Would you go all 1 brand for electronics?


When I was younger I used to dream of stacks. Especially Tandberg. The sexy black and chrome gear was amazingly sexy, and sleek. Ahead of it’s time really in that respect. Kyocera, Studer, Sumo, Amber, Hitachi, Yamaha, Technics, were all making gear that stacked beautifully together. Of course, so was McIntosh.

Then I got to hear a demo of Conrad Johnson gear driving a Martin Logan single panel speaker. It was good, but as soon as the CJ amp got switched out for a solid state amp, it was absolutely magical. That broke the spell for me. When I got older I found myself mixing and matching more and more, as well as often wishing there wasn’t a single damn cable in the system and it all just worked. :)

I tried going all 1 brand with Parasound, but then I discovered great sounding digital amps and instead of going with many Parasounds I went with little monoblocks, and the whole stack idea was broken. They don’t make sources anyway.

So my question for all of you, especially those of you who do not have all 1 brand stacks of gear. If you had to choose, from source to amp, a single brand, what would it be? Of course your paying for it, so keep the cost in mind. :)

I think we should reasonably exclude record players, though some like McIntosh DO make them.


Best,


Erik


erik_squires
To the original topic, the short answer is 'yes, definitely,...'. In my case, it has come to be a stack of Esoteric separates that offer great synergy and truly musical playback. There are many other great examples both with and without speakers in the line-up that people have called out including Classe, Krell, Linn, McIntosh, MBL, etc....on this thread as well as others including Gryphon, TIDAL (Germany), Hegel & Electrocompaniet (Norway) and several others that come to mind.  
For one manufacturer, besides speakers, I would do the NPac combo from Aurender.....a 100w integrated including DSD/PCM DAC along with a 4 terrabyte storage/playback unit.....for under 5K retail....

I would partner them with the unbelievable Ryan 610s for 2k retail

Here's a video of that combo with the 610s larger brother........

https://youtu.be/hkX7v5JeJD0?t=59s

Ultimately, for 7K retail, or around 5500 real world, you'd have to go at least double or triple to approach
what you'd achieve here.....