Here's a challenge:a class A sound system for less

Think about your placement constraints. Speaker and listener placement have as much to do with what you hear as the speakers you buy and more to do with imaging and sound stage. Speakers not designed to be placed near a wall will have bloated bass. Placing them on the wall will give your singers chest colds. If you don't have 4 or 5' to the wall behind the speakers you might look at in/on-walls or horns. If you can't sit reasonable close (like 8') you might look at horns or planars that are more directive. You want the same distance behind you. If you can't do that you're going to loose the speakers to the room and might do better with headphones.

Given at least 16x12' where the speakers can be 4' off the front-wall and 2' off the side walls and your chair 5' off the back wall start with Siegfried Linkwitz's Orion package at $7800 - $8400 depending on finish, including the required 8 channels of amplification (with a spare four channels for multi-channel or sub-woofer use) and all cables. Power tools and a soldering iron can be used to knock $4000 off the price tag.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/orion_us.htm

If the Orions aren't to your tastes, you might look at other small makers that don't have the large vendors markups. I read an interview with a prominant designer who lamented that a $8000 MSRP let you use an $80 midrange. Nice midranges that run double that can be had in speakers half that price when you don't have distributors and dealers inflating the selling price to 10X parts cost.

Add an economical remote controller preamp ($500 new from Rotel) and CD player with a user interface (changer or single disk) that suits your tastes. As long as the engineers have done their job (Sony's will have. Some boutique companies put marketting guys in charge of circuit design and fail) the equipment won't make a difference in the sound. What you hear can vary due to expectation biases and placebo effect.

If you have hardwood floors you should invest in a nice rug placed to cover the first floor reflection.

Spend the left over on CDs which suit your tastes.

Interesting thread. I listen nearfield, and to tell you the truth, I don't know how my system ranks compared to other systems, as I don't have much experience with good audio. I put my system together actually by accident. Meaning locally I found quality items and put them together to make a system. I think I have done pretty well on a very small budget. It sounds great to me anyway, and all of my audio and non audio friends comment on it often. These are the prices I paid and all components have been gone thru if neccesary to bring them up to spec by a local audio guru.

2 McIntosh MC40 tube monoblocks - $600 pr.

Altec Lansing Model 17 604-8G duplex studio monitors- $150 plus a $96 for a new HF voice coil.

Sansui 1000A - used as a preamp- $200

Marantz CC65se CD= $20

Thorens TD160/Linn Basik/ Denon 110 HOMC- $220

Total- $1226

I doubt it would compare well with a 50K system, or even a 10K system. I wouldn't know since I have never heard one. But I think it might surprise a few folks, anyway, I would like to think it would.

Tubes, Altecs and vinyl make me smile.

Steve

Nearfield listening is great for me, since my music room is small.

This is not class A, but an enjoyable system neverthless.

1) Computer as the source - less jitter like an upscale piece.

2) Sound card upgrade to M-audio 2496 audiophile ($89)

3) Old marantz receiver 2270 ($250 ebay)

4) Athena speakers as-b2 ($170)

5) Sony sawm500 sub ($150)

6) DIY belden cables ($50) : google for info on the web

This system sounds especially good on female vocal music - had me dancing for an hour, so I decided to put it in my gym system.

If you hook this up to a TV, with your favorite exercise DVD, you won't know the pain of exercising, 'coz you are enjoying the sound so much.

For under a grand, you can both enjoy the music, and stay healthy and trim...

CURRENTLY posted on 'Gon (AND assuming no issues for these used components):

Source: Sony DVP NS 999ES w/ Modwright Signature Truth mods $1550;

Preamp: DIY Hi Fi Supply Django (factory assembled w/S&B transformer and silver wiring) $895

Amp: Atma-Sphere M60 MKII.2 monoblocks $2275

Loudspeakers: Talon Khorus X $4000

Total cost (less cables) = $8720

I've owned the ModWright Sony. The Django and Atma-Spheres are my own ads (sorry, both are sold). I use Atma-Sphere M60 MKII.3s (w/Speltz Zeros - show up used on 'Gon for $250 or so) to drive a pair of Talon Firebird Diamonds with beautiful synergy.

There are dozens of great ideas, but this combo would be WAY good for the cost.

regarding the nearfield listening discussion above: I'm not sure if there hasn't been this level of discussion on A'gon previously, or if I just missed it. I frankly thought my rooms were already set up in nearfield; but I decided to experiment based on Nsgarch's comment in the first reply above:

(BTW, were talking not more than 8 feet away from the speakers +/_)

I have 2 "reference" systems in different dedicated rooms. One room is 14x22, with Totem Mani-2s driven by B&K M200 Sonatas (4 of them biamped), Musical Fidelity pre. My seating position was about 12 ft from the Totems which are 4 1/2 ft from the wall. I moved my seat in 2 ft so I'm now 10 ft from the speakers (measured from divers to my ears). The result was a profound improvement in the definition, and depth of the sound stage. My next step is to try to move my seat closer still, but that requires more significant furniture mod's, so I need to find time for that.

The other room is a larger, irregular room with the main section being a virtual square 16'x16', and another smaller square section 12x12 off-set on one corner. I have Von Scheikert VR4gen III's driven by Conrad Johnson dual MF2100s in vertical biamp, and a Dared tube preamp. The VR4s are set up on a diagonal line on one corner, about 3 1/2 ft from the wall, and my seating position was about 13 1/2 ft from the speakers. I moved my seat 3 ft closer to the speakers with similarly profound results as the other room. In this room, I anticipate I'll have to reposition the VR4s closer together as I move my seat in still more, but will continue to experiment.

A few additional points I would make about this change: 1) both of these systems sounded wonderful before I made the change, and I had spent a great deal of time and care in optimizing the speaker placement. I simply didn't consider moving my seat that close previously as it seemed counter-intuitive to me. 2) ALL I have done so far is move my seat closer. I haven't tried any further tuning of the speaker position (ie moved them closer together), 3) In both rooms, even though they're not exactly small, the repositioning of the seating solved some "arangement issues" I previously had and make the rooms more aesthetically appealing as well as sonically appealing.