Received Free Carver Amp Need Advice

KYFHO

Today I received a gift from an old friend of mine. He gave me his used Carver AV-705X amplifier. The amp is a 5-Channel that puts out 125 x 5 @ 8 ohms or 180 x 2 @ 8 ohms in stereo mode. My question, is that I am currently running a Parasound A23 that puts out 125 x 2 to my RTi A7's. My Denon AVR 4310 is running everything else (A3's, FXi A4's, and CSi A4). I know the Carver is either dead on with it's power specs if not underrated. I'm not sure about the Parasound, but the way it sounds, it is underrated.

Would I be better off running the Carver to my Mains and Center and sides and the Parasound to my A3's or is there a better way of doing this? Since my AVR can store different settings for home theater vs. stereo I figured the Carver would be the way to go for the A7's since it bumps the power up to 180 watts in stereo mode. As always, any advice is greatly appreciated.

EndersShadow

KYFHO wrote: »

Today I received a gift from an old friend of mine. He gave me his used Carver AV-705X amplifier. The amp is a 5-Channel that puts out 125 x 5 @ 8 ohms or 180 x 2 @ 8 ohms in stereo mode. My question, is that I am currently running a Parasound A23 that puts out 125 x 2 to my RTi A7's. My Denon AVR 4310 is running everything else (A3's, FXi A4's, and CSi A4). I know the Carver is either dead on with it's power specs if not underrated. I'm not sure about the Parasound, but the way it sounds, it is underrated.

Would I be better off running the Carver to my Mains and Center and sides and the Parasound to my A3's or is there a better way of doing this? Since my AVR can store different settings for home theater vs. stereo I figured the Carver would be the way to go for the A7's since it bumps the power up to 180 watts in stereo mode. As always, any advice is greatly appreciated.

I have this exact amp. Run it for your mains & center and one set of surrounds. I would try switching which set is on which amp to see if that makes any difference to you.

I LOVE MY amp personally.

Another though (and please keep in mind this is just something to try) is to use 2 channels for each front and one for your center off the Carver. It might make things sound better. This is mostly due to the fact your surrounds are quite easy to drive and if you had to drive your rear surrounds off the AVR I doubt you would tell the difference.

If you want more info on the "ghetto" bi-amp method let me know via PM.

zingo

I like the idea of using the Carver to drive the 5 speakers, except on the RTi A7, use it only on the highs. Then use the Parasound to drive the lows on the RTi A7. Not only will all your speakers voiced electronically similar, but RTi A7s will be receiving twice the power of the rest of the speakers which won't hurt.

You are going to have to play with the amps a bit until you figure out what sounds best to you.

Good luck!

EndersShadow

zingo wrote: »

I like the idea of using the Carver to drive the 5 speakers, except on the RTi A7, use it only on the highs. Then use the Parasound to drive the lows on the RTi A7. Not only will all your speakers voiced electronically similar, but RTi A7s will be receiving twice the power of the rest of the speakers which won't hurt.

You are going to have to play with the amps a bit until you figure out what sounds best to you.

Good luck!

Agree 100%. Give this option a try as well and see which you like better. I think Zingo's concept is better since the low's require the most wattage to really dig deep.

gdb

My advice is to give that friend a nice bottle of liquor etc. as a token of thanks for such a great gift.

EndersShadow

gdb wrote: »

My advice is to give that friend a nice bottle of liquor etc. as a token of thanks for such a great gift

I concur, thats amp is around 325 give or take refurbed.

KYFHO

Thanks for the info! I think I will try running the setup recommended by Zingo. One question though - I have never run a setup with two separate amps before so excuse me if this next question seems stupid. If I am using the front left/right pre-out from my receiver to run the Carver to the highs on the A7's, then how would I connect the Parasound so it receives the correct signal (since the pre-out for the mains has already been used by the Carver)?

EndersShadow

KYFHO wrote: »

Thanks for the info! I think I will try running the setup recommended by Zingo. One question though - I have never run a setup with two separate amps before so excuse me if this next question seems stupid. If I am using the front left/right pre-out from my receiver to run the Carver to the highs on the A7's, then how would I connect the Parasound so it receives the correct signal (since the pre-out for the mains has already been used by the Carver)?

You either need a Y cable to split the signal.

KYFHO

So I would need two Y cables? One for the left pre-out and one for the right?

