Interesting system design “thought exercise”
I was at HiFiCon in San Jose last week, and listened quite a bit to the fully loaded Schiit Ragnarok 2, which includes a DAC and MM phono stage, all for $1799….and I was quite impressed.
So, personally, this what I’d consider putting together, “soup to nuts”.
Lumin U2 streamer: $2400
Schiit Ragnarok 2 with DAC & Phono stage: $1799
GR-Research XLS Encore standmounts (w/Sonicaps upgrade, & no cheesy iron-core inductors & sandcast resistors in the crossover
) $1499
Shunyata Venom-X speaker cables: $1995
Shunyata Venom-X IC (only 1 req’d): $995
Shunyata Venom v10 NR PCs (2): $1200 ($600/each)
Power distributor: Shunyata PS10 $900
All in: $10,792
or, for a more a sophisticated system utilizing Altaira grounding tech:
Shunyata Gemini
combination Power Distributor and Altaira Ground Hub: $3000
Shunyata Venom GCG ground cables (2): $500
All in for $13,392 MSRP
These prices before applying any discounts that may be applicable, items on sale, or available on the used market.
With either of these systems, you’d not only have very well-designed and engineered products manufactured with quality parts, but you’d also have an excellent
foundation of quality power distribution, signal transfer, and in the second system, ground-plane noise reduction. So both of these systems would be…
quiet. Gee, imagine that…
More importantly and with respect to maintaining the value of the original investment, this solid foundation could remain in place if you decided to swap out the amplification gear later.
Place your components on some Kallax furniture (which like Rega TTs, are very stiff but light) from IKEA like John Darko does, and you're good to go.
Cheers.