My Upgrades - is it going to work okay?

JakeCourtney

I bought a Onkyo HT-S6200 7.1 box set awhile back and now I'm getting rid of all the cheap speakers it came with and upgrading.

Receiver: HT-R670

Here is the link for it's specs - http://www.us.onkyo.com/model.cfm?m=HT-S6200&class=Systems&p=s

I've got two Monitor 70's and two Monitor 60's coming while I try and track down a CS2 center and a decent sub. I guess I'd be alright to use the current sub that came with the HT box set for awhile.

I've got a couple of questions though as I've been reading a lot of forum posts about people clipping and breaking tweeters on these Monitors lately.

Will this Onkyo receiver sufficiently power these 70's as main's and 60's as rears with a CS2 center? If not I heard bi-amping was a way around it. I think I read somewhere that my receiver supports bi-amping, but I'm not entirely sure how that works or what to buy for that receiver.

On the back of my receiver I use these Closed Screw Type Banana Plugs -

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10401&cs_id=1040115&p_id=2801&seq=1&format=2

and I'd like to get something similar to connect the speaker wire into the Monitors, but I'm not sure by the picture what connection they take. If those won't work on the Monitors could someone recommend a product on monoprice that would work for me.

I'm not planning on running a 7.1 setup right now just a 5.1 at the moment.

I'm sorry for the all beginner questions I just don't want to damage these speakers by having an improper setup.

Dobermann

Your receiver should be fine for now. You won't blow a tweeter unless you act really stupid and play it beyond its limits.

Banana plugs are a pretty universal thing, but I use that same type of plug. You won't have any problems.

PrazVT

I use the exact same banana plugs. They work fine

JakeCourtney

So if I can bi-amp / bi-wire on this recevier would it be worth it for the extra sound quality or is it more for if you want to run these speakers at their max volume?

tonyb

First off,running all your speakers off the receiver in surround will only yield you probably about 50 watts per. maybe less, Secondly,some here like to bi-amp with a receiver,I say hogwash,your still useing the same power supply. Thirdly,what exactly do you mean by "max volume" ? Do you really want to find out with a blown tweet or fried crossover? Your receiver can only put out so much, and in surround mode,even less.

PrazVT

Looking at the manual, the receiver doesn't have pre-outs, but it has internal bi-amping capabilities. Theoretically, you'd be electrically isolating the high and low drivers of the speakers. When I bi-amped internally w/ my yamaha receiver, not sure I could really tell a difference. Using an external amp to drive the woofers made more of a difference. But it doesn't hurt to try and listen for yourself..

JakeCourtney

So it sounds like it's not really worth it to bi-amp internally, but I might as well do it anyway as I won't be using the back surrounds anyway and I'm guessing it's not going to hurt anything.

Any chance they will sound worse in an internally bi-amp setup?

So since my receiver doesn't have pre-outs, if I ever wanted to use an external amp to power the front speakers I'd be looking at getting a new receiver right?

Thanks for the info guy's.

tonyb

Correct. Keep in mind with this bi-amping idea of yours,that if you do not bi-amp,you will feed your speakers x-amount of juice. If you do bi-amp off the receiver,every channel gets less juice,including the 2 used to bi-amp. Catch the big picture?You might gain a small increase in SQ in 2 channel music,for surround though,you may get less.No,It won't hurt anything to try it,except the cost of the cables. Personally,I would save that cost and put it into better single cables or save it for down the road on a new receiver.

JakeCourtney

I'm starting to get the picture now. I'm thinking with my Monitor 60's as surrounds that I'm going to want as much juice going around to power all those drivers.

I was under the impression that the receiver had a set limit of power it could send to each channel and that even if one set of speakers wasn't hooked up that it wouldn't re-allocate that to the other speakers.

So if I only hook up my front speakers and my receiver has X amount of power, all the power will be used between the two.

I'll try and live with this receiver for awhile even though it won't be able to power all those Monitor speakers to the fullest. I'm getting married next month and I think my girlfriend would kill me if I made any more large purchases this month.

I'm just waiting on my speakers to get here now and waiting for the price of the CS2 to drop so I can nab it.