EndersShadow

KYFHO wrote: »

So I would need two Y cables? One for the left pre-out and one for the right?

Yup!

KYFHO

Thanks! You guys have been a ton of help!

ViperZ

Make sure to remove the jumpers off the speaker posts before hooking up two amps to those speakers.

KYFHO

I did. I tested the Carver by itself and gotta say, it sounds fantastic!

jbooker82

Why cant you use the Rear Surround Pre outs if your AVR is capable of bi amping? That is how most AVR's would do it if the AVR was powering the front towers.

The carver will make the A7's sound a little less bright too.

tonyb

jbooker82 wrote: »

Why cant you use the Rear Surround Pre outs if your AVR is capable of bi amping? That is how most AVR's would do it if the AVR was powering the front towers.

The carver will make the A7's sound a little less bright too.

You can't use the speaker level outputs and the preouts at the same time, has to be one or the other. Besides, he has 2 amps, why would he want to use the receivers amps anyway ?

EndersShadow

jbooker82 wrote: »

Why cant you use the Rear Surround Pre outs if your AVR is capable of bi amping? That is how most AVR's would do it if the AVR was powering the front towers.

The carver will make the A7's sound a little less bright too.

tonyb wrote: »

You can't use the speaker level outputs and the preouts at the same time, has to be one or the other. Besides, he has 2 amps, why would he want to use the receivers amps anyway ?

Tony re-read the bold part.

Jbooker you are correct: YOU CAN, however it causes problems later on depending on how you listen to your music. I do this with my LSi's and if I set it to "direct" in my AVR to use ONLY my front 2 it turns off the other pre-outs which also includes the rear surrounds. So I have to remember to use Stereo only.

Its honestly easier to just use a Y cable, but your method works. Personally I am just going to buy two of these or these for my front pre-out so I can use my MIT EXp's and not worry about quality degradation

I have attached pictures of the two ways to do it. Jbooker is talking about the Proposed one

current.jpgproposed.jpg

tonyb

The proposed one makes no sense to me. Your still using the same 5 channels of the carver for the front 3 speakers. If the integra is in bi amp mode, thats negated by the carver.

EndersShadow

tonyb wrote: »

The proposed one makes no sense to me. Your still using the same 5 channels of the carver for the front 3 speakers. If the integra is in bi amp mode, thats negated by the carver.

Your using the AVR's Left/Surround Left pre-outs to split the signal rather than the Y cable. Thats the only difference. This graphic is re-used from a thread about mysetup using ONLY my Carver to drive my front 3. In the OP's case he would move two of the connections to his parasound for the left and right woofers.

Its about the "everything matters". Do you want to use MIT IC's connected to Ratshack Y cables.... If you get one of the items I linked to in my post (audioquest or MIT Y cable) I wouldnt worry about it though....

tonyb

Still doesn't make sense. You can't split the front left and right signal by using the surround channel. Your assuming the same full freq. is sent to the surrounds that is sent to the fronts. In surround mode, thats not so. 7 channel stereo would be another story.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but bi amping the receiver has to do with the internal amp of the receiver sending the power to the fronts by speaker level outputs, not line level. What your in essense doing, is sending that surround information to the front speakers, amplified by the carver. If no info is given on the source material for SBL or right, then nothing is going to come out of those preouts. Say for instance a 5.1 movie, SB channels aren't used, so if you have a preout for that channel going to a speaker, nothing is happening. Power is not generated by the outputs without a signal. Now, maybe you have some sort of function to play 5.1 source material in 7 channel surround, but your still just amplifying the surround info and sending it to the front speakers, your not splitting the front left and right channels.
Once the line level outputs are used, the amp in the receiver doesn't do anything, bi amped or not. If the quality of the y connector is in question, buy a better one, sounds simple enough to me.

Or maybe I misunderstood all of this, I dunno...

EndersShadow

tonyb wrote: »

Still doesn't make sense. You can't split the front left and right signal by using the surround channel.

In my Integra I have a setting called "bi-amp" like most recievers. Turning this on allows for use of the back surround channels (not side surround) to be used to power the fronts in addition to the front channels. As as a result your limited to a 5.1 setup.

