Budget? Any idea tubes or solid state? Remote control?
A closeout Schiit Saga at $299 would work great and leave money for cables and room treatment.
A closeout Schiit Saga at $299 would work great and leave money for cables and room treatment.
Showing 11 responses by mcreyn
You can get all that you want, but it is going to push your budget a bit: 1) Schiit Saga (original on closeout) $299 (you get the option of passive or tubed with the Saga). 2) Schiit Mani Phono Preamp- $129 3) Schiit Loki EQ/Tone Control-$149 This gets you all American designed and manufactured products with a warranty. You can also go in steps as your budget allows and/or wait for the Mani/Loki to come up on B stock for slightly cheaper. The downside is that the Loki will have to go in between the preamp and amp to work with all sources (which theoretically can degrade sound quality), but it has a full bypass switch so can be switched out of the circuit. The alternative is going to be to start searching on the used market for something that has all of the foregoing in a single box, but it is going to be very hard to find. Perhaps an older Parasound. An older McIntosh preamp would tick all of your boxes, except the budget, and I expect it would significantly exceed it. Do leave some money for decent interconnects and speaker cables. By that, I don't mean $500 cables, but something like Blue Jeans, which are made in the US, good quality, and will hold up over time. (Worlds Best Cables on Amazon sells RCA cables made with Canare L-4E6S wire for $21.95 a pair and you could purchase raw Belden or Canare speaker cable from Blue Jeans for 70 cents to $1.50 per foot (I believe all Carnare and Belden cable is US made). I only harp on this, as I had a speaker I thought was failing that I traced down to a bad solder connection in a speaker cable that degraded over time. |
Mrdon- Freya is above his pricepoint. Re the Parasound- Decent unit, but no remote and the volume steps are as large as 6db at the low end. For $170 it is hard to go wrong with it. Here is a review of it from new. https://www.stereophile.com/content/parasound-pfet-900-preamplifier Personally, I would get the Saga combo. Warranty, US made, more flexibility in the phono setup and a better phono preamp with the Mani, and a Remote is nice to have. The Tung Sol tube is supposed to be a bit better than the Russian. If your budget is holding you back, I can give you an inexpensive Audio Technic phono stage to use until you can purchase a better one. |
Bigkidz1- The Counterpoint SA-3000 is an incredible recommendation. Lets look at what original poster said he wanted: "I would however like to have a built-in phono section and the ability to manually adjust with tone controls. I would prefer to buy an American or Canadian product and would pay up to $500. Im not opposed to a lightly used unit either." So, breaking it down: Phono Section- Yep, the SA-3000 has one. So far, so good. Tone Controls- Oops, nope, the SA-3000 doesn’t haven’t them, but not big deal. I know the OP asked about them, but what does he know? American or Canadian- Why yes they were, before they filed for bankruptcy in 1996 and went out business. Less than $500- Well there is one for sale on US Audiomart for $1000 right now. You don’t mention how much you will charge for your upgrade, but I am guessing it is not free, nor the shipping to and from you. Lets say you are the cheapest upgrader in the world and only charge $250 and he can get shipping for both ways for $50. We are now at $1,300. $1,300 is sort of like $500, but hey again, the OP doesn’t know what he wants or needs and its not your budget, so who cares if what you like and suggest costs 2.5x the OPs budget. Lightly Used- The 3000’s were made in the 80s, so the newest ones are 30 years old. Capacitors and other devices are old, parts may be limited or NLA. I’m not sure that qualifies as lightly used. On second thought, why, except the fact that you happen to like and modify SA-3000s, would it be an appropriate recommendation for the OP? I still think it is an incredible recommendation, incredibly bad, the same as someone walking into a Ford dealership saying they have the budget and need for a Taurus and being told by the salesperson they should by a Raptor. |
George’s concerns are real. A CD output should be 2v which is enough, but often phono preamps run with less output. Combine that with a CD that is recorded at a low level or album at a low level and you could run out of volume. The Freya addresses this with its 12 db of gain in high output (you need 1.4v to get full output from your amp, the Freya can take a source with as little as .35v and get you full output). The problem is the Freya busts your budget and I am one that tries to respect peoples stated budget. A potential alternative is an Emotiva PT-100 for $299. Preamp tuner with a built in phono stage and bass and treble controls and a remote from a reputable company. It is made in China, so doesn’t meet your request of US or Canada made. While I can’t find a max gain spec for it, it is surely at least 10db. As far as your Mac, I believe you will be better off with the above choices. I think it will cost you more to fix the Mac than replacing it, and while a decent unit in the 70s, is not considered one of their great units. |
Bigkidz - Thanks for the response. Looking at it, I need to apologize for the snide way I presented my comments. It is clear you were trying to help and just missed some of the information in the thread. Icarus12- To help everyone hone in on suggestions, a few additional questions: 1) What are your other sources (cd, tape, streaming, home theater)? 2) Do you use an outboard dac? 3) What sources do you primarily listen to? 4) When you had your Mac with the Snells, what if anything did you like or not like about the sound? 5) How important is a remote control? (I can’t live without one, others could care less). Cary |
Icarus12- I think for your use, the Emotiva PT-100 is a perfect choice, and at $329, leaves money in your pocket. It checks all of your boxes (phono stage, tone controls, price) plus a few others that I think will benefit you down the road (tuner, onboard dac, remote). I don’t think you are going to hear any worthwhile sound quality increases by spending more on a pre-amp. My thinking follows from the fact that your Snell’s are a very musical and bit warm speakers that are not as sensitive to the front end as other speakers may be. This is not a bad thing and I tend to lean towards speakers that have that voicing (and have a soft spot for older Snells). They make most music sound great, including less than optimal recordings, which frankly is most. Instead of spending more on a pre-amp that won’t give you any real benefit, I suggest you consider the following, both short term and long term: 1) A surge suppressor and power conditioner- It sounds like you live in an area where lightning or other power surges can damage your equipment. For less than $100 you can get a high quality surge protector with some power conditioning from Furman. 2) The Nakamichi you purchased is a really great amp. That said, it will at some point need to the power supply caps. I will quote Nelson Pass (the designer/engineer of your amplifier) directly here as he responded in a thread about PA-5 upgrades on DIY Audio: "If it’s older than 15 years replace the power supply caps with ones comparable to the originals. Panasonic or Nichicon is plenty good enough. Arrange to get the amplifier some serious ventilation and then raise the bias until the heat sinks run at 50 deg C after an hour of operation. Serious ventilation is what you think it is - a fan is not out of the question." I would expect it would cost from $150 up to have a qualified technician do just the power supply caps. There are also people who do entire upgrades. https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pass-labs/218270-nakamichi-pa-5-upgrades.html 3) Please spend $10 or so and get a toslink or digital RCA cable to hook up your CD to the Emotiva, which undoubtedly has a nicer DAC (assuming your CD player has a digital out). 4) Consider getting a music streamer and streaming service with the money you saved. Never in a million years would I have thought I would recommend something from this company, but the Bose Soundtouch Wireless Link Adaptor a great entry point at $150. It has a digital out, is fully controllable from a smart phone, easy to configure and use, and compatible with spotify, deezer, amazon music, and itunes among others. I would suggest the Yamaha MusicCast WXAD-10 for $160, but it seems impossible to get. Others may be able to suggest alternative streamers. I delayed using streaming services for a long time, until I finally dove in last year with Deezer. I have to tell you, it has been the best audio decision I have made. I have found more new music I like in the past year than the prior 20. For $20 a month (Deezer is CD quality at that price, Amazon has a good amount of music in its free service for prime members, abet at a slightly lower quality, and slightly lower quality 256-320kbps mp3 streams, are $10 a month from most services) you get access to over 45 million different tracks. So in sum, here is how I would spend your budget: $329- Emotiva PT-100 $91- Furman M-8x2 $150 Bose Soundtouch Streamer $10 Toslink of coax digital cable for CD to preamp (amazon or monoprice). $580 and you get not only a great preamp, but an entirely new world of music, which is why are here in the first place. I hope this helps. |
The Parasound 2100 is a great unit and will work well for your application. Here are my reservations: 1) I think the asking price is a bit high. A quick search of Ebay shows the last two units sold for $329 and $400. The $329 one was missing the remote, the $400 one was listed as one week old, used once. I would say a fair price would be $350-375. 2) The Parasound doesn’t have a DAC built in. I suspect the DAC in the Emotiva is better than the one in your CD Player, as well as any entry level streamer you may buy in the future. That said, you could easily add an outboard DAC in the future, a Schiit Modi 3 is $100 and an upgrade from most entry level CD and streamer DACs. I do like the Parasound has the built in crossover, so you can high pass your Snell’s if you run a subwoofer. At the end of the day, I think you will be happy with either the Emotiva or the Parasound. Buy the one that speaks to you and makes you warm and fuzzy. In regard to the Furman power conditioner, you could use the SS-6B for $40, or SS-6B Pro for $60. You give up the power conditioning, but keep the good surge protection, which is what I am mostly concerned with. I would hope using one would avoid any future potential equipment damage. For cooling the Nakamichi, the biggest thing is make sure it has plenty of room around it. Elevating it an inch or two can help considerably with passive cooling. A fan is probably not necessary if the bias has not been increased from factory (which it appears Nelson Pass was discussing). But for a fan, any little fan you can find, preferably plugged into a different circuit to help eliminate a potential source of electrical noise. Something like this would work well: https://www.newegg.com/p/13K-0092-00064?Description=120vac%20fan&cm_re=120vac_fan-_-9SIAG799H31410-_-Product |
Stumbled across a component fan. I never knew such a thing existed. https://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AYAC |
Congrats on the 2100, I think you will be happy. Cables- You are correct, it is a big debate. I believe that even among strong cable believers, it is agreed, that the difference between cables is minor in comparison to things like speakers, amps, dacs. I have heard minor differences between cables, but never anything significant (unless you count a connection so corroded it barely worked). At where you are, I would keep your cable budget low an focused on quality. Blue Jeans cable makes excellent cables for reasonable prices. I also recently became aware that Zu audio sells overstock and NOS cables on ebay and you can often get a nice pair of speaker cables for less than $100. External DAC- It depends. If you want to try, order a Schiit Modi for $100 (or Modi Multibit for $250), and see what you think If you don't like it, return it within 15 days and pay the $15 restocking fee. Subwoofer- It can be a mixed bag, mostly as I recall the Pinnicle subs not being the cleanest. Worst case, try and take it out of the system. Consider a good, inexpensive newer sub like the RSL Speedwoofer $400, or Rythmik L12 for $540. Use the crossover in the Parasound, starting at a high pass of 80hz for your mains and low pass of 80hz for the subs. SMGa- Owned a set for years powered by a Hafler DH-220 before moving on to larger Maggies. A bit closed in the treble, but an amazing midrange, perhaps better than even current Maggies in that regard. I think you will find they sound far better powered by the Nakamichi than the McIntosh, as the Maggies do like a good amount of power. Finally, setup, setup, setup. Time spend dialing in the placement of the speakers and subwoofer, is the biggest difference in sound quality. A $200,000 system with speakers just thrown in the corners will sound worse than a $1000 system with placements dialed in. Read about the sub crawl for placing your subwoofer. ENJOY. |