Speakers

PerfectCreature

So...then...my speakers are rated 150 watts.... I would blow my speakers to pieces if I used a 150 watt NAD amp? Is that what your saying?
So I should go with an amplifier then... instead of a receiver?
I was going to look into getting the Harmon Kardon 3490 but should i just get am amplifier instead?
Thanks.

cstmar01

no see ok.

your not really going to "blow" anything unless you are trying to reproduce a live kiss concert in your home. you can take speakers such as lets say RTIA9's and hook them up them up to McIntosh 1.2KW amps. these have a termendous amount of power, but honestly for a normal listening level you will not use it. Where it helps to have this power is for dynamic changes. When you go from a soft piano key into a large bass boom! it helps to have this reserve of power as it allows the amp to have something called "headroom".

This is important because you want to be able have an amp keep up with the peaks and valleys of the music. The NAD will give you more headroom than your standard 100WPC AVR you would find at best buy. Normally these are not what they say they are and usually will run out of juice when tryign to play harder passages.

AVRs are limited in terms of their power supply. because you have 7 speakers hooked up to 1 little power supply (in most lower end AVRs) the speakers are not going to be getting the juice they want/need in most cases, depending on what your doing with it. If you running a simple set up at a moderate level you probably don't need an external amp, however if you like it loud and want to make sure you won't have a problem with clipping your amp, then I recommend looking at a seperate amp route.

2 channel I prefer a seperate amp over an AVR as it gives my speakers more juice and more headroom. There are also some very good intregrated 2 channel rigs that can also produce a great amount of power. CNH makes a good point with his NAD example.

PerfectCreature

So, since the Harmon Kardon amp is a two channel high currant amplfier and it is 120 watts x2 this would be fine because it should have reserves for no matter what the speakers would be using?
On occasion i do throw parties with my speakers so... they usually are up pretty high for extended periods of time...I know my currant amp is sort of dying...because whenever I play it at half for an hour or so the heat sink could give you some hefty burns.
Or would I be better off just getting a regular amp for them?

yepimonfire

driving speakers with higher WPC then your speakers output is better then driving them lower, the more headroom you have the cleaner sound you will get, especially on bass heavy music, your not going to be using up that much power because before your speakers begin outputting 150w of their max, your hearing will go out, which means you dont even need speakers anymore lower power amps are more likely top blow speakers because they clip at high volumes. for example. i blew a set of KEF speakers rated at 150w, using a 50wpc amp, why? because in order to get a gain of 14db, i had to use ALL the amps power, clipping send a DC currect to your speakers, ruining tweeters within minutes. ive also powered 50w speakers with a 150wpc amp, they have yet to blow. also power ratings arent really useful unless you enjoy sitting around listening to sine waves all day.

PerfectCreature

Ok, so then I have decided to get the Harmon Kardon HK 3490...and wire the connections in paralell for a 4 ohm that will give 150 watts of <.2 thd.
Plus the speakers will be Bi-amped per se'
Does that set-up look legit or?
Am I missing something?

So it will be like this
One set of outputs from the speakers in A, the other in B with that gold bar removed...then it will be the same everything but more power with less distortion.
Plus it has 2 sub outs and lots of pre amps and such.

yepimonfire

if i understand your post right, thats not bi-amping, A/B outputs come out of the same exact amp. also in order to bi-amp things you have to remove the passive x-overs and buy electronic x-overs. its not as simple as you think, sure you could bi-amp with the passive x-overs, but you need seperate amps, A/B switches are only there so you can have another set of speakers in a different room. and hooking your speakers up to where the impedance will drop to 4ohm is not going to give you less distortion, but more, most amps can barley drive their 8ohm ratings, let alone 4. unless your amp is safe down to 4ohms

TECHNOKID

PerfectCreature wrote: »

Ok, so then I have decided to get the Harmon Kardon HK 3490...and wire the connections in paralell for a 4 ohm that will give 150 watts of <.2 thd.
Plus the speakers will be Bi-amped per se'
Does that set-up look legit or?
Am I missing something?

So it will be like this
One set of outputs from the speakers in A, the other in B with that gold bar removed...then it will be the same everything but more power with less distortion.
Plus it has 2 sub outs and lots of pre amps and such.

You do not specify much in the original post but from this entire discussion your goal seams to be focused on quality music, right?

-AVR (audio video receiver) could be a waste of money for you since you do not want to pay for video processing but ratter concentrate that money on the audio portion for better quality of your $$$ spent.

-Receiver (audio and some processing, tuner etc...) you have to think if you need such as like above there is a cost and for the same money you will loose on the audio SQ.

-Separate amplifier will solely focus on the audio portion and therefore your 300 - 400$ spending is ALL geared toward SQ NO processing like AVR or receiver.

You must know exactly what you need and act accordingly.
If your present amp overheats, it is not to be used with your speakers.
Keep in mind that driving an amp, receiver or an AVR over half of its capacity jeopardise the life span of both the amp and the speakers (amps overheat, amps sends distortions and abnormal peaks to the speakers)

The HK-3490 is not a bad option for you however, if you want to do better for your money audio wise, you might want to focus on a seperate amp for your speakers. Carefull as watts are overrated during the marketting process. As pointed out, an amp using high current will outperform the cheaper amps with so called high wattage.

At this point, forget bi-wiring or bi-amping (as you might simply make things worse) and focus on a good SQ amp for your new speakers. Bi-amping would be your next upgrade project if you are really serious about buying external amps to drive each speakers. You have to start somewhere, now you 2 good speakers, now get a good amp or receiver for now and see where you want to go next. Now with your pair of good speakers and a potential good amp or receiver I wouldn't be surprised you will not care about bi-amping for awhile as you should be quite happy for now.

