My HiFi Just Broke

(btw, my "music system" currently consists of my powerbook and $10 Walgreens speakers)

But still, that does not sound good.

I'm really sorry, btw.

Aaaaah! Ummm, you can come around here and listen to it. I can cue up Miss You, too.

Or The Rapture (again)??

Can you not get cheapo thrift store speakers, too? My entire setup (hulking Zenith with 8-track and GE speakers) cost $15.

Or try borrowing a spare system from a sympathetic friend, if you have any.

Btw, I only mentioned the price of the amp as a reference point to how well-built it's supposed to be. I don't need to hear opinions about how it's a waste of money, or whatever.

(HiFi??? I thought my dad was the last person who still used that term)

I feel your pain though - I also follow the slightly bonkers and ecologically-unfriendly audiophile habit of leaving my power amps on and on the very odd occasion I do cycle the power on them, I seem to have a 50% chance of blowing a time-lag fuse. Of course, I never seem to have a spare. At least with monoblocs, I still have one channel...

It shouldn't be too difficult to find DIN-phono adaptor plugs from whatever the US equivalent is of Maplin, if you wish to temporarily rig up something non-Naim with yr CD player/pre-amp. Now might be the time to buy that Naim Headline headphone amp...

http://www.thesimsurfer.com/Bowie.jpg

??

Yes, if the power amp happens to be a Class A or AB design (neither Sean's Naim or my Audiolabs are, thankfully) - the circuit is permanently biased, so idle power consumption from some huge solid-state Class A like a Bryston or a Krell could be over 200W (much less for a tube amp). Still, good if you've no heating in that room.

But electricity bills are probably not something you worry about if you're in the market for $10k kilowatt amps.

Oh no! The stylus cantilever on my Ortofon MC25FL got bent! Oh well, it had a good innings - 10 years old next month.

So, can anyone recommend a decent cartridge (MC preferred) for £50-70 (I can't justify the £230+ trade-in for a new MC25FL)? I got in touch with NVA about rejigging my Phono 1 pre-amp to work with a higher-output cart (MC25FL is 350-500uV and that's LOUD through my current box - too loud to record to MD or PC without in-line attentuation - so some 2-3mV cart would blow it up) and it would only cost £20 plus P&P both ways. Changing it to MM might cost more, I dunno.

Turntable is a Michell Gyro SE with Rega RB300 tonearm (Cardas/vdH rewire).

(I'd post this on an audio forum but I hate those places).

Any Amp suggestions?

For with a Cambridge Audio Azur 351c CD player, Yamaha KX-390 Cassette Deck and B&W speakers.

Pondering this: http://www.whathifi.com/onkyo/9010/review

i have an entry level cambridge amp for about 8 years and it's great and looks cool

The circa £80 one?

Suggestions for a CD player for the kitchen/bedroom? (ie not the main listening stereo).

I have an Onkyo C-7030 which is cheapish (around $160) and sounds wonderful.

I just replaced our old (and broken down) kitchen CD player with this Yamaha TSX-B235WH Desktop Audio with Bluetooth. It sounds fine and has a few nice features like Bluetooth and two USB ports. I could have gone with something cheaper that would probably sound as good, but this fit into the space on our kitchen counter, while most of the other choices did not.

I'd go for something like this with a pair of bookshelf speakers
http://www.whathifi.com/denon/d-m40dab/review

^ I gave an earlier (2014) incarnation of that Denon bookshelf unit to our daughter. As the review states, it sounds good and could not be simpler to use. A bit pricey though and no wireless capability, which seems like the way the whole music world is trending.

We have a Teac receiver in the kitchen with built in CD:

http://www.teac-audio.eu/en/products/cr-h700-83957.html

Best feature is wifi that allows streaming internet radio, BBC3 Late Junction is my dinner cooking listening of choice. USB input on the front for phone/ipod.

I've got the Marantz equivalent of that Teac network CD receiver, running through Q-Acoustic monitors in the living room. One big selling point was its integral Spotify app, but whenever Spotify tweak their API, certain things stop working (like collaborative or Spotify's own playlists), so I mostly AirPlay to it now.