've never heard of.  To be open, I didn't know there were such things as audio clubs :| 
- I guess growing up in a very small town in Idaho comes with some drawbacks.  haha

Rotel and B&W share the same distributor, and dealers have been known to, errr, enthusiastically promote their synergy.  Your proposed plan of action will have good results; you can probably do at least a little better, depending on how much time/effort you want to put into it.  For instance, not that far from the Rotels in price point would be the Belles Aria preamp + sterero amp or + mono amps.  Pushing up the budget to Sabrina level brings a whole slew of other speakers into play.

I'd recommend taking your time and starting completely from scratch.  First and foremost I'd say make sure you get the speakers right, then find the electronics that drive them properly and mate well sonically.  I can almost guarantee that won't be Rotel, which is why I said to just start from scratch.  Agree with others there are lots of alternatives to B&W, and you're very fortunate to live in probably one of the best places in the country to hear many different brands.  This is just an example, but I got to compare several B&W models to similar Joseph Audio speakers, and for music and to my ears the JAs were superior in every way.  Not that B&Ws are bad at all (like @caphill I like them for HT but not so much for music), but it just shows how important it is to hear many different speakers to figure out what speaker characteristics are most important to YOU -- and there just ain't no shortcut for that.  The good new is, it's fun!!!

Along with Joseph Audio I'd echo some speakers mentioned above and highly recommend ProAc, Vandersteen, Vienna Acoustics, Silverline, Spendor, Harbeth, and DeVore if you can find them.  Also, since you're a musician I'd definitely try to hear ATC speakers as they're frequently used in recording studios and sometimes sound better to musicians than some more "audiophile" type speakers.  Oh, and make sure you bring a representative sample of your favorite music (hopefully including some well-recorded stuff) to listen to in addition to whatever the dealer likes to play to show a speaker's strengths.  Anyway, hope this helps and best of luck in your search.  And don't forget to HAVE FUN!!!