Getting back in the game

Things have come a Loong way in 10 years ,streaming QObuz and Roon is very good ,but requires some $$ to get high quality sound .

Don't spend on cables. Microphone cable like Canare Starquad is good at about $1 a foot or so. Switchcraft RCA's are available for not much. That gets you close to the big money stuff, so you can spend where it really counts.

Good luck!

OP,

I have B&W 805’s in my Home theater. They are not hard to drive compared with most planar and some others.

Typically, for a major upgrade one would start with speakers. They will have the biggest effect on the sound. If you are very happy with them, then let’s move on. You do not want to make this completely infeasible.

My rule of thumb is, generally all your components must be carefully chosen to be the best for the price and compatible with the rest of your system. That means streamer, DAC, Preamp and amp are roughly equal in cost. I have to say I was very impressed with the sound of the Pass INT-60. It is musical with great rhythm and pace (musicality… makes your foot tap… emotional connection), as well as a lot of power (do not judge by watts itself).

I would find it hard to think anyone would criticize this integrated. It puts you into the realm of audiophile. A unit you could be proud to own and would be a great sounding amp for 10, 20, or 30 years.This is the mark of really great components.. timelessness.

As far as streamer… I would recommend, first of all separate streamer and DAC. a Aurender N200 would fit and be consistent with a great system.

Hmm, DAC. I am just not that familiar with DACs in this price range. I own an Audio Research Reference CD9SE. It is so good, it completely threw me for a loop. I had a $22K well respected DAC in my system and honestly I found my ARC was better (given my values).

‘’Maybe someone else couple take the ball on a fantastic DAC in the $5K range.

If you can only afford the integrated for now, you would get such a huge improvement… you could enjoy that for a couple years before you could afford the DAC and Streamer…. Then you would have a huge jump in performance again. A few years later upgrade speakers.

Go audition equipment. Do not listen to any of these bozos.

Alright!  Now we are talking guys. I’ve always heard great things about pass but with 8k total right now?  Are you saying spend it all on a great amp then get some cheaper stuff to stream digital until later?  Just making sure that’s what you are saying