What to upgrade next?

chrispy, my friend, all I have to say is

chrispyfur wrote: »

I know without question what I have now is not going to impress most members of the forum, but it's been great value for the money in my opinion. I get some sound staging and imaging and I'm not sure exactly would be the lowest hanging fruit in my setup to improve that. Speaker mods and repair? DAC? Better amp and preamp? Is it more wise to look at room treatment? Scrap it all and start over?

First of all, get that last paragraph outta your mind. I get where you're coming from, but don't dog your system or be afraid to ask questions here, because every single one of us has been where you are right now - enjoying getting into the hobby, obsessing, and deciding on what to do next. And for most of us, it never ends; it's relative. I will say that it's great that you're already experiencing relatively satisfying results. Doing way better than I was in my "first year".

Also, for most of the people here who enjoy the hobby, it's not about beating out other members in gear; it's not a race or one-upmanship. It's about our own journeys, exploring, learning, and growing at our own respective paces. Again - all relative.

You nailed the most sensible goal here with this stuff when you used the word "value". Unless you have limitless funds, value should always play into your plans, and, in fact, it can make the hobby more enjoyable, since it takes time to research, source, and find the right piece at the right price. This isn't to say be out there low-balling people, but yes - value; fair (even still, I almost always over-pay. I very rarely find the best deals, but, still way cheaper than new). Almost all of my stuff is second hand.

Now, on to your questions. I haven't learned as much as I should have in my time, here, however, a few notes re: your goal to improve soundstage and imaging...

I experienced profound imaging in three separate experiences, with three separate systems.

There was one thing common to two of those three experiences, and that was speaker placement.
Specifically, getting a lot of space around the speakers.

In two of these setups, there was either no front wall, or it was 8ft away, with closest side walls similar distance. This is free to try. Tell your wife you're only experimenting, and that you'll move everything back, that you're just trying to learn - and to save money! Yes, this means lie to her. If it works out, you come up with the story to justify keeping it where it sounds best later on. And if you get caught, you blame @Clipdat, and you also say that routinely scours Craigslist ads for companionship, and actually scores. And then you say that you don't like him, but that you couldn't help but be swayed because he's really good at audio in spite of the other stuff.

The next thing was two different integrated amplifiers. One was a Musical Fidelity A5, and the other is an older Harman Kardon HK990. Each of these was around $1200ea, used.

I don't know much of anything about amplifier designs or which specs make for which performance characteristics. From general comparison between these two pieces and former pieces I enjoyed for sound quality but that did not present profound imaging, the specs that seem to stand out in common are peak to peak (or peak instantaneous) current, and damping factor. Driver control, impact, clean, articulate performance during fast, busy passages as opposed to a heavy messy congested presentation. These are some of the capabilities that translate to improvements in sound presentation.

These integrateds are each dual mono designs with [relatively] high current power supplies, and high damping factor, and both offered significant improvements in stereo nuance over my previous favorites - various separates from Parasound and B&K, and the various combinations of each.

Next, my streaming game is very modest compared to others. I use old Logitech Squeezebox Touch players, which connect to Logitech Media server on my main home computer. These SBTs are old and limited as far as quality goes, but whether it matters will depend some on your media and/or service.

For services, I use Spotify, DI.FM, and local .flac rips, but almost exclusively Spotify and DI.FM (and its affiliate stations). Sometimes Pandora if I want to see if it can introduce anything new. So, as far as services go for me, nothing profoundly great. I tried Tidal several years ago. It was better, but didn't have the catalog. Later, I tried Qobuz, and it was very nice, too. I settled on Spotify again, just because of my history with it and, iirc at the time, maybe something to do with the mobile app? I could just be making that up. Which wouldn't be the first time I invented something.

