Monitor70 Series II for fronts in a small HT setup - Did I make the right choice?

phishneslo

First time poster, long time lurker...

So the other day, I decided to get a home theater receiver and some speakers. I settled on a Denon 1713, and started looking for speakers. The next day, as luck would have it, tech.woot had the Energy Take Classic 5.0 system for about $120. But then I figured I needed a powered sub. After looking, I found a good deal on Amazon for a Polk Audio PSW505 for about $190.

Fast forward 48 hours... After doing what I usually do, and instead of settling on something that makes sense after thinking and researching for an hour or so, I put in 10 more hours of research in and came away with the following:

a Yamaha HRT-4065 from Costco (from what understand, the same thing as the RX-V473) for $300 out the door, including tax.

2x Polk Audio Monitor70 Series II for the front ($150 each)
a Polk Audio CS2 Series II for the center ($150)
a pair of Polk Audio Monitor40 Series II for the rear ($170)
and a Polk Audio PSW Series PSW505 ($190)

(I know that the CS2 and the Monitor40 pair have been on and off sale for about $50 less than what I paid, but in the midst of my compulsive decision making, I developed a sicking fear that they would run out forever, or if I didn't get everything at the same time, things wouldn't match).

So anyway... I have a $300 receiver from Costco sitting next to me, and $810 of Polk Audio coming at me from newegg, and the only thing I can think of is this:

Should I return the HRT-4065 and get the RX-V573 so I can bi-amp the Monitor70 fronts? Would that even make sense in a HT setup like I am looking at? Will the HRT-4065 be able to power the Monitor70 fronts adequately? Did I mention this is going into a 15 x 11 room with 10 foot ceilings? Is there something wrong with me?

BigDaveyL

Bi-amping won't buy you that much if nothing at all especially if they are coming from the same receiver/amp

IIRC, if I understand the physics/electronics right, you'd need two separate.

phishneslo

The RX-V573 has the option to power a separate zone with two of the 7.1 channels to make a 5.1 in one room and a 2.0 in a different room. According to the manual, you can use the zone B channels to bi-amp (not bi-wire) the LR fronts in a 5.1 setup. So from my understanding, with the RX-V573, this would be sending 115 watts to the upper drivers and 115 watts to the lower drivers (once the jumper is removed), for a total of 230 watts to the speaker. This is compared to the RX-V473 / HRT-4065 sending 115 watts to the speaker. I am not sure how the crossovers in the speakers are involved, or if the signal is split before it gets to the speaker, or if this would throw levels out of wack in a HT setup though...
Is the 115 watts coming from the HRT-4065 enough for the Monitor70?

EndersShadow

I bi-amped my Monitor 60's with a Integra DRT-5.9. It did nothing for me. I powered each of my Monitor 60's off 2 channels of a dedicated amp. It did a little bit more for me but only at ridiculous volumes. I would ignore bi-amping as a reason to pick one AVR over another. I would look at the number of HDMI inputs, power per channel on the reciever, how many Zones can it power etc.

Bi-amping as described by Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon, Integra, etc doesnt actually net you 2x the wattage even though your using 2 channels per speaker. I wont get into why, as it gets real techincal but basically its a marketing gimmick so ignore it. If you really want to know how it works I can tell you but its boring.

The Monitor series is very good at utilizing the wattage you give it. Will the Monitor 70's sound good with either reciever: Yes.

The ONLY advice I would give you personally is this. If you can spring for a model with pre-outs do that. While your Monitor 70's will sound darned good off a reciever, they will sound their best off a dedicated amp and without pre-outs you cant get one in the future. Pre-outs also allow you to upgrade just the power section of your reciever later on with a dedicated amp so you dont need to replace it outright if it still has the video features you want/need.

I ran a Monitor 60, CS2, Monitor 40, PSW125 setup off my Integra DTR 5.9 (90x7 IIRC) for a very long time. It sounded GREAT. I ran it in a room that was 17x18 with the back open to a dining room that was 8x8 and also in another room that was 16x14 with one side open to a 12x9 dining room. They sounded great in either room.

