Budrew, the 208 is a bit of overkill in terms of power considering you will have the speaker quite close to your ears. Like you said, a small tube amp might be a better choice. Take the money you will save on the 208 and put it towards a better Tuner like the Magnum Etude or MD100 or MD102. The MD90 inside the 208 is very good but lacks imaging and soundstaging compared to the Etude/MD100 model. Since you'll be listening for hours on end at the office, the tuner seems like the best idea for continuous quality sound (depending on your local stations).For the cd player, depending if you want lots of music vs quality, I would get a carousel transport and a Bel Canto DAC 1. For speakers, I am very curious as to what your choice will be because I am considering doing the same thing over here.
Speaker Dilemma: Sat/Sub or Bookshelf for Office
I am outfitting my office with an audio system and I'm thinking abou the speakers that will be driven by a Magnum Dynalab MD-208 receiver and a CD player (TBD). The question is, should I get a satelite/subwoofer system and place it on my desk facing me or should I instead get bookshelf speakers to be placed in some random location in the room (smallish room)? The sat/sub systems seem to lack in quality, although Aego2 seems reasonable or the Nucleus Micro. Any other recs here? The bookshelf speakers would be more difficult to place, but they would seem to have better hi-fi sound. For this, I am thinking all the way from the budget Mission R71 to Linn Kans to KEF RDM2s to Silverline SR-12 (small and easy to place) to Merlin TSM. This being an office system I'm hesitant to spends high dollars, but thinking long-term I might use the speakers elsewhere. Has anyone else solved this problem before? These speakers would be used for all-day listening. In time I might experiment with small tube amps and passive preamps or otherwise so something that's easy to drive may be a consideration. Thanks!
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