Please help me think through my desktop system.

[Hopstretch]

Yes, this could go in any one of several forums, but the amp/preamp choice is probably the heart of the matter, so here it is.

I find I do almost all of my listening -- headphone and speaker -- at my desk now, so I'd like to upgrade my current (and, I admit, quite adequate) setup to something with a little more polish. I'm very happy with the Duet and the Senns, so those probably stay. Source is Apple Lossless from the iMac -- secondary goals are simplicity, reasonable component footprint and (again, I admit) good looks.

So far I've looked at:

-- SE tube head/power amp (Cary SLI-80) to passive monitors (Dynaudio Audience, Totem Rainmaker or similar)

-- SE tube head/pre amp (Zana, ??) to active monitors (Dynaudio BM6, Quad 12L etc.)

-- New balanced firewire DAC (Mini-DAC) to balanced SS head/pre amp (GS-X, B22, ??) to active monitors.

Would be buying used as much as possible for budgetary reasons, which obviously limits choice somewhat. Any thoughts appreciated.

[PFKMan23]

What is your budget for all of this anyways?

[Hopstretch]

A couple of thousand. Soft constraint, but less is better. I'm not chasing the last 0.0001 percent.

[n_maher]

My 2

[grawk]

or grab a pair of harbeths and the desktop monoblocks and desktop stands

[Hopstretch]

or grab a pair of harbeths and the desktop monoblocks and desktop stands

As much as I'm tempted, you said it yourself before: great, but not a great deal.

Stick with the Duet as your source, using software volume control to eliminate the need for a preamp and buy some decent sounding active monitors.

Nate, I do like the speakers just fine straight from the Duet but I think the headphone amp comes up a little short with the 650s.

[grawk]

It's worth it...dew eet

[morphsci]

A couple of thousand. Soft constraint, but less is better. I'm not chasing the last 0.0001 percent.

I can certainly recommend the GS-X as a great and very flexible balanced amp. At $2195 however it pretty much eats-up your whole budget and you will need some room for it. As far as the speakers my suggestion is that if you like the sound of the Audiengine A2's you should try a pair of A5's. Pretty inexpensive but very good sounding, especially if you can decouple them from your desk.

[tyrion]

Here is my setup. I'm using a Go-Vibe usb dac, Sonic T-Amp, 500gb drive, NHT speakers. I was fortunate to get the stands at CanJam from Rudi (with Tyll's urging). I will probably upgrade the amp but the truth is, as Nate pointed out, I am fine with the sound quality since I'm always doing something else as I listen.

[Hopstretch]

Arghh. As a sucker for good design, I really, really covet those ridiculous frigging $500 speaker stands.

If the Headroom Home Balanced had line outs, it would be game over.

[n_maher]

If the Headroom Home Balanced had line outs, it would be game over.

If you don't mind cables coming out the front (not a big deal in my book) it has a variable line out.

[Hopstretch]

If you don't mind cables coming out the front (not a big deal in my book) it has a variable line out.

I don't want to have to swap jacks. I just want to flick a switch. Is that pathetic? It is, isn't it? I blame society.

[n_maher]

I don't want to have to swap jacks. I just want to flick a switch. Is that pathetic? It is, isn't it? I blame society.

It's not pathetic unless you aren't willing to pay a price (monetary or size-wise) for it. So you can get what you want, you just need to buy the Balanced Home instead of the Desktop amp.

[tyrion]

Go HR Desktop Stereo Amp/Stands ($1400), I'll send you a small Go-Vibe usb dac, which leaves you $600 for speakers. Use itunes or whatever to control volume. When you upgrade down the road to another DAC, just send me back the Go-Vibe so I can pass it on to someone else. If you don't upgrade, just keep it. I would suggest a pair of System-Audio SA505 for speakers (retail around $600, I can probably get you hooked for a bit less than that).

[bhd812]

I dont think you can do better than a Active Studio monitor, The amount of marketing bullshit hifi speaker companies rely on does not apply to the Studio market. simple reason is people that mainly use these product are not buying for them to give pleasure listening instead they buy cause their product depends on the monitor.

Of course studio monitors aim to be a very FLAT sound, but this is not a bad thing in hifi cause you should have your source and preamp dialed in for that.

if you can go to a local guitar center or similar store to try out some monitors yourself.

I have the older version BX8a from M-Audio, Great sound for $400. the new versions go down to 30hz i think for only $100 more. paired with my dac1-usb (that i got for FREE!), the setup is great.

