How to safely get the most out of my speakers

tonyb

Keep in mind though, after getting an amp, you still won't be able to bury that volume dial, just so you understand. The pioneer receiver you have on it's own is fine for a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system of 8 ohm speakers. Another question would be did you run the auto calibration ? Setup the inputs ? What crossover settings are you using ? Modern receivers are not so plug and play as the old stereo receivers. Just sayin' is all, it seems to me you have a few issues going on other than just an amp.

sprtdude91

I did not run the auto calibration, I am currently trying to find a microphone, I got the demo product through someone who works at Pioneer, that's how I got i cheap enough to afford, and it did not come with one. To offset being able to crank the volume I turned the channels down to -7db under the set up. I have the cross over set the 80hz. That's what i've been running into with this crazy receiver, trying to figure out all the settings and what to do and not to do with all that this receiver is capable of. I also use the included iphone app a lot to help dial in how I want it to sound.

tonyb

Speaker levels at -7 seem a tad bit too much imho, if volume is what your looking for. When you crank on the volume dial with the speaker levels set at -7, your asking the receiver to work harder to achieve higher volumes and introducing distortion. Just a suggestion, return the levels to 0 and adjust up or down from there and see if they sound clearer to you. You won't have to crank that volume dial as much with them set at 0.

rebuy

sprtdude91 wrote: »

thank you guys so much for the help, i'm sure my questions seemed silly but I promise they were legit. This is all new to me, as I said my girlfriends dad got me the system and I just recently explored into getting new more powerful speakers and that's why I came here. Because my receiver puts out more than enough for the Pioneer speakers I have and obviously my assumptions about power when concerning the polks were wrong and it's starting to make sense now.
Could someone point me in the direction of an amplifier? I know there are a vast variety of amps out there and I don't need or want anything crazy just good enough for my purposes. Should I get a 2 channel amp to just power 2 of the M60's or maybe a 4 channel 1200W amp to power all 4 M60's when it's music time, leaving my receiver just to power the Pioneer speakers?

Ya see what happens when young people get equipment for sound and their reference is their I-phone. If you can't get M60's to sound good with a SC-35 (that your GF's father got you) get a set of ear buds and listen to your phone and forget stereo.

sprtdude91

well i'll receive some flak from my girlfriends dad who's a president over at Pioneer so I'm sure I'll never hear the end of it, but I found my solution! Besides the center channel my pioneer towers and bookshelfs were cut out and I'm simply running a 5.1 with the pioneer center and M60's for front and rears, plus my subs. I turned the rear M60's down a big in the setting, but for my other front M60's my receiver can Bi-amp, I bi-amped them and the difference is unreal, I'm almost speechless. Crystal clear even at 0 and for the sake of my ears I doubt it'll ever be there. -20 fills my basement where with my other set up -5 wasn't as loud and any higher distorted. Thanks for putting up with me everyone! Much appreciated!

Joe08867

Sometimes more isn't better. Cutting out all those extra speakers sounds like a much more reasonable setup, now just get a Polk center to match the M60's and hear even more.

Pioneer makes great receivers but there home speakers leave much to be desired. I guess you can't win them all.

dudeinaroom

I have not seen a receiver you can crank and not overdrive the amplifier, be it internal or eternal, unless you have an input gain on the amp that is properly set. The only time I have not seen an amp clip at full volume is running a passive pre. When you amplify a signal it makes the peaks of the incoming signals larger, when you overdrive an amp it will clip the signal instead of a peak that falls back off quickly you end up with a plateau that holds and then falls off which is refereed to as clipping. That clipped signal at the speaker is almost like ruining a D.C. or hooking up a car battery directly to the speaker. The voice coils are not meant for this and will heat up and eventually fry. This clipped signal also can make the voice coil move in ways it was not meant to move. Best of luck, just don't let other people touch your gear. I have four kids who love to crank it, that is part of the reason I love running a passive preamp, I don't have to worry about them over driving the amp.

B Run

When we refer to -7 or any numbers like that, it's on a properly calibrated pioneer that set the reference level to 0. You said you didn't run the auto calibration, I definitely think that should be step one, especially for helping eq your speakers since your running different brands. That Pioneer is more than the 60's need I can promise you that, i'd upgrade speakers before buying a separate amp imho. I'm a firm believer in separates along with most of the forum, but I don't think that's the right direction for you yet.

tonyb

Agreed BRun, I sense other issues other than power. The amp should be the last thing he needs with those speakers, he just has too many hooked up, with all different impendences probably.