Is it not a good idea to use my center channel speaker that came with the box set while I wait for the CS2? It looks like from the spec sheet that the center speaker that came with the receiver is a 6 Ohm and all the Monitor speakers are looking to be 8 Ohm. If it's going to cause damage or ruin sound I'll just run without a center for awhile.

tonyb

That center with the HTIB you had will sound not so good with the other monitors.Personally,I'd leave it out of the mix.
Receiver power rateings are very suspect. Some do it acurately,some not,pay attention to the wording. A 100 WATT receiver may only push that into 2 channels,then at 5 channels,it may go down to 60 watts, 7 channels is even worse and can dip below 40 watts per channel. Now this is not all written in stone but it lays true to most receivers under a thousand bucks....usually. Wait untill she gets you to the alter, then she'll be in a good mood to give you a thumbs up on anything new.:)

JakeCourtney

tonyb wrote: »

That center with the HTIB you had will sound not so good with the other monitors.Personally,I'd leave it out of the mix.
Receiver power rateings are very suspect. Some do it acurately,some not,pay attention to the wording. A 100 WATT receiver may only push that into 2 channels,then at 5 channels,it may go down to 60 watts, 7 channels is even worse and can dip below 40 watts per channel. Now this is not all written in stone but it lays true to most receivers under a thousand bucks....usually. Wait untill she gets you to the alter, then she'll be in a good mood to give you a thumbs up on anything new.:)

Yeah, I'm not even going to use it in conjunction with the other speakers for that reason.

I really wish Newegg would drop the price on the CS2 as they've done in the past.

Log1x

If your primary focus is HT, you are still going to be very very satisfied with your speakers on that receiver. Heck, even in 2-channel mode for music if you aren't trying to reproduce concert levels. I am in the same boat as far as having no preouts with Monitor 70's and I'm not worried about it too much. When I get the extra cash and deem it necessary, I'm very interested in getting a new receiver with preouts along with an amp..but it's not something that I feel I NEED to have by all means. I like my music/movies loud and am still able to go multiple clicks above 0dB ("Reference Level") with absolutely no distortion.

Enjoy
Brandon

JakeCourtney

My 70's should be here tomorrow and the 60's and CS2 next week.

I'm sure I won't be disappointed, but I'm just worried that running the 70's and 60's plus the CS2 in a 5.1 will be too much for that receiver and I'll end up blowing tweeters real easily.

Real excited to hear these speakers for the first time tomorrow though after only having these tiny HTIB speakers.

I ended up winning the CS2 from Polk Direct's ebay store. It's refurbished. I probably paid to much for it considering it's refurbished. $118.81 shipped is what I got it for after taxes.

How likely is this thing going to look beat up? Anyone else buy refurbished products from Polk? It'll have a two-year warranty, but I wonder if they still put all new woofers in them.

Knucklehead

Log1x wrote: »

I'm very interested in getting a new receiver with preouts along with an amp..but it's not something that I feel I NEED to have by all means. I like my music/movies loud and am still able to go multiple clicks above 0dB ("Reference Level") with absolutely no distortion

My advice to anybody upgrading the AVR, get one with pre-outs, you will thank yourself later when the upgrade bug refuses to go away.

David

JakeCourtney

Is there a way to safely find out what the limits of my speakers and receiver are without damaging the tweeters? or maybe some safeguards I can take like certain settings on the receiver to set limits.

So as long as I don't hear any distortion I'm probably not running at an unsafe level? I've just been reading a heck of a lot of reviews and posts about how fragile these tweeters are to clipping. I'm thinking I'm going to be afraid to even try to push these loud at all.

tonyb

Without going into a bunch of boring details,a good rule of thumb to follow is to not turn the volume dial on the receiver past the 11-12 o'clock position. Also,some music can be a bear on speakers,always start out at a lower volume and gradually increase to your desired level.

JakeCourtney

Alright. I'm having a little trouble understanding how the speaker config works. I've got the volume control that goes from 0-70, but I can also configure each speaker to operate at a certain dB level. What exactly does this do? Increase the volume on that speaker? Should I have that set at 0 dB for all of them or can I set it higher to get my speakers louder?

I'm assuming if I've got a powered sub that I don't want my Monitor 70 fronts handling any bass, so what should I get the cross over level at?