The sounded better with a dedicated amp, but I know everyone's budget is different. Also keep in mind Denon and Yamaha use two different auto calibration programs. I would look much more into those as they can make a BIG difference as to how things sound. My personal preference in Audyssey MultiEQ as a minium and I have never used YPAO myself.

So long and short of it is this:
Will your setup sound quite good in that room: Yes.
Should you get a different reciever: get whatever Reciever has the features you want but ignore bi-amping as one to choose based on. If one of them has pre-outs I would suggest that model over one without. Spend the money now on a good reciever and your speakers will reward you.

rooftop59

I would agree with ES above. Your setup is fine, but this AVR would be much better for just a little more:

http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/MARSR5004/Marantz-SR5004-90w-X-7ch-Home-Theater-Surround-Receiver/1.html

It has a warrmer sound and preouts for adding an external amp which will make those 70s sing!

But you have a great setup. Welcome to CP and enjoy the music!

BigDaveyL

EndersShadow wrote: »

I bi-amped my Monitor 60's with a Integra DRT-5.9. It did nothing for me. I powered each of my Monitor 60's off 2 channels of a dedicated amp. It did a little bit more for me but only at ridiculous volumes. I would ignore bi-amping as a reason to pick one AVR over another. I would look at the number of HDMI inputs, power per channel on the reciever, how many Zones can it power etc.

Bi-amping as described by Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon, Integra, etc doesnt actually net you 2x the wattage even though your using 2 channels per speaker. I wont get into why, as it gets real techincal but basically its a marketing gimmick so ignore it. If you really want to know how it works I can tell you but its boring.

The Monitor series is very good at utilizing the wattage you give it. Will the Monitor 70's sound good with either reciever: Yes.

The ONLY advice I would give you personally is this. If you can spring for a model with pre-outs do that. While your Monitor 70's will sound darned good off a reciever, they will sound their best off a dedicated amp and without pre-outs you cant get one in the future. Pre-outs also allow you to upgrade just the power section of your reciever later on with a dedicated amp so you dont need to replace it outright if it still has the video features you want/need.

I ran a Monitor 60, CS2, Monitor 40, PSW125 setup off my Integra DTR 5.9 (90x7 IIRC) for a very long time. It sounded GREAT. I ran it in a room that was 17x18 with the back open to a dining room that was 8x8 and also in another room that was 16x14 with one side open to a 12x9 dining room. They sounded great in either room.

The sounded better with a dedicated amp, but I know everyone's budget is different. Also keep in mind Denon and Yamaha use two different auto calibration programs. I would look much more into those as they can make a BIG difference as to how things sound. My personal preference in Audyssey MultiEQ as a minium and I have never used YPAO myself.

So long and short of it is this:
Will your setup sound quite good in that room: Yes.
Should you get a different reciever: get whatever Reciever has the features you want but ignore bi-amping as one to choose based on. If one of them has pre-outs I would suggest that model over one without. Spend the money now on a good reciever and your speakers will reward you.

I agree with this.

The ability to bi-amp should have nothing to do with the receiver you buy.

You should be looking at stuff that's important, like number of inputs, outputs and watts per channel. Spend your money there and you won't be disappointed.

phishneslo

Thanks EndersShadow. I hear what you are saying about a receiver with pre-outs, but I figure by the time I will want to add a power amp, I will be in the market for a new receiver as well. The technology they put in them seems to be changing pretty quickly these days, especially relative to other parts of a system like power amps and speakers... I figured for now I would stay within reason for the receiver, and go a little overboard on the speakers (at least from my wife's point of view).

Thanks rooftop59. I was looking at some of the less expensive Marantz receivers because I hear they are well regarded, but for now, I wanted to get the most power per channel, along with some of the networking features I have never played with before in my limited experience with receivers from years gone by. I also like the idea of having an iphone/ipad app to control everything. It looked to me that Denon, Pioneer (on their higher end models) and Yamaha had the best smartphone/tablet applications, and the best blend of networking and other advanced features for the price.

