The SMSL SA300 is a device with the proper outputs. Wish I had known about them......
Also the Topping MX3 would also have been a great choice.
Given these, what other choices with DAC/AMPS that are less than 10 inches wide with 2.1 speaker outputs?
Here's a few that meet the brief. These all have
digital bass management/re-direction (LPF/HPF) for properly integrating a sub, as opposed to the common sub out jack that just receives a summed, full-range signal.
Heavily discounted from time-to-time:
ELAC Element Series EA101EQ Integrated Amplifier With this Amazon deal, you can save 49% of the list price of the ELAC EA Series EA101EQ Integrated Amplifier. The list price is $879.98, but with this deal you can pick it up for $449. This stereo unit incorporates both room correction and bass...
www.avsforum.com
Updated version of above; with pre-outs:
Looking for more information on Discovery Integrated Amplifier with Streaming - DS-A101? Click to learn more and shop now from ELAC!
www.elac.com
My personal pick. World class Dirac Live® DRC:
Roon Ready streaming amplifier with Dirac Live® room correction, 2 x 120Wrms power amplifier, miniDSP audio toolbox for subwoofer integration, Volumio music player, 450MHz Sharc DSP processor
www.minidsp.com
The denizens of ASR (and elsewhere) tend to hyperventilate over poorer than expected measured performance. However, in the real world the result of these less than stellar measurements when playing program material will be masked by the room's noise floor
and swamped by the distortion and non-linearities of the speakers and sub.
Having said that, your overall sound quality would likely benefit from high-passing your LX16's
and applying room correction, but the last thing you'd want to do is fork out to replace the Sprout 100 if it erodes your primary system speaker and sub budget.
Seems that my subwoofer has rolled over and died. Not surprised. A Defiance X12 will also need to be part of the upgrade.....not unexpected. So the upgrade will be Premier 800F pair, a Prestige 45C and the aforementioned Defiance X12.
You shouldn't feel compelled (by your dealer?) to get your sub from the maker of your main speakers. There's no such thing as "timbre matching" in the low bass region and there's better price/performance quotients to be found with specialist sub manufacturers. I'm seeing $1300 for the Defiance X12. For that outlay you could get dual Hsu Research VTF-2 MK5's if you have a number of seats to cover with uniform low bass, or a single Rythmik FVX15 if you have a single seat to worry about and flexibility of placement.
Choosing a sub (or two) isn't a trivial exercise and depends on your room volume and listening level expectations... I recommend you start a separate thread on the Subwoofers board to get more eyeballs on your situation.
