Did i make the right choice

It's my first post here and am fairly new to this subject and really like the help all you guys and gals give to each other and the tips everyone passes on, saying that I will be grateful for any advice given. I have been slowly buying equipment I like and my wife can stand looking at. As many of you married guys know it's hard to please the wife with the looks of a black box like NAD. Not that I don't like NAD. Anyway taking this into mind I went for the Musical Fidelity A3. (not 3.2) This pleased the wife very much. lol. Next I have just bought B&W 604 S3. My question is did I make a mistake in buying too powerful speakers for my amp. The amp runs at 120WPC@8ohms or 210wpc@4ohm
The speakers are rated at 200W at 8ohm impedence is 8ohm minimum is 3 ohm.

This is being posted after 3 hours listening to the setup. Does burn in make that much difference. I dont have a decent CD player as of yet and am just getting by with my dvd player.

One last question does it make alot of difference if the sources ( inputs ) are on long cables. Over 7 metres. I have the amp and pre on quality couplings right next to each other. Till I get a dedicated CD player I will have to put up using my dvd player thats some distance from my amp. :)

Again thanks for any help...

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Originally Posted by Remo1075

It's my first post here and am fairly new to this subject and really like the help all you guys and gals give to each other and the tips everyone passes on, saying that I will be grateful for any advice given. I have been slowly buying equipment I like and my wife can stand looking at. As many of you married guys know it's hard to please the wife with the looks of a black box like NAD. Not that I don't like NAD. Anyway taking this into mind I went for the Musical Fidelity A3. (not 3.2) This pleased the wife very much. lol. Next I have just bought B&W 604 S3. My question is did I make a mistake in buying too powerful speakers for my amp. The amp runs at 120WPC@8ohms or 210wpc@4ohm
The speakers are rated at 200W at 8ohm impedence is 8ohm minimum is 3 ohm.

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You're fine. The specs are peak power ratings and unless you plan on having house parties all the time, I sincerely doubt you'll approach max power if you want to stay married. If you do like it loud, stay a couple of steps below distortion or clipping. IOW, use common sense.

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Does burn in make that much difference.

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To a degree, yes. You have to give drivers time to settle in and the difference is measureable. How much time is required varies from application to application. I believe B&W's manual says 50 hours are recommended, but don't quote me.

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One last question does it make alot of difference if the sources ( inputs ) are on long cables. Over 7 metres. I have the amp and pre on quality couplings right next to each other. Till I get a dedicated CD player I will have to put up using my dvd player thats some distance from my amp. :)Again thanks for any help...

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Holy smokes! Is you DVD player on the other side of the room?!? Why can't you move it near the rest of your equipment? As for your actual question, yes there is signal degradation over certain distances for specific gauges of cable. Is it audible? You tell me.

Congrats on your new toys, btw. That's really nice equipment you've got there and I hope you spend more time enjoying the music than worrying about the gear.

As a rule your interconnects should be as short as possible. Your speaker cables can be 7m long if the correct gauge is used but that is too long for ICs. Cable capacitance will affect line level signals so if you must have your source over a distance 6ft or so, you need to consider the capacitance/ft spec of the cable, lower the better.

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Originally Posted by mazdamanic

As a rule your interconnects should be as short as possible. Your speaker cables can be 7m long if the correct gauge is used but that is too long for ICs. Cable capacitance will affect line level signals so if you must have your source over a distance 6ft or so, you need to consider the capacitance/ft spec of the cable, lower the better.

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Anything over 4 meters and you should be using balanced interconnects.

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Originally Posted by Remo1075

This is being posted after 3 hours listening to the setup. Does burn in make that much difference. I dont have a decent CD player as of yet and am just getting by with my dvd player.

One last question does it make alot of difference if the sources ( inputs ) are on long cables. Over 7 metres. I have the amp and pre on quality couplings right next to each other. Till I get a dedicated CD player I will have to put up using my dvd player thats some distance from my amp. :)

Again thanks for any help...

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Your speakers and amp are a good match. B&W can take a lot of power, and the MF amp can slew a lot of current when called for, an excellent combo.

I would save up now and get a good source, possibly a decent multiplayer so you can enjoy SACD & DVD-Audio in addition to CD. It WILL make a difference!

Thanks for the quick response guys. You have all put my mind at ease and now I don't feel so bad spending so much lol. My next move will be to buy a CD player and good short interconects for it. I am currently bidding for a MF A3.2 on Ebay I'll let you know if I get it. One went for £320 last week currently at £155 but still six days to go. It's amazing how much this stuff goes for second hand and even a few years old. I'm also looking at Marantz CD5400 OSE as well, I must admit I like the headphone socket and seperate volume control on it. The thing that seems to disapoint me on many CDP brands is the poor quality of the cd drawer all very wonkey/loose when ejected and the fact that they continue to make the draw from cheap black plastic. Anyone have a CDP that isnt like this mabe a top loader ? or one with a drawer not out of plastic.

The original Rega Planet is a top loader and is one the best sounding cd players for the money. These go for $300 used in the US.

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Originally Posted by Geoffcin

Anything over 4 meters and you should be using balanced interconnects.

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Just out of curiosity, why?

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Originally Posted by topspeed

Just out of curiosity, why?

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Balanced interconnects are, because of the grounding configuration, much more immune to RF, which becomes a problem in long runs as the cable becomes exponentially more of a large antenna.

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Originally Posted by Geoffcin

Balanced interconnects are, because of the grounding configuration, much more immune to RF, which becomes a problem in long runs as the cable becomes exponentially more of a large antenna.

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I'll buy that. Thanks.

Devices such as the Rane Balance Buddy (which convert unbalanced lines to balanced and vice-versa) can be used for long IC runs with source/amplification equipment that is single-ended only.

http://www.rane.com/bb22.html

if you want to convert to a balanced signal i would definately go with something with some really high quality Jensen transforms. Any good quality direct boxes will be made with them or if you wanna make something fancy looking you can build them yourself.

Congrats on your new B&W's they are one of my favorites in this price range. A lot of fun some balls. If I may I'll make a suggestion with positioning and set-up. These speakers are a bit tougher to get right than you might think based on the design. Improperly set-up you can hear a kind of gap between the speakers as if the vocals are coming out the dead center then out of each speaker but with a strange distance effect between the two. I only heard this is one room but the speakers were far apart about 12 feet and almost in corners with heavy toe-in. They don't like being too near walls as the bass can boom.

I get better results fro B&W with next to no toe in or ever so slight and they seem to sound better about 6-8 feet apart but not more than this and strangely this applies to even their monster speakers like the N802. MF is a popular match though not my cup of tea. A cheaper option would be Rotel and you could probably get separates from them for less than the MF integrated...MF is not a bad choice just that I don;t think they're as good as the press indicates. Certainly would not buy one unheard. We recently had a shootout of gear and the MF amp that another audiophile brought was easily the worst amp in the session with a small narrow stage and not much bass. The Oddysey Stratos was vastly superior to our ears. But it was with Gershman Acoustics. (caution some find Rotel bright?) I always felt their power amps were rather the reverse.

I would also try several other British brands since it sounds like you are there. Roksan may be a good fit as well. And i would also try Arcam -- I had good luck with an Arcam B&W combo -- and Sugden and Linn are worth a try. They are lower in power which may scare you off but if you'r not a headbanger both of them to my ear add a subtler level of refinment over the MF's more down and rocky versions. I would listen first either way.

The odyssey you liked….was it the stereo power amp or the dual-mono model ? Could you point me to the exact model ?