Gents,
I visited my friend today to size up the situation and her needs. She needs music is two zones: first, the upstairs area where her audio cabinet resides with existing crappy speakers on top of the cabinet, playing into her bedroom directly across from from the cabinet. The other speakers will be in the LV on the ground floor and both pairs are connected to speaker wire. Her TT looks pretty good, Quartz-something, I need to look at the photos of it, but the stylus is canted 25 degrees sideways! That is a distant, and costly, memory for me.
My recommendation is for the Cambridge AXR85 receiver and a pair of Tekton M-Lores for the downstairs room. Then swap out the crappy Kenwoods on the second floor with most anything that will be better -- the ELAC monitors would be a tremendous improvement over these existing speakers for a song.
Here is the question that I can't quite plumb, from a functional standpoint. Her goal is for her to be able to sit downstairs and be able to select the downstairs speakers with the remote. Conversely, she wants to be able select the upstairs speakers on the remote and only play them? Or perhaps select both pairs of speakers... again from the remote?
I guess what I am angling at is whether the remote can effectively "reach" through the ceiling from the main floor to the second floor to the receiver, maybe 30' or so, and still function, because that is a prerequisite. If not, are there "boosters" that would solve the connectivity issue? I hope the question is clear enough.
I would ask these Q's to Crutchfield when I order the receiver, but you fellas are my muse so I came to you to get the real story on the BT connectivity. Thanks for any insights. I will sort out this cheap and cheerful system for my friend very shortly and let you fellas get back to concentrating on HEA.
BTW, have a nice system with a Don Sachs preamp, and a new VTV Audio Purifi amp with the Sparkos op amp, the latter of which is really impressing me with its astonishing clarity. Don Sachs' preamp is wonderful. I have Buchardt S400 speakers and Spatial Audio M4 Triode Masters, both of which are very satisfying.
I picked up a used SR Orange fuse a week ago and swapped it in my Sachs preamp, expecting to made of fool of, as my trials of everything in the past from SR has been a total bust. As as fervent "anti-fuser", I will bear my heart and admit that the SQ was very nicely improved with the swapped fuse... a much clearer sound with more articulation to the notes. Not quite as efficacious as the addition of the GAIA footers under my Spatials, but nevertheless very noticeable and favorable. It is all good these days.
Cheers.
