This is something I always have in the back of my head of what is possible if I put my budget just below RM3000 but I want to have streaming, local media play back and a little bit more if I wanted to have CD player to be added to the mix. Well hifi system can be very simple as one amplifier with one pair of speaker and you are done basically. In the old days, usually be CD player or cassette or even a minidisc player. In more recent times of course digital media is kind of the main stream. Keep that in mind, I just wanted something very simple and affordable which I can just set it up to listen in my living room area. It can be family entertainment and as well as for guest coming to visit.
Now to be realistic with limited budget , it is quite obvious to look into the used market. After all, used hifi gear does have quite many variety to offer. Since this is going to be in the living room area I will pick something not too space consuming. So for speaker, the ideal choice is a bookshelf speaker. It's quite a bit of searching for something that I like and need to be low cost. After some months of going through the search, I came upon a nice pair of Monitor Audio Gold 7. This speaker is the top bookshelf back for its days back in the 90's. Definitely is a very old pair of speaker. The speaker is discontinued back in 2009. I like this speaker very much for the high which makes vocal in music very prominent and not ear piercing at the same time. Well being a bookshelf although the lower end is not comparable to floor stander but it does it very well. The condition of speaker is really good given the years this speaker has seen. I got a good offer this pair for RM600. Quite a fair price to pay.
After picking up this pair of speaker , than the next important part is the amplifier. What should be a good amplifier for it. Being a British speaker is also means is quite the warm sounding speaker. Of course the gold metal tweeter is a bit more forwarding. Probably I am thinking of some British amp probably or even Japanese amp which is more neutral. The selection for me is, I wanted an amplifier that has everything in it with DAC, USB, Coaxial, Optical, RCA. Most old school amp will be rule out for sure. Have to be something a little into the millennium to fit the bill. Most newer generation amp with all build in doesn't come cheap and also not many choices as well to fit the budget. After some long searching, decided to get this little amplifier. The Sony UDA-1 USB DAC amplifier. This unit was launch in 2013 and is discontinued back in 2018. This is a shoebox size amplifier. Is has 2 USB input, one in front and one at the back. The DAC can support up to DSD128 and support hi-res as well up to 192khz. The back it has another USB, with coaxial, optical and 1 pair of RCA input. There is also a pair of RCA output as well. The standard speaker binding post can be use with bi-wire or banana plugs. It has a credit card size remote as well which is pretty cool. This little cost me RM1300.
With amplifier and the speaker, I can simply hook up a laptop or even my Ipad / Iphone to the USB and I am ready to play some music. The good thing is it can support hi-res which is good for me as I am using Apple Music which recently have launch the hi-res audio. The total cost of all 3 components cost RM2400. Pretty much it is ready to rock and roll. To make things a little more , I have added into the mix a Asus Tinker board S (Single Board Computer) install with Volumio player as a media player which I can use for streaming spotify, apple air play or even listening to internet radio. This little unit cost less than RM500 which will bring my total cost to RM2900.
Overall, I am very happy with this setup. It fulfilled all I wanted to get it for listening to music with different sources. Probably I can add in CD player in the future. For now it is covering all that is needed. The overall sound quality is pretty awesome. A short recording of the sound. Recording
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