The SBT goes into a DAC, and for me, I enjoy the Schiit Modi or Bifrost models. They offer the multibit (a bit more $) and delta-sigma DAC chip'd options, which are more affordable. The delta-sigma offerings aren't bad at all, but the multibit ones do sound better. Hard to describe, but just a bit richer, more robust, and smoother. That is to say, very clean without edginess. Not that the Modi is edgy.

I'm at the lower end of DACs here than most. These range from $120 - $300 for the Modi (mini). Looks like the Bifrost is only available in multibit now, and it's $800, but you could likely find an older Bifrost Multi for $400-$500 or so? There are lots of DAC options and a lot of guys don't care for the Schiit stuff. I happen to enjoy it. Synergy. Is there better for the money? Maybe? Likely? But I'm at a happy place here, and I've standardized on it across my other systems, as well.

Lastly - one of my absolute FAVE setups is a piCorePlayer I built, which is a Raspberry Pi based streamer with a HiFi Berry DAC hat on it, built in a nice metal case. piCorePlayer software integrates with Logitech Media Server and syncs with other Squeeze Players. Maybe around $200 for every thing at the time I built it, but Raspberry Pis went scarce for a while, and wound up 4x the price or more for a bit. If you like to tinker, this is a fun project, and it saves money. Further, this is one of the setups that is really pleasing.

The very first setup I used where I experienced nuanced imaging was with a SBT, Audioengine HD3 speakers and a modest musical sub. It was the first time I experienced speakers disappearing. Like, literally. I was listening to the music, surprised by the imaging, and when I looked to my left, directly at one of the Audioengine speakers, the sound was coming from elsewhere. It seemed like the speaker wasn't even there, wasn't the source of the sound. It was crazy. That was when I started trying to better my other systems.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to remember now whether at the time I was running the SBT into a DAC or not. I may have been using its onboard DAC and running cheap RCA cables directly in to a Schiit Magni3 headphone amp that was I was using a preamp/volume control. If not, then I was using the cheaper Schiit Modi DAC ($100 or less used; delta-sigma chip). That setup would have looked like this:
SBT > digital coax > Schiit Modi > RCA > Schiit Magni3 > RCA > Audioengine HD3s > RCA/coax preout to affordable Sunfire SDS-8 sub.

All RCA cables in that original setup were cheap OE ones with red/white connectors (you know the type), except for one Audioquest Forest that I likely ran from the Magni3 to the Audioengines. In spite of the cheap cables, this was the only instance in which I've ever experienced speakers disappearing and beautiful imaging, able to locate the players, as well as some depth in the image.

Again, this was a desktop system with essentially no hard boundaries.

The Audioengine HD3 speakers were sitting on 2 sets each of Sound Addicted acoustic foam monitor pads from Amazon, angled upward a bit toward my ears.

I've had best results with imaging with near field listening.

Apologies for the typos and hope that's follow-able. Just a few ideas for you to consider (read: confuse you further)

chrispyfur wrote: »

Come on guys, I gave up so many hobbies! Guns, motorcycles, cars... this one HAS to be less expensive than all of that, right?

...right!?!?!

Who am I kidding?

Oh, make no mistake - audio has the potential to EASILY surpass each of those hobbies. Many times over if you hoard collect your gear.
To borrow a favorite meme source from @Clipdat ...

chrispyfur wrote: »

Come on guys, I gave up so many hobbies! Guns, motorcycles, cars... this one HAS to be less expensive than all of that, right?

...right!?!?!

Who am I kidding?

Now that may be the best post of the week.

chrispyfur wrote: »

It'll sound really decent and then suddenly the speaker draws unwanted attention to itself via cymbals or a higher pitched voice. This is true for all my different speaker options.

IME, this is caused by your source having unwanted noise. The more you clean up and address this, the less and less this will be the case. Having an optimal source, along with the cables and addressing any unwanted artifacts within said signal (electrically or jitter) will have a profound affect on what you are experiencing.

One of my favorite phrases is that, "one can't make chicken soup out of chicken chit". In your case, you are amplifying it.....and that's why you are experiencing what you are.

Tom