the following components i use and they go quite good together, in both, sound and design:
– speakers: infinity rs 4b
– amp: sansui au 317
– dac: cambridge audio dacmagic100
– tuner: kenwood kt 5300
– phono: dual 1009
sound is warm and powerful. bass is never too strong but deep. i would also recommend this setting for studio-work or mixing. the speakers don’t hide anything. and i guess, what sounds good in this environment, sounds good everywhere (as long as mix is kept warm enough to sound good on less warm systems as well).
my budget mixing combination:
– speakers: yamaha ns 10m
– amp: nad 3020
nothing to add to this mix. it is a classic studio combination. very realistic but nothing for listening only.
a small hifi-configuration i like as well:
– speakers: heco odeon 200
– amp: sansui au 217
sansui au 217, with the small hecos sounds surprisingly warm and powerful. i tested it with the infinity speakers as well, but this combination lacked bass. as there was a crackle on the left channel (even without any music playing and without any handling on the amp), i had to recap it. it turned out to be very easy to open and edit the electronics of this amp. there are no ics in it! all bigger caps are fixed to the board with an aggressive glue that destroys elements if there was used too much of this glue. in my case, the glue had destroyed one foot of a diode. after changing the diode, the amp stopped making cracks and noisy sounds. it is the best budget hifi-combination i have ever heard.