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May 15, 2011 - 8:20am
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Improving Current System- Help Needed
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IMHO, buy a new interated amp, then speakers, and stay away from Bose (unlike some I do not disparage their sound. My problem is that they need a lot of volume to sound decent. I do not listen to music at high volume).
What is your budget?
Although I dislike Bose products immensely, the 301's are from a time when they were attempting to make fairly decent gear. Therefore I would keep them. The Numark TT is IMO your weak link. Just about all USB TT's are truly awful. An entry level Project or Music Hall would be my choice. After that the 301's would be on CL if it were me. They aren't really that bad. they're just not very good.
There is nothing inherently wrong wrong with an old receiver. The electrolytic caps may have deteriorated and need replacing. For more advice on your receiver check out www.audiokarma.org . There are a lot of vintage enthusiasts there and someone will be familiar with your receiver and be able to offer more informed advice about it.
Generally Speaking, I have just under $1000 to spend over summer. I'm planning on gradually replacing and adding on, so I was wondering about the most immediate problems. The 301's sound fine, they just need to be pushed before they can reach their full potential. The amp sounds better than what you would think. It works great with the headphones and has lots of presence. It just gets muddy if you really turn up the bass with the speakers.
I've looked around at some towers in the sub $500 range and was wondering if those would compliment the bookshelf 301's well. I was also going to add a CD player and don't know if buying an expensive one makes a differance at all. I'll probably get a new turntable once I have better speakers and a CD player. I'd really like those before I start replacing components.
Thankyou for the help too, its really appreciated!
If you don't like or are unhappy with the Bose speakers simply replace them with something better. Only two speakers are used for stereo playback. Running two pair of dissimilar speakers does not make it sound better. The usual and more likely result is awful sound.
Any speaker that needs to be pushed to sound right (reach their full potential) should be replaced. A good speaker should sound good at low and moderate volumes not just high volume. If it only sounds good at high volumes it's not worth keeping.
If you're looking for a CD/DVD player you could do a lot worse than an Oppo.