Best return for the money, system upgrade suggestions please.

Yes, I have received that advice from many! However, just about all of the money I have earned or received as a gift has been either invested or used to pay down my loans, I would like to do something nice for myself. I am not necessarily looking to spend all of this savings, it's not burning a hole in my pocket, but maybe there is something out there for say, $200 I'm missing out on, that is why I am looking for some help.

I do thank you though for your thoughts.

Hello again!
I accidentally failed to mention another component in my system, a Sunfire HRS series Sub-woofer.

Thank you again for any and all suggestions! 

Hi inna4,
Thanks for the suggestions! The only room acoustic problem I believe to  have at the moment is when the music is turned up, all of the pictures on the walls really rattle, it's caused by my Sub. All of my power cords are by Nordost and seem to do quite well.

What Speaker cables would you recommend?

P.S I have a premium subscription with TIDAL and I love it!

Thank you!

Hi and thank you for the response!
The Dacmajic plus is at the heart of my system and feeds my Krell from it's balanced outputs. I feel in terms of features and cost it is a great value and some say a giant killer. I run my CDP through it, my Wadia 171i through it, I stream TIDAL through it from my PC, and lastly having loaded the TIDAL app on my phone, I stream BT with the aptx interface. One more thing, since the unit also has SE outputs and balanced, I run the SE outputs directly to my headphone amp, sounds great. The only thing I feel missing is a remote that would let you select the features of the DAC. I agree this is the weakest link in my audio chain, but what can I get for around 2K with a similar feature set and much better SQ?? Thank you!
grm

Hello to all,

Thank you for sharing your wisdom and suggestions.

I ended up getting lucky, I contacted Cambridge regarding my failed AZUR 840C CDP. They accepted it as a trade-in and sent me a prepaid shipping label to send it back. Then they provided me with a code to purchase a brand new AZUR 851N Streamer/DAC for half of list price. It's on it's way from CA, really looking forward to hearing it as it has received many rave reviews! Being made overseas, I hope it works out of the box. This will replace my DacMagic Plus, a weak link in my system as pointed out to me in this forum, and was purchased way below my budget, the rest goes to paying off student loans and the DacMagic Plus will be going up for sale.

I would like to add that I have read many complaints about Cambridge Audio's extremely poor customer service. In my case, I found their support to be superb. Offering me a brand new completely different unit for a Jurassic period CDP went beyond my expectations. They were extremely helpful, quick to respond, answered all of my technical questions and were very professional.

Thanks again everybody - most appreciated!

GRM  

Hello,
The Cambridge AZUR 851N has been in my system for two days now, all I can say is WOW! I had no idea how much music I was missing! Plus with all of it's Streaming abilities, including TIDAL, I could not be happier, so much fun to play with it's features, blows away my older Cambridge DACMAGIC Plus. I really love this Hobby/Passion for reproducing great sounding music, however the price for entry can be cost prohibitive. I hope I don't get the bug to do any enhancements/upgrades for quite some time. After completing my Internship and hopefully landing a good job, I'll crank on paying off my loans and maybe save some coin for future updates. Until then I am quite happy now!

Thanks again, everybody!

GRM

Hello to everyone who posted suggestions, thank you!

OK, the most exciting news I have is my internship for the summer! I had a number of interviews, but the offer I accepted was from a company I knew little about. It came to me on behalf of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI). The letter said they were pleased to inform me that I was selected as an SCI Scholar. I will be working for a Chemical company associated with DOW Chemical. I am receiving a very nice income and they are providing housing for me. I am a little nervous as it is two hours from home and I will be living on my own for the first time.

Now, considering my Audio System and where I ended up after receiving such great feedback.

1.  I replaced my Cambridge DACMAGIC Plus with a Cambridge AZURE 851N Network Streamer/DAC. I received it new from Cambridge for half of the retail price when I traded in my dead AZURE 850C CDP, I spent only $750 for it. I like it, I just hope it lasts!

2.  Speaker wire, the AQ type 4 sounded great in my system from the mid-range to the top end, sweet, open, airy, and detailed without being aggressive, but no extended Bass at all as well as not being able to play at higher volume from my Krell, my guess is it could not handle the current due to its small 15AWG. So with a budget of about $200 I bypassed many a great speaker cable from going up in the range of AQ and Kimber for example. So I researched and dove into Amazon where I tried four different cables from Beldin, Canare, Knukonceptz and Blue Jeans. All of these cables were 10AWG except for the Canare. It was a pain in the backside because all of them sounded very much alike with the exception of the Knukonceptz, where they had the deepest and most articulate bass, but, they were rolled off at the top, I just could not find a diamond in the rough for such low $$. So, I fond a solution that DID WORK, I bi-wired my Sonus Faber speakers! I connected the AQ type 4 to the tweeters and the 10AWG Knukonceptz to the woofers - sublime! I know I can do better with higher quality cables, (someday) but for now this works. I hope one day to try a higher end AQ, or Kimber, or something maybe from Audience, but right now they are just way out of my price range, especially as I need a 15' run.

Thanks again to everybody!!! Peace out!

grm