The monitors on the B-52 and G08 in the listening setup made my 72se's and sicpacs look really bad.

btw for $500 you can get a great set of active's and acoustically treat your room, think about that before you spend it on raising you speaker a few inches....

got to love the bullshit in hifi huh?

but if it makes you feel better about yourself at the end of the day and raises you ego then do what you want..

[morphsci]

You need to decide if you really need to go balanced at your desk. If so then you can't really beat the price (commercially) of the Headroom desktop balanced. I actually use the desktop portable (SE) in my home office and am quite happy. If you really need (desire) the preamp outputs then I would go with the Headamp GS-X. IMO it is the best deal in a full sized and full-featured SS balanced amp and it is dead-on neutral, so you get to hear everything upstream.

As far as speakers go, active monitors are the best bet for space and cost savings and they compete well with passive speakers on SQ. One thing to do is to make sure you isolate them from the desktop. If you do not want to go the Headroom speaker stand route (which BTW work very well and are cool as hell) try looking at THESE .

[morphsci]

i've spent plenty of time with a few high end active studio monitors (Genelec, JBL and Tannoy) in professionally treated rooms, and i never thought they were giant killers. good, sure, but not something i would personally want to own for my main system. of course, a lot of it might be that a lot of "pro grade" source components and linestages, while expensive, really aren't that great sounding, as a lot of the money goes into utter reliability instead of the sound, so take what i just said with a grain of salt.

Well I hope I did not come off as implying they are giant killers. They compete well on price since you have to factor in the price of a power amplifier (or amplifiers). They compete well on SQ with higher but comparably priced speaker amp combinations. They also do very well for nearfield listening which is what I assume for a desktop rig unless you have one big ass desk

[tyrion]

The monitors on the B-52 and G08 in the listening setup made my 72se's and sicpacs look really bad.

btw for $500 you can get a great set of active's and acoustically treat your room, think about that before you spend it on raising you speaker a few inches....

got to love the bullshit in hifi huh?

but if it makes you feel better about yourself at the end of the day and raises you ego then do what you want..

Billy so you have to work at being an asshole or does it just come natural to you? I wonder if your B52, G08, 72se's and sicpaks (sixpacks?) at the end of the day raises your ego? What is that, about $10,000 plus in audio gear, and you are criticizing someone that might want to spend $500 on speaker stands. And yes, raising my speakers about 10" off my desk does help considering I'm 6'2". Now the speakers are about at eye level. I didn't pay for mine but I would have at some point because the other alternatives look like shit and I have a pretty nice office. It's one thing to feel that the stands aren't worth the money. I can certainly understand that. It's quite another to then criticize others in the manner you have because they disagree.

[Hopstretch]

Thanks for the kind offer of the loaner DAC, Tyrion, but I'm sorted on that front with the Duet. I may yet go for the Headroom stands, for aesthetic rather than ego reasons, though.

As far as speakers go, I remember reading something by Ethan Winer -- the guy who runs Real Traps -- that compared acoustic measurements of a bunch of pro audio and consumer monitors. He found differences mainly between 2kHz and 4kHz, which is a primary source of perceived treble harshness. The home gear generally had pronounced (presumably intentional) dips in this range, while the pro gear (not surprisingly) tended to be flatter. Even within the different groups, though, there was considerable variation. Dynaudio's pro monitors, for example, were down over 10dB at 3.5kHz, probably why they are almost invariably described as "smooth."

As usual, it all comes down to personal preference in the end. I'm still trying to nail mine down.

[bhd812]

Billy so you have to work at being an asshole or does it just come natural to you? I wonder if your B52, G08, 72se's and sicpaks (sixpacks?) at the end of the day raises your ego? What is that, about $10,000 plus in audio gear, and you are criticizing someone that might want to spend $500 on speaker stands. And yes, raising my speakers about 10" off my desk does help considering I'm 6'2". Now the speakers are about at eye level. I didn't pay for mine but I would have at some point because the other alternatives look like shit and I have a pretty nice office. It's one thing to feel that the stands aren't worth the money. I can certainly understand that. It's quite another to then criticize others in the manner you have because they disagree.

I think coming off as an Asshole is just the way i write it on the boards really, and no having gear and talking about it does not really raise my ego but instead was used to tell the OP how much difference a studio monitor costly much less can do. As far as the speaker stands there really is no alternatives in any market like them, if there is please post away cause the only ones i know of are the mopads and maybe a few floor stands or studio desks with speaker shelves on them. my point was to the OP who has nothing more then a dac his money can be spent on other areas then speaker stands first. if had a great setup and needed to know what placement options there are then sure go for them but he has just a dac now and only wants to spend a couple g on the entire setup, so you recommend a device that only raises the speaker height that costs a quarter of his budget? come on...thats like recommending a $250 LOD in a portable setup...is it really worth it to the OP and where he is?

