newbie with some rti a9's

PostmasterNY

hello peoples.....just received the last but not least part of my equipment (rti a9's) which are just freekin beautiful....cherry wood. also recently aquired some fxi a6's & denon blue ray. i am sad to anounce that i have a yamaha
rx v465 "trying" to push these babies. hooked everything up with some decent/new wire and sounded good for a minute.....until i pumped up the volume and the receiver just cut out / shut off. i'm guessing it wasn't powerful enough to hang with the a9's? there was no distortion before shut off.
so any suggestions on how i should proceed......swap current receiver for a new high power / high end receiver? or would a good separate amp be right for these speakers? thank you for your time/concern/help!

cnh

WELCOME TO CLUB POLK!!

The first question is what are you trying to do! If you can live with a two channel set up just check out the forum here, and audiogon for some good used power amps and pre-amps that can power the A9s....the amount of power you need will vary according to the amp....most A/B solid state designs will require about 200 or more watts/channel to make those speakers sound good. A tube amp or a class A amp, etc. may not need to have as much wattage. Depends on your budget.

But yes that Yammie does not have much power. It might barely be able to run just the A9s and nothing else at medium volumes. Yammies are also notorious for turning themselves off if even the tiniest exposed copper wire is touching another lead...so please check all the speaker wire connections.

Then look around for a nice amp....like a Carver, Rotel, Parasound, Cambridge Audio, NAD, Adcom, B&K, etc. There are 'many' quality mid-fi amps to chose from!

cnh

wutadumsn23

You will always be better off with an exteral amp powering your speakers than the AVR, just because the type of power they provide, clean, stable, etc. Having said that, your Yammie doesn't have pre outs (except two for the Surround Back L/R) so I don't exactly how that would work as for adding an external amp to power the 9's. Maybe you could rig something up, but I don't know the exact process that would be involved. Good luck and welcome to Club Polk.

-Jeff

PostmasterNY

thanks guys!

this is a 5.1 system......fxi a6's-rear surr and hitachi hd plasma tv center channel speakers....they're not bad for now.

yes i see now my yamaha avr only has preout for L/R surround.
so what type of connection should i be looking for on a new avr to hook up a good amp to power the a9's?

cstmar01

PostmasterNY wrote: »

thanks guys!

this is a 5.1 system......fxi a6's-rear surr and hitachi hd plasma tv center channel speakers....they're not bad for now.

yes i see now my yamaha avr only has preout for L/R surround.
so what type of connection should i be looking for on a new avr to hook up a good amp to power the a9's?

7 channel pre outs. You would want an AVR that offers enough pre outs for all the channel. If you are looking for just a 5 channel you can do that, but MOST AVR's today that are newer will offer 7 channel pre out instead.

PostmasterNY

update:

got all the speakers tuned level wise and equalized. gotta say....the fxi a6's are pound for pound; impressing me the most. i know that when i get some proper power for the a9's..they'll shine. i'm looking at the adcom gfa-780 amp.
300Wx7 channels is smashing! i would have to keep levels down for the surrounds and center i assume...too much clean power for them?

another important question: most of the high power receivers and amps are 120V......i'm currently in england right now and plan to be in europe for a few more years. can 120v high power components run through voltage transformers safely & effectively? or better yet; are there any good amps out there that are dual voltage?

jojomgee

i love the a9's

wutadumsn23

Don't worry about the "too much power" for the center and surrounds. Hook the front three up to the amp and run the surrounds off the AVR. The volume knob will prevent you from damaging the speakers, as you won't be able to turn it up high enough to worry about overpowering them, I hope, lol.

-Jeff