You don't mention why you want to upgrade. Well, you gave an excuse but an excuse is not necessarily a reason. Sounds like you simply have the upgrade bug. If that's the case and you are just searching for better performance, I'd like to offer the following recommendations with the assumption that you're on a relatively tight budget and you simply want better transparency, detail, dynamics, soundstaging, and generally better musicality.
1. B&K usually receives decent to good ratings in the home theater mags but that's all. However, about 4 months back, Perfect Vision happened to rate the B&K Ref 30 pre as nice for an all around ht setup but slandered it pretty good for music repro. I'd sell it and look for a more musically oriented pre/pro like Classe or Primare, used of course. That will probably be your biggest bang for the buck right now as far as swapping components out. And if you get a good sell from your B&K, it may not cost much.
2. Your Sony DVP-S7700 DVD player most likely far out performs your Yamaha cd player, so why not sell the Yamaha also? I wouldn't bother with the dac.
3. Look toward installing dedicated circuits and lines for your amp, pre, and dvd player by either you or your electrician. Having your amp on it's own circuit could really open up the dynamic headroom even at low volume levels. It's amazing how even having a low power drawing component like a pre-amp on the same circuit can/will draw just enough juice from the amp to make your presentation sound rather flat and lifeless. Also, if possible, the dvd player should be on an entirely seperate circuit from the amp and pre because of the digital noise cd and dvd players generate back into the ac lines for the next component to deal with.
4. Room acoustics actually account for up to 80% of the sonics of your system. Research that part and see what improvements you can do for free.
5. Install some relatively inexpensive power conditioners for your 3 main components. Can present a large sonic improvement.
6. Speaker placement should be a serious consideration as well if you want a large deep and wide soundstage, well defined bass, etc..
All the above could actually cost you very little , yet help your system lean toward the high-end in it's sonic capabilities. If you did the above, then you would probably have a much better understanding what your system is really capable of and where it's weakest links are.
BTW, it really shouldn't matter much whether you're more into movies or music. However, imo, if you focus your attention on excellent music reproduction, then whatever movies you watch should also sound that much better.
Good luck,
1. B&K usually receives decent to good ratings in the home theater mags but that's all. However, about 4 months back, Perfect Vision happened to rate the B&K Ref 30 pre as nice for an all around ht setup but slandered it pretty good for music repro. I'd sell it and look for a more musically oriented pre/pro like Classe or Primare, used of course. That will probably be your biggest bang for the buck right now as far as swapping components out. And if you get a good sell from your B&K, it may not cost much.
2. Your Sony DVP-S7700 DVD player most likely far out performs your Yamaha cd player, so why not sell the Yamaha also? I wouldn't bother with the dac.
3. Look toward installing dedicated circuits and lines for your amp, pre, and dvd player by either you or your electrician. Having your amp on it's own circuit could really open up the dynamic headroom even at low volume levels. It's amazing how even having a low power drawing component like a pre-amp on the same circuit can/will draw just enough juice from the amp to make your presentation sound rather flat and lifeless. Also, if possible, the dvd player should be on an entirely seperate circuit from the amp and pre because of the digital noise cd and dvd players generate back into the ac lines for the next component to deal with.
4. Room acoustics actually account for up to 80% of the sonics of your system. Research that part and see what improvements you can do for free.
5. Install some relatively inexpensive power conditioners for your 3 main components. Can present a large sonic improvement.
6. Speaker placement should be a serious consideration as well if you want a large deep and wide soundstage, well defined bass, etc..
All the above could actually cost you very little , yet help your system lean toward the high-end in it's sonic capabilities. If you did the above, then you would probably have a much better understanding what your system is really capable of and where it's weakest links are.
BTW, it really shouldn't matter much whether you're more into movies or music. However, imo, if you focus your attention on excellent music reproduction, then whatever movies you watch should also sound that much better.
Good luck,