New speakers or new amp

I would do the exact opposite of what DMF said. The top of the line Onkyos/Integras are perhaps best known for what their outstanding DACs. I'm very familiar with that receiver you have (got the same one), and I'll tell you, if it's strong anywhere, it's strength is it's internal DAC and surround processing ability. The internal amps are very good for a receiver, but nowhere near what you could be looking at with a seperate poweramp(s). Anyways, I'd keep the receiver and use it as a pre/pro, as it undoubtedly has enough inputs and does pretty much everything you'd want it to do, and add good power amps. Using the Integra 9.1 as an amp for the Outlaw pre/pro isn't an upgrade at all, and that's not a knock in the least on Outlaw, it's a very good piece of equipment, it's just that the DACs and preamp outs on the 9.1 are at least just as good.


Considering that you're looking to upgrade either amps or speakers, I'm assuming there's a limited budget? Bryston is awfully tough to beat for the buck, often called the "poor man's Krell." I've sold both Krell and Bryston when I was in college, so I've listened to both quite a bit, and that's a very, very good description of Bryston. Try getting a Bryston 4B-ST or 4B-SST amp for your main fronts and let the receiver run the rest, and then maybe pick up Bryston's 5 channel amp (9B series) to run the other channels later. Or if budget allows now, go for 7B series monoblocks, or the big 14BSST, which is essentially two 7Bs in one chassis. That's what I would do if I had your system. Of course, make sure your cables are up to standard too, especially the speaker cables if you're upgrading to some big amps. Another possibility, which is slanted more towards 2 channel than multi-channel applications would be to consider a Jolida tube amp, fairly inexpensive for what you get, if you like the tube sound. If you're anywhere near a 50/50 music/movies guy, I'd go solidstate and look into the Brystons though.

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I didn't mean to insinuate you were wrong, but rather based on me being familiar with the receiver, that I would have recommended the opposite course of action. As for the speakers, he's got pretty good speakers. If can only afford to upgrade one or the other, considering what he likely spent for the receiver and speakers each, and that he's only upgrading one end of the two, I'm guessing he's got a budget around $2K. Is that far off of the mark, Frohlich? Those speakers are fairly competitive in that price range, I don't think he'll be able to improve his sound that much by "upgrading" from a solid pair of speakers in the sub $2K category to another pair around 2K like he would getting a solid amp. Now, if his budget is signifcantly more than that (say $3500-$4000 or more), and if he sells his Paradigms and adds that money to the pot, he could probably go with a $1000 amp and a better pair of speakers at the same time and improve that way.