Turning bi-amp on sends the same full signal to the fronts AND surround back pre-outs (I checked with Integra). So instead of sending 7 channels out (Left, Right, Center, Side Surround Right, Side Surround Left, Rear Surround Right, Rear Surround Left) to an amp your only sending out 5 with the left and right being duplicated by the Rear Surrounds.

So its just duplicating the signal for the Left Front pre-out and sending an identical version of it through the Left Surround Rear pre-out. If your only doing 5.1 it wont matter since your utlizing pre-outs you dont need to power the surround rears. If your doing 7.1 then you need to use the y cable and NOT use the bi-amp setting

tonyb

Yeah, I get all that, but the availability in the preout side is what I question. Speaker level, yep, that clicks, but not the preout side.
Just for giggles, with the avr in bi amp mode, run a single pair of cables from the sb channel to the amp to the speakers, nothing else, and play something. If it indeed puts out a full range signal to the sb at line level, I would be shocked, wouldn't be the first time that happened.
BTW- not trying to be arguementative here, just that this is the first time I'm hearing of the pre outs being used in bi amp mode.

EndersShadow

tonyb wrote: »

Just for giggles, with the avr in bi amp mode, run a single pair of cables from the sb channel to the amp to the speakers, nothing else, and play something. If it indeed puts out a full range signal to the sb at line level, I would be shocked, wouldn't be the first time that happened.

Will check again tonight when I get home to be 100% sure, but I have done that and it played sound.

tonyb wrote: »

BTW- not trying to be arguementative here, just that this is the first time I'm hearing of the pre outs being used in bi amp mode.

No worries I didnt take it as such

tonyb

EndersShadow wrote: »

Will check again tonight when I get home to be 100% sure, but I have done that and it played sound.

Yes, but full range sound is what I'm interested in.

EndersShadow

tonyb wrote: »

Yes, but full range sound is what I'm interested in.

I will check by running it to the highs on my LSi 15.

I will see if I have a cheap y cable to use connected straight to the fronts as well.

jbooker82

Sorry for the confusing post.

What EndersShadow is talking about is what i ment. Dont use a Y cable, just use the rear surround pre outs if the AVR is capable of Bi Amping.

jhracer3

I've been trying to figure out how to do the exact same thing on my Onkyo 709, and I didn't want to use a Y cable. Does anyone know if, when I set the biamp setting on the 709, it also works with the pre-outs, as you guys describe above for the Integra AVR?

EndersShadow

jhracer3 wrote: »

I've been trying to figure out how to do the exact same thing on my Onkyo 709, and I didn't want to use a Y cable. Does anyone know if, when I set the biamp setting on the 709, it also works with the pre-outs, as you guys describe above for the Integra AVR?

Give it a try and find out. I still have mine running like that as we speak :razz:

Just run the RCA interconnects to the amp as described. remove the jumper from your speaker and try one set of speaker wire to the top from one of the channels on your amp connected to one of the two pre-outs then switch. If you get the same sound both ways its sending the full range signal .

KYFHO

UPDATE: I have the Parasound A23 running the woofers and the Carver running the mids and tweets on the A7's. I am completely blown away at how good the A7's sound with 250 watts going to them...simply unbelievable. A lot of folks say they still need a sub with their A7's - try powering them properly and you might change your mind. At least for music I will definitely not need the sub. However, for watching movies I will still use my sub. Thanks again to everyone for the advice, you have made me a happy man!

EndersShadow

KYFHO wrote: »

UPDATE: I have the Parasound A23 running the woofers and the Carver running the mids and tweets on the A7's. I am completely blown away at how good the A7's sound with 250 watts going to them...simply unbelievable. A lot of folks say they still need a sub with their A7's - try powering them properly and you might change your mind. At least for music I will definitely not need the sub. However, for watching movies I will still use my sub. Thanks again to everyone for the advice, you have made me a happy man!

Glad its working for ya! Which method did you end up with, Y cable or using the 2 sets of pre-outs?

KYFHO

Right now I am using the Y-Cables. I plan on trying the other method as well (not sure if it will make any difference in sound quality).

EndersShadow

KYFHO wrote: »

Right now I am using the Y-Cables. I plan on trying the other method as well (not sure if it will make any difference in sound quality).

Cool, I plan to switch from my method to yours possibly tomorrow..... need to make sure I have some Y cables lol........ I just hate to connect my MIT EXp1's to a cheap Y cable lol........