Amp For KEF speakers please

ne5

Established Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2015
Messages
119
Reaction score
3
Points
54
Location
England
Hello, I have a pair of KEFQ300 speakers and use an old Rotel amp and a squeezebox. I also use an equaliser, which helps my fading hearing.

I am thinking of getting a new amp, I like the sound of the rotels with these speakers, but it is not remoteable and because I use a squeezebox I want the amp to play mp3 music, be remoteable and have or connect to my equaliser.

Price for a decent amp is between 500 - 1k, give or take, liking the amp is the priority, I don't want to have to buy an amp and sell it as I did when I got these speakers at the 3rd attempt.

I am happy to use a tablet, or similar to control the amp if necessary.
 
MP3 why not FLAC or other Hirez format
 
ah, ALL my CD's are now in mp3 format (with decent bit rate) and it would be a huge job to convert them all to FLAC now, also as it is an upgrade in bit size, technically not the best conversion ?
 
The squeezebox will play MP3 no problem. Where are they stored?
You can even cast music from a mobile phone or tablet to your squeezebox using an app called Hi-Fi Cast which works brilliantly.
It may be old, but the squeezebox is still a superb music streamer.
 
Rule out 1k. No need for that spend on the Q300.

Yamaha AS501/701/801 are the first that spring to mind. Decent power, decent build quality and tone controls. You also have the RN803 which offers the same as above but with inbuilt streaming and basic room correction.

All of the above are available fro around 500 or less.
 
Due to virus etc etc I've done anything but having got used to using headphones and tablet recently I now think I want an amp with a decent equaliser too.

Either by remote, or a tablet app, so long as it's a decent equaliser as my hearing isnt young and I'm quite fussy.
 
Modern amps don't come with eq like that anymore. You'd either have to go retro or buy an amp with inbuilt room correction.
 
Splash out on the only amp you’ll ever need.

It will also drive, very happily, any speakers you might upgrade to ever.

Also as it has Diraclive you won’t need any nonsense like Equalisers.


And you can return it if you don‘t like it, but that’s a very unlikely thing.
 
Took awhile, sorry,, but I'm resurrecting this.

I'm limited to Richer Sounds, or Peter Tyson (at a push). So that Arcam amp is a possibility. Its the same old problem though, a lot of money if you dont like it. So is it bass heavy ? Is it boomy? Does it have bass and treble ? Equaliser? Does it have a nice tone (MASSIVE IMPORTANCE).

Sorry edit. An equaliser is important for my old ears and a hearing aid. I do have one I can connect to though.
 
It has room correction, so you can largely dampen or remove any room issues.
 
You might want to look into the Rotel A11 Tribute. It has 4 inbuilt tone settings and digital tone controls as well to tailor the sound. It will drive your KEFs easily.
 
You might want to look into the Rotel A11 Tribute. It has 4 inbuilt tone settings and digital tone controls as well to tailor the sound. It will drive your KEFs easily.

that looks interesting as I'm buying blind, I will look it up and I don;t mind the price at all if I like it. How would it compare sonically to my current (old) rotel if that isn't a daft question ? What I mean is, what would be the cost of my current rotel today, to use price as a guide ?

The modern tech additions will be more than welcome, but if the sound is inferior I wouldn't be happy. I say this because I made mistake when I moved from an old music centre to a technics receiver, it was vastly inferior, and I realised a dedicated amp was miles better (or at least better than that one and I still wish I had kept the music centre which was amazing but thats another story.

I've got a weakening right ear, and left but more so the right, and I'm VERY fussy about tone and boomy bass, I have my equaliser set with a higher right hand channel, I need it like that.

And I also use a squeezebox which streams my entire collection in mp3 that I've digitised. (I would rather not have to set up a complete new streaming system unless I have to)
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom