[Need Advice building first (affordable) rig...]

PRaT = Pace, Rhythm, and Timing.

Ah, thanks. Yeah, Pace, Rhythm, and timing would also be important.

I thought about going with the gilmore lite and an external sound card until i can afford a decent DAC. That way i could spend $350 on the amp, maybe pull together like $100 for the sound card and then if i wanted to upgrade to the dedicated power supply on the amp, that would be available. And when i did eventually save enough for a good DAC, I wouldn't necessary have to upgrade the amp right away.

But i don't know if that logic makes any sense, plus i don't know enough about the equipment, like does the gilmore pair well with grados? What are some decent external sound cards and how much do they generally run? Will i hear more of a difference if i just start by getting a decent cd player? I'm not crazy about that option because a lot of my music i don't even know where the original discs are to begin with.

The pico looks great as far as having a dac and an amp in one, but if i want to upgrade from there i'm basically left where i am now and that worries me a little.

[Need Advice building first (affordable) rig...]

Before making any strong recommendations I'd like to know what your current source is and if you're saying that you're planning to make a couple of purchases spread out over a few months. If it is only going to be a month or so between ~$400 purchases it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference what order you buy things in and I'd rather treat it like you've got a budget of ~$800.

And that's not to say that Grawk's advice is bad, quite the contrary, that would make a hell of a budget rig.

thanks for the reply. The important stuff is lossless (flac, some apple lossless), a lot of stuff is VBR (i didn't really know any better...). It's being driven from my macbook as i said (from an external drive). If it's worthwhile to start with a decent cd player, let me know. I have ~$400 left to spend right now, then i could probably save/spend ~$200 a month towards it after that.

I think knowing what your source is fairly important. That said, if you've got a computer as source, IMO save up for however many months and just get that.

What do you mean by "that", the pico?

Also, what is important to you, and what are you looking for, prat, smoothness, headstage, bass?

Sorry, i don't really know what "prat" means. Smoothness would be nice for the jazz, headstage would be great (but i realize the sr225s are limited when it comes to that) and i'm not obsessive about bass. I do care about vocals a lot if that matters.

[Need Advice building first (affordable) rig...]

Hi, I'm new. I'm looking into incrementally putting together an affordable setup and was hoping to get some advice from you guys on what I should get and in what order.

Background: I listen to mostly indie rock and jazz off of a macbook (external hard drive). I just recently got a pair of sr225s and i'd like to put them to a little better use. My next purchase will be in the $300-$400 range and then it'll be about month or so between purchases, so I'd like to buy things in an order that will make the most difference. I know it's not a lot of money (and i don't have the greatest cans in the world) but you gotta start somewhere.

Thanks in advance for the help...