Hi, I've been a member for a while and have made the odd post (doh,... that just sounds like "long time listener, first time caller"). Anyway, I'd like a few thoughts on my kit and some recommendation on what I get next. (damn, by the time I've finished I've probably got three threads worth of questions...)
I have... Receiver: NAD T753 receiver CD player: NAD T521bee DVD player: SONY DVPS735D Speakers: Monitor Audio silver s2, s1, and centre Stands: Atacama SE24 and SE40 (600mm and 1000mm) Rack: Sound Style WG3AV Set top box: HUMAX f2-Fox-T
This has evolved over the last few years. FYI, I moved to the UK from New Zealand almost 4 years ago. I'd been making do with a horrible little sony one box theatre system when I bought back my old prologic NAD T750 amp and sony dvd from NZ. I bought the s2 speakers to use the old amp and dvd as a bedroom stereo, then bought the nad cd player as the dvd wasn't much chop for music. We then moved out from a shared house, so the nasty sony theatre went, and then I found a great deal on matching centre and rear speakers, then another deal on the upgraded receiver, better have a rack to...
Problems,... 1. Dodgy old speaker wire I'm thinking of changing to plain zip wire 12 awg / 1.5 csa wire from Maplin (£16.00 / 10m), or maybe Belden 5000UP from Mark grant cables (£1.75m). The Belden wire has a light twist and is 12 awg and only 65 stands (guess moderately flexible?).
I'm replacing some bi-wire for the front (its "straightwire" brand that came with the T750 and some infinity delta 50's years ago). I'll need 9-10m for each rear and probably 10 metre total for the front three speakers. The rears currently have random 14awg wire, about 1m too short... Keeping in mind I'm fairly sceptical of exotic cabling claims, can anyone make some suggestions please?
2. NAD cd player and old DVPS735D Is it worth having the NAD cd player considering I use the DAC in the receiver, and the alternative is a old sony dvd. Great back in the day, I paid $1,200 for it 5-6 years ago, but lol, I bought a broken UK one (to get RGB scart) for under £5.00 recently. I soldered in some fuse wire to replace a tiny resistor sized fuse and it's been perfect ever since 
3. Speaker choice... Good, but I'm not enamoured with it though. I like the monitor audio silver s2's, but I think they're not a patch on my old infinity delta 50's I had in NZ, even considering the poor music performance of the sony dvd I was using (the 50's are floor standers, and my current s2's are book self speakers...).
Anyway, when I bought the silvers s2's I really liked the sound of some Quads (but were just a little too much), I rated the s2's second (but first on value). I didn't like the B&W's I heard that much. Plans I'm thinking I could update the s2's with something further up the range and keep my centre and s1's as rears; the MA s6, s8, and s10's all have turned up on eBay recently at reasonable prices. However, this silver range has been replaced too, I was thinking the new monitor audio RS2's might sound better and still hopefully still matched to the existing centre? Other options include tweaking (but what?), or selling all the speakers and starting again. Any ideas?
Thanks, Mike
PS. large post I know, but to summarise... 1. speaker wire 2. would you change the cd player / and or dvd 3. speaker options - tweaking, but what? - replacement of the fronts (but timber matched to centre and rears) - replacement of all speakers?
1. speaker wire: there was a "blind" test run back in the 80's comparing many exotic ( $$$ ) speaker cables against plain old 12 ga. Zipcord wire, and there was no fundamental difference except for price and marketing hype !
Use a good quality 12 ga. zipcord and use the money you saved on the high quality speaker upgrades.