Your speakers and amps are good, so I would recommend improving your sources.  Go lossless in iTunes - will sound better than lossy compressed.  If you rip CD's into iTunes (my preferred way, compared to buying from iTunes), just set your import preferences to Apple Lossless, rather than MP3 or AAC, and that way you will have full resolution and not throw away data.

The Oppo choice is excellent.  It will play any disc at their full resolution (CD's, SACD's, DVD, DVD-A, BluRay) and as you note it also serves as a high quality external dac.  You can plug USB sticks into it with 24/192 or 24/96 high res files and play those through the Oppo.  Plus the blu-ray movies will sound and look real good.

Try those, and consider more power in your amp later if you still think you want it. (that adcom is 60wpc, right?)

The BDP-105 is arguably the best-sounding player money can buy; you have a winner there. I got rid of my $6000 Ayre player after I bought it!

I know from considerable experience, however, that the sound from the Adcom gear is not very good at all. I used to have it and moved along to better-sounding gear years ago.

To me it sounds very bright and a bit harsh; not at all free from distortion IMO. It is the weak link in your system. You don't need more power; you need better sound quality. The Krell and Bryston amps are good, but not the Adcom.

You can make a huge improvement in the sound quality by upgrading there. Even the Cambridge 651A would be a big improvement, for only $800..

There are several great-sounding integrated amplifiers from Musical Fidelity, Creek, and Arcam that will sound much much better IMO. If you want real Class A sound, those are the three to look at seriously.

I have a Musical Fidelity M3i for sale which would be perfect. New it costs $1500, but I 'm selling this one (like new) for $900 becuse i am selling one house and have a lot of surplus gear (I use the Musical Fidelity M6PRX amplifier with an Audio Research LS-26 preamp in my main system...sound to die for). The M3i puts out a bit over 100 watts per channel in independent lab tests, at either 4 or 8 ohms.

Send me a PM if interested in the M-F amplifier. It WILL give you excellent sound.

BTW...I have a $20K+ system using the Vandersteen Treo speakers, and I can hear no loss in sound quality to speak of using the 320K MP3 files for storage on my computer and USB memory sticks for my car audio. I use them for all my music storage now, and they sound as good as the original CD through the OPPO.

I am sure that the A300 would be an excellent amplifier.

If you want to go to a 5-channel system, it will be quite expensive to maintain the level of sound quality that the A300 or M3i will give you.

The only thing i know of that is going to be even close is the Cambridge Audio 651R receiver, which costs around $1800, I think.

If you are definitely going to go to a 5 channel system, I suggest that you limit your choices to the AVRs made by NAD and Cambridge Audio. They are the only ones that are not absolute trash, in my opinion.

If you expect to go to a 5-channel system fairly soon, you might want to consider getting the NAD T758, which you can get for $999. It has good sound quality and enough power to do the job nicely. It also has full preamp outputs, so a power amplifier can be added to the front 2 channels if you ever want to.

You could even try using the NAD for the front 3 channels and use two of the Adcom amp's 100-watt channels for the two rear channels, for more total power (it might sound better...or not...but it would be an interesting experiment).

The sound quality will be a definite step below the A300, but it will be way better than the Adcom 880 IMO. The T758 might just be your best bet, all things considered.

andy727 wrote:

Thank you for the replies!  

Bill, the Adcom is 100wpc for the front 3 and 60wpc for the rears.

commsysman, I hear what you are saying about the brightness..I was hearing that, particulary when streaming audio from itunes match..not very pleasant and I know these speakers deserve better.  Your M3i is a very attractive offer, I appreciate it, but would an integrated work in a HT system?  I know it would do great for 2 channel.  

What do you think about the Musical Fidelity A300CR?  There are a few of those out there for $800-900, and it is rated for 225wpc.

I think I am sold on the Oppo, your comparison to the Ayre is impressive!

Thanks again,

Andy

That was the idea. the NAD receivers not only have good power amplifiers and preamp circuits, they also have preouts for every channel so you can add power amps to two or more channels if you want to experiment with more and/or better power. Very flexible.

I question whether you have a RIAA phono preamp circuit in the 880 now (a dedicated phono input)? If you are just plugging the output of the turntable into a normal line-level input on the 880, that is an absolute NO-NO! When I look at the specs of the 880, i don't see a phono input listed.

You must realize that the output from the turntable requires RIAA Equalization to restore the bass and lessen the treble from the record.The direct output from the record via the cartridge is NOT listenable until RIAA Equalization is performed by a dedicated phono preamp (or one built into an integrated amplifier, which will then have an input labelled "PHONO").

All records are cut and mastered with the bass severely reduced and the midrange and treble balance altered according to the RIAA Equalization curve. You can't just connect a phono cartridge output to a normal line-level amplifier input. If you did that there would be NO bass and the treble would be intolerably excessive. Your comments make me suspect that you have that problem.

The reason records must be cut that way is that the bass grooves would take up way too much space on the record surface if they were not reduced considerably. (look up "RIAA Equalization at Wikipedia).

If, as I suspect, you are not using a phono preamp to perform the RIAA Equalization, YOU MUST GET ONE and connect it between the turntable cartridge and the amplifier.

I recommend the Cambridge 551P, which Needle Doctor has for $139.

OK...lol.

That's a fairly good one.

I am very partial to the Musical Fidelity V-LPS I used to use.

I use an Audio Research PH-5 now.

It sort of came as a heavily discounted part of a package when I traded in some gear in on my LS-26 preamp.

It's very nice, but I never would have paid the full $2500 price for it.

Actually, I am going to sell the PH-5 and get a different one.

I have it advertised at $1100 in the AVS Forum Classifieds if you know someone that might be interested.

It sounds great, but does not have some functions i would like, so I am going to get another one with balanced outputs.

For information and specs check the ARCDB website and look up the PH-5.