Thanks for the help. It is nice to know bi-amping as implemented by this and similar receivers is not too important. And Ender, I would love to know the boring details of how it works. Or a link to some info if you don't feel like explaining. Reading about it will give me something to do besides looking for things to buy...

phil

EndersShadow

Can do. Will type ya up something here in a bit to read.

As an FYI if you can budget for it IMHO the Onkyo TX-NR709 or TX-NR809 from that Accessories4less website will keep you happy for MANY years and both have pre-outs as well. I am looking to upgrade to one of those two myself if that gives you an idea as to how good they are.

The reason I like the 809 for me is that its got a detachable powercord so I can use an aftermarket one. With that said in your case, it actually has a more powerful amp section (than the 709 by 10 watts) and you may never need to upgrade from either of those to a dedicated amp anyway. Both have Audyssey MultiEQ XT which is one down from the best auto cal out there IMHO. They are also THX rated and would be a better investment that the ones your looking at now. They also are HDMI 1.4 and have 2 outputs (for say a projector and a TV).

Anyway look at those two if you can make the reach budget wise. I think you will be much happier if you spend a bit more now since you can make the AVR last longer as honestly besides better auto cal I dont see much new coming to market.

tonyb

Basically put on the boring details, think of your receiver as the engine to drive your speakers. The more speakers you have drawing power off that engine, the less power all speakers will get because they share the same engine. Pretty simple huh ?

Most entry to midline receivers are somewhat dubious in their power ratings too. 100 watts per channel is usually with only 2 channels driven. In 7 channel mode, it may drop to 30-40 watts per channel. Lots depends on different criteria but thats the general drift.

EndersShadow

tonyb wrote: »

Basically put on the boring details, think of your receiver as the engine to drive your speakers. The more speakers you have drawing power off that engine, the less power all speakers will get because they share the same engine. Pretty simple huh ?

Most entry to midline receivers are somewhat dubious in their power ratings too. 100 watts per channel is usually with only 2 channels driven. In 7 channel mode, it may drop to 30-40 watts per channel. Lots depends on different criteria but thats the general drift.

well tony beat me too it, so I will just say hes spot on. The ONLY thing I would add (since you mentioned it in your initial post) is that bi-amping using their internal feature is just like adding an internal y splitter to the signal for your fronts. I call it ghetto bi-amping since your not filtering out the signal going to each set of inputs with a crossover at all but simply sending the same signal to both your fronts and surround back rears.

Here is what "real" bi-amping involves. You need to split the signal from your pre-amp to 2 amplifiers so that the highs and lows are running off different powersupplies so you really are getting 2x the wattage. But between the pre-amp and the actual amplifier you have a equalizer. The equalizer has 1 RCA input for each channel (left and right) and 2 RCA outputs for each channel (Right Highs, Right Lows, Left Highs, Right Lows) allowing you to filter out the high frequencies from the low pass drivers and the low frequencies from the high pass drivers. That way your amp's are only amplifying the frequencies being used by that particular driver rather than amplifying all frequencies only to have some filtered out at the speaker level, which wastes wattage.

You then pull the crossovers from the speakers and connect the amps directly to the drivers.

So the signal chain looks like this: Pre-amp--->Equalizer (split so you have one signal per channel coming in and 2 signals per channel coming out)-->Amplifier-->Speaker

rooftop59

phishneslo wrote: »

Thanks rooftop59. I was looking at some of the less expensive Marantz receivers because I hear they are well regarded, but for now, I wanted to get the most power per channel, along with some of the networking features I have never played with before in my limited experience with receivers from years gone by. I also like the idea of having an iphone/ipad app to control everything. It looked to me that Denon, Pioneer (on their higher end models) and Yamaha had the best smartphone/tablet applications, and the best blend of networking and other advanced features for the price.

phil

I understand wanting those features, and if that's what you want then cool. But as far as power ratings go, TonyB is speaking the truth. Entry to mid level receivers ALL LIE, they almost all cannot deliver promised specs into more than 2 channels driven, and some not even then. That yammie will give you about 30-40 wps all channels driven, which will not be enough juice to do those front 3 speakers justice with movies IMHO.

The Marantz will be more powerful and warmer sounding, and allow for external amps.

