Setting up a digital / streaming system...

I'm asking this on behalf of a buddy who's looking at setting up his first serious listening system.

The current thought is to use a Wadia Power DAC as control and amp, all in one, and to drive something like Dynaudio 140 monitors. The source will be laptop based FLAC and other high res source files. Perhaps a CD player would be thrown in somewhere along the way.

The room will be the living room, throwing across the short length of say around 11ft of an open plan living area.

Personally I think the 25w/pc of the Wadia might be good for nearfield/desktop listening in a confined/compact area, but may not be enough to drive decent speakers with sufficient headroom and dynamic range.

Your thoughts on equipment choice and set up tips would be appreciated. Budget is RM10k - 12k all in.

Grab the maggie 1.7 going right now Jedi-dude, i would if i have the mullah. and the space.

but i don't. My loss can be your friend-dude's gain. Move like lightning Brother-dude-man, better than all the dynes & harbeth & LS3's going out there man, ask anyone who has ever listened.

But move fast, it's going to go to some lucky dude/dude-ess real fast.

Bal

I've heard the PowerDAC, sounds nice but functionally too limited. No analog ins or outs (can't add an amp), and it's still only a DAC, lacking the streaming part. Not easy to upgrade / add to later.

Also I would not recommend it for the Focus 140's which are hard to drive. It does sound adequately (but not extremely) powerful with the Excite or DM range.

If he likes Dynaudios, consider the Focus 110 Active's which are very nice. You could pair this up with a DAC/streamer with volume control - perhaps a Linn Sneaky DS, or Audiolab CDQ / MDAC.

If using passive speakers and a compact all-in-one is desireable, maybe you could look at a Linn Magik DS-i or Naim UnitiQute but I think that would take you over budget. Or a Bel Canto C5i.

I seem to recall that Rega makes a DAC?...

Or just tell him to wait for the Exposure 2010s2 DAC to be released and pair it up with a 2010s2 amplifier and a decent pair of punchy speakers...

rega's dac is pretty good other than the fact that it does not handle 176.4 (though there is supposed to be a firmware upgrade) and its usb handles only 16/48. but it sounds good and costs less than RM3k.

so that leaves rm7k (assuming his budget is RM10k) for amp and speakers, assuming that he already has a laptop. he can use free music players like media monkey or foobar till he decides to buy the latest version of j. river (or use a free older version of j river). if he does not have a laptop, something in the region of rm2k shld be ok.

so that leaves rm5k for amp and speakers. perhaps an integrated amp will do and good bookshelf speakers till he decides to upgrade sometime in the future.

Well, if looking at Rega, then the Rega DAC, Brio R integrated and RS3 small floorstanders should certainly match well and come in under RM10k with change for cables. Negotiate for a package discount