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April 7, 2012 - 9:01pm
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Taking a pragmatic approach to entering HiFi
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Interconnects and speaker wires from Blue Jean Cables
Good thinking!
I would say thumbs up to the choice of turntable and speakers.
You might want to consider the Cambridge Audio 651A amplifier, which I think sounds better and may be more reliable than the Marantz. The Marantz 6004 is also a bit underpowered for those speakers. If you are sold on Marantz, you really want the 8004 amplifier, which is $999.
The Cambridge 651A also has a built-in USB input, which might eliminate the cost of a separate DAC, depending on your applications. It is set up to take music files directly from the PC hard drive, bypassing your soundcard, for highest quality. $799.
Regardless of what amplifier you get, I highly recommend that you get the Musical Fidelity V-LPS phono preamp, which will make your vinyl sound MUCH better than the phono stage built-in to any integrated amplifier costing under $3000. It only costs about $150.
The ES80s have some bass; they will go down fairly effectively to about 40 HZ. You might want to consider the Polk PSW505 subwoofer, which is fairly good ($280), or the Rythmic FV12, which is a lot better ($499). You are probably not going to be satisfied with the bass from those speakers by themselves.