A buddy of mine has the Pioneer VSX1021 and loves the iphone app, airplay streaming, etc., and is very happy with the sound quality (he is running 4.1 with M70s as the mains). I wouldn't be happy with it, be he is so that's all that matters. So you will probably be fine with the yammie.

phishneslo

So what are some decent multi-channel amps to keep in mind for the future? In looking around, they are either very expensive, ordon't appear to be signifantly better than just a receiver. Most of the mainstream brands only offer stereo amps at normal prices.. The best option I can seem to find is Emotiva's XPA-5... Is it better to pair something like that with a pre-amp like the UMC-200, or is a normal receiver/amp with pre-outs just as good? Is there any synergy between the processor and amp that one should aim to take advantage of? Would I ever want to amp just a couple of the channels from a receiver, or would I want to amp everything?

rooftop59

phishneslo wrote: »

So what are some decent multi-channel amps to keep in mind for the future? In looking around, they are either very expensive, ordon't appear to be signifantly better than just a receiver. Most of the mainstream brands only offer stereo amps at normal prices.. The best option I can seem to find is Emotiva's XPA-5... Is it better to pair something like that with a pre-amp like the UMC-200, or is a normal receiver/amp with pre-outs just as good? Is there any synergy between the processor and amp that one should aim to take advantage of? Would I ever want to amp just a couple of the channels from a receiver, or would I want to amp everything?

Lots of people just amp their main LR speakers, and some just amp the front three. With your setup I do not see any point in amping the surrounds. Even though lots of the amps will say 100 wpc and your receiver might say 110 wpc, the amp will likely provide the same amount of power with less distortion, and if it is high current it will have much greater headroom. Plus remember that that 110 wpc receiver is only really delivering 30-40 wpc all channels driven, whereas the external amp will meet specs. Bottom line, not all watts are created equal.

For me, the main thing to keep in mind with amps is that there are lots of great used values out there. Adcom, parasound, nad, rotel, carver, etc. And many of those amps will work for a long, long time. Early model adcoms for instance are pretty much nuke-proof. I purchased and sold an Adcom GFA-6000, which is 100wpc into 3 channels and 60 wpc into the surrounds for about 225. But you don't need a 5 channel amp, just get two 2 channel amps and power the front three. It would be even better if one has a mono mode for the center.

If you haven't noticed emotiva is a dangerous topic around here. All I will say is that if you are willing to buy used you can save a lot of money of emotiva.

EndersShadow

phishneslo wrote: »

So what are some decent multi-channel amps to keep in mind for the future? In looking around, they are either very expensive, ordon't appear to be signifantly better than just a receiver. Most of the mainstream brands only offer stereo amps at normal prices.. The best option I can seem to find is Emotiva's XPA-5... Is it better to pair something like that with a pre-amp like the UMC-200, or is a normal receiver/amp with pre-outs just as good? Is there any synergy between the processor and amp that one should aim to take advantage of? Would I ever want to amp just a couple of the channels from a receiver, or would I want to amp everything?

You have a bunch of good questions here to let me kinda give you how I would approach this whole situation.

1. Slow your role a bit :biggrin:. Your speakers will sound good off a decent reciever provided its got enough power. The two specific recievers I suggested will be very good power wise for your entire setup. Some additional suggestions would be some of the Pioneer Elite models which use ICE amps (reason those are better in point below). When looking at recievers look to find reviews, or spec's that show ALL channels driven. Otherwise keep in mind the "2 channels driven" rating isnt really accurate.

2. Spend the money now on a good reciever with pre-outs and try to get one that is THX rated. The Monitor line is pretty effecient as far as speakers go but they do need power to sound their best. As stated most companys list their wattage spec's with just 2 of the 5 or 7 channels driven. Thats obviously a bit unfair as the more speakers you add needing power from the same source, the less they can all get individually.

With that said the Pioneer SC models use ICE amps which tend to be much closer to their rated wattage with ALL CHANNELS driven.

What your missing when your looking at amps v. receivers is that very important phrase "2 channels driven". All amplifiers you look at when they list their rated specifications its with all channels driven. So with dedicated amps the number per channel