Cheers!
TK

PerfectCreature

Hmm... Alright. I'm starting to learn something. So...If I am just caring about sound at the moment. I'm either going to choose the HK or....maybe something like the Yamaha Ax-497?
Or am I still getting this wrong and should be looking at something like the NAD C 315BEE.

I don't want to mess this up and get an amp I'm not going to like...

TECHNOKID

Hummm, for some reason I would tend to stay away from the yammie (Not enough details on the specs)... I am not too familiar with NAD gear my self but it is highly regarded on this forum and many others. The wattage is low but I like the overhaul spec and review of this little amp. I am convinced you'd get clean power out of such an amp. Then your last resort is the HK that has been warmly recommende to you during this conversation by many of the members,

Cheers!
TK

TECHNOKID

You might want to look at this; http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100558

PerfectCreature

Yeah. I saw one like that on newegg open box 75 free shipping.... kinda wish I would have picked it up now...
They don't seem to have it and the link is marked sold... So no go on that...

So from what I have gotten Yamaha is a brand I should stay away from?
HK is my last resort...and I should look for just a ****&boltz reciever?
The ratings, the THD as low as I can...big power caps...probabaly a fan or a heat sink?
I will look around for some cheaper NAD amps...they seem to run pretty pricy.

TECHNOKID

PerfectCreature wrote: »

Yeah. I saw one like that on newegg open box 75 free shipping.... kinda wish I would have picked it up now...
They don't seem to have it and the link is marked sold... So no go on that...

So from what I have gotten Yamaha is a brand I should stay away from?
HK is my last resort...and I should look for just a ****&boltz reciever?
The ratings, the THD as low as I can...big power caps...probabaly a fan or a heat sink?
I will look around for some cheaper NAD amps...they seem to run pretty pricy.

Yamaha is not a brand to stay away form (I own a yamaha HTR-6080 and am very satisfied) however the model you are proposing doesn't seem to be efficient to fullfill your needs. Now, the little NAD amp you have mentioned has a decent price tag, if you want to pay less than that you might as well look at used gear. Too bad, that small audio source amp m,ight have been perfect for you (didn't take long to sell). If you are not in a rush or are patient, I suggest you look daily on Polk's classified (FS) forum as deals come up quite often and looking at the member's offerring the deal's rating should help you acquire good equipment at the fair price.

Good luck!
TK

TECHNOKID

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100560

PerfectCreature

Wow. That's a solid amp....
Maybe he will go a little lower. if not the HK is always an option... I've looked and havn't seen any decent audio source ones at all...
As for Nad... the ones that looked good didn't drop below 600 or 700

TECHNOKID

Wow. That's a solid amp....
Maybe he will go a little lower.

that should be addressed to the seller and through pm!

PerfectCreature

Oh sorry. I didn't know.
My bad.
I sent a PM.
I should probably look into getting a cd player as well. Do I have to worry about the same things as when buying an amp as well?

yepimonfire

if your receiver has a digital input no, the sound quality will be dependant on your receiver, if your hooking it up analog, then yes, alot of cheapo CD players have crummy DACs

wutadumsn23

That is a solid amp, I saw that yesterday and was very tempted myself. It is the exact amp I am looking at getting for my 2 ch. rig. Pretty strapped for cash right now or the thread would be marked as sold, lol.

-Jeff

BizmanJoe

PerfectCreature wrote: »

No the receiver has no pre-amp...It seems only on some online songs it does that...my itunes songs don't make the buzz sound. so....I'm going to have to go with its not the speaker since its brand new.

Could I do that with the harmon kardon mentioned above?

If you're referring to mp3's, make sure the bit rate is 384k or better. I personally prefer lossless .wav over mp3 if I have no choice but to go that route. There is an audible difference between the two formats, especially on my rig.

cnh

+1, if you have to go lossy get as high a bit-rate as possible. That's what I do on the few tunes I've actually bothered to copy onto my PS3....normally I just stream LOSSLESS files from my PCs hard drive through the PS3.

cnh

PerfectCreature

Yeah. I have noticed that the ps3 doesn't like crummy files. They like to copy around like 512 or something like that I think. All I know is that when my ps3 copies files its like almost a gig per cd when you do it on your computer is like maybe 3 or 400 mb.

PerfectCreature

I have narrowed it down to the following amps. I am sure I can find these cheaper than the prices...

Onkyo TX 8555 ($250)

Harmon Kardon HK 3390 ($350)

Harmon Kardon HK 3490 ($449)

Yamaha RX 797 ($500)

It is out of the 4 receivers that I have looked at that I cannot decide which to choose.
I'm leaning more towards the HK 3490....but am also consideing the Tx 8555

Hillbilly61

cnh wrote: »

Get a couple of Polk M40s or TSI-200s if you want a decent bookshelf at a low price that will augment your sound. Go towers if you have more money!

cnh

+ 1 on the recommendation above. I use the M50s (tower version of the M40s) as surrounds and they are boss for that job, and IMHO, probably good mains with sub augmentation for a serious budget starter system.

If you have a bad tweet on the speakers you have, the most economical remedy would be to replace it first and then take things from there. If you still don't like the sound, then you can CL them away. (You are not going to get anything for a pair of speakers for sale with a bad tweet anyway).

As everyone else has said around here, go as low as you can for bass. My main speakers will go to 15HZ... nothing like feeling your gut vibrate when the unit is turned up and the right sound passage comes along! :D:D:D