For him he can get alot with that money like a great dac/pre, monitors, and room acoustics which all play a really deal role in a setup other then $500 speaker stands.

[tyrion]

I think coming off as an Asshole is just the way i write it on the boards really, and no having gear and talking about it does not really raise my ego but instead was used to tell the OP how much difference a studio monitor costly much less can do. As far as the speaker stands there really is no alternatives in any market like them, if there is please post away cause the only ones i know of are the mopads and maybe a few floor stands or studio desks with speaker shelves on them. my point was to the OP who has nothing more then a dac his money can be spent on other areas then speaker stands first. if had a great setup and needed to know what placement options there are then sure go for them but he has just a dac now and only wants to spend a couple g on the entire setup, so you recommend a device that only raises the speaker height that costs a quarter of his budget? come on...thats like recommending a $250 LOD in a portable setup...is it really worth it to the OP and where he is?

For him he can get alot with that money like a great dac/pre, monitors, and room acoustics which all play a really deal role in a setup other then $500 speaker stands.

Billy, perhaps you should consider thinking about how you write on forums so the rest of us don't have to interpret whether you are being an asshole or just coming off as one. My real point in responding to you was to address your demeanor in expressing your point, not as much the point itself. In as much as he has a dac, all he needs is an amp, speakers and if he chooses stands of some type for the the speakers. I would never say that $500 for the stands isn't expensive but whether to get them or not is his choice. I merely provided a workable option that includes them. At some price point speaker stands would be a reasonable consideration for many people trying to put together an audiophile desktop system. And I agree $250 for a LOD is silly but that's imo but I rarely use an amp in portable situations.

[Hopstretch]

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!

[Voltron]

The HeadRoom Desktop amp without DAC would serve you -- as it does me -- as both a headphone amp and a preamp. The amp has good flexibility and can drive pretty much any cans. The amp is $700 new, or $1100 with the Max module. I currently have the Desktop PSU and think it is an improvement but not a necessity. New it is $400. I am using M-Audio BX5a active monitors sitting on my desktop corners and the image is nice and centered. The only concession there is using an RCA-->XLR or TRS connector because the BX5a does not have RCA input. These monitors are regularly found under $200. You could get new gear, the Max Desktop, the PSU, and the speakers for under your budget, and the Duet is a great source for this rig. I have balanced rigs at home, but do not consider it necessary for my desktop setup, and the fact that the HR Balanced Desktop doesn't have room for the preamp function takes it out of contention for me as well.

I am seriously considering moving up to the HR bi-amp mono block amps and stands in combination with Harbeths. This sounds amazing and adds the convenience of organizing the 4 boxes and raising the speakers to a better height and orientation, with the added benefit of a headphone holder, which I would use on one side. The only thing holding me back are comments like those made by others here to the effect that it is not truly critical listening at work and a nice setup like I have is more than enough. Problem is that I listen all day pretty much, and a nice improvement would still make me happier...

I have lived with my current system a couple years and think it is great as is. The benefit of multiple inputs -- digital and analog -- is great and the preamp function is so convenient. Having the ability to upgrade with the new full-on Audiophile Desktop systems is nice as well. You wouldn't have to spend a ton now but would leave yourself open to a nice upgrade path.

[tyrion]

Al, that would be a killer set up. I say go for and report back on how great it is and then I can jump on the bandwagon.

More likely my first step would be to go with the HR amp (I don't see the need to for the monoblocks). I would then try some other speakers to compare to the NHT's I currently have. I know the System-Audio and Amphions are better but the question would be whether they are better for the the way I would use them in my office. I'm not sure I would add the HR Desktop amp as it would only be a preamp since I don't use headphones in the office. I've been using the Go-Vibe usb dac and itunes to control the volume. The Go-Vibe is a cool little device by not up as good as the Duet. If I upgrade the speakers then I would probably upgrade the dac.

[morphsci]

..., and room acoustics which all play a really deal role in a setup other then $500 speaker stands.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree there. When listening in the nearfield I would rank speaker decoupling and speaker positioning (including height) ahead of room acoustics. That is exactly why I bought the headroom stands even though they cost about 50% more than my speakers. They are extremely rigid and the rubber gasket effectively decouples the speakers from the desktop. The height and angle adjustment makes them super easy to dial in. When people have commented on my desktop setup, the only thing they have ever mentioned are the stands.

For far field listening, I agree 107.654%