I know you’re busy but I figured out my dream stereo setup, and it’s only about $750 away, cables included.

So this is my current system:

Sources
CD: Cambridge AXC35 Cambridge Audio AXC35 (note: no matter how much you want to rationalize it, you really don’t need more than a ~$200 Japanese consumer one, though I didn’t pay anywhere near the $450-odd Crutchfield is asking. My CD player is the least-used component in my system, after phono stuff, and I buy CDs on a regular basis. Every now and then I go on a physical-media kick and play the actual discs from my CD collection, booklet in hand, rather than switching and playing discs in foobar2000. Sometimes I get anal-retentive pleasure from listening to CDs the “proper” way, from the same impulse that leads people to build entire hi-fi systems without one transistor.)
AUX: Creative Labs Sound Blaster AE-9, from My PC ( Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3/current) – it has line-level RCA analog outputs, just like an audio component, on the backplate, processed by Sabre ESS DAC

Preamp/tuner/DAC: Emotiva BasX PT1
Power amplifier: Toshiba SC-335 (Toshiba isn’t as foreign to hi-fi as I thought – just as Sony and Philips made SPDIF, TOShiba was responsible for the TOSLINK digital optical standard)

Speakers: Klipsch RP-500M II
Headphones: Sennheiser HD600

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That’s all very good. I also have a pair of floorstanders in the closet that my mom’s old boyfriend made for me, each with a single 8” Audio Nirvana Super 8 full-range driver. No woofers, no tweeters, no crossovers, just ultra-sensitive (~97dB/1W/1m) undivided midrange. TBH I’ve never been able to properly evaluate these because at any load they overwhelm any room I’ve been able to have them in so I always preferred headphones when they were the main speakers in my system. Maybe if I’m a homeowner one day I’ll finally be able to unleash these bad boys. A man can dream. But at low levels they’re very bright, detailed, and powered. A few days ago I hit upon the idea of wiring them in as Speaker B in my new amplifier, placing them in on either side in front of my easy chair, which is now across the room from the speakers where I like to listen from, but which isn’t the focus of its own speakers. But then I had a better idea.

What if I took some female-to-male Y-splitters and split the sound card output to go to two separate systems, each powering a different set of speakers?

So this is the fullest possible evolution of a bachelor-pad living room with a media/gaming PC with a 32” 1440p monitor taking the place of a smart TV. And it’s only about $300 each for the Jolida tuner and an eBay amp, plus about $50 for a pair of Y-splitters and two ten-foot lengths of 16 AWG wire, maybe boxes of pin and banana connectors – about $650 total. That’s where Christmas money is going this year. One of my hard drives, the one with 10TB of pro wrestling tapes on it, is in the early stages of failure and needs to be replaced. But I have it backed up so I can kick it down the road until the next time I’m in position to make a midtier-major purchase.

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For 40wpc of clean, muscular solid-state energy – and those VU meters really are a feaat for the eyes, like watching tubes glow – the Emotiva powers the Toshiba powers the Klipsches on either side of my computer monitor – basically, my current system. I hadn’t considered it, but I could even keep the CD player.

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Then there’s system 2, for my recliner. From experience the speakers are at full attention even at minimal volume so eight watts per channel, even if the actual amplifier I end up buying is six or whatever, is well overkill for the Audio Nirvanas at close quarters, like an intimate “fireside” armchair setup.

Integrated Amplifier: For 8wpc (or the like) of pure class A, I could buy something likethis Chi-Fi SET tube amp. The stated price is believable as single-ended triode is one of the simplest audio amplifier circuits, costing a bare minimum in electronic parts. What adds the thousands is things like a machined steel chassis and high-quality output transformers that our Chinese friends can more affordably procure on the domestic market, where they’re not cutting corners, as well as amplifier brands emphasizing the exotic how-low-can-you-go wpc ratings while sounding great paired with the speakers to pick them up. We’re not going to be using much current, even if the parts aren’t the best.

Back in the day some of the best equipment I ever bought was from Chinese companies that were literally one guy who designed great amps and had a factory do the actual assembly for rock-bottom prices, like Monarchy Audio and Antique Sound Lab, whose components I’ve junked only in the last couple of years. The one guy in both of those companies has since retired, and this stuff looks to be the spiritual successor. If not, it’s only $350.

INPUT 1: my PC
INPUT 2: I was looking for a separate tuner so I could choose from a greater range of preamps and integrateds when I came across this curiosity: the Jolida JD402 tube tuner, with a 12AT7 and a 12AX7 section, that’s a lot of gain. Those are amplifier tubes, not radio tubes, so the actual tuner part is transistor, which might be why you so seldom see tube-amplified tuners even as integral to the development of the technology as radio was.

Speakers: Audio Nirvana 8” full-range (x1 each) in floorstander cabinets, something like 98dB/1W sensitive, requiring about an eighth the power of 89dB speakers, so no problem for the eight-watt amplifier of sweet pure triode midrange, in front of my easy chair across the room from the two stereo systems. I used to play with couplers, Y-splitters, boxes, all that stuff. I used to go without a preamp by connecting my CD player and phono stage to an in-line A/B switch box and connected the output to line-in on a sound card, set it so you could monitor it while also using computer audio, then used the digital out to go to a DAC, with the output attached directly to the power amp. I used the PC volume control directly as the volume control for the system, with not a knob or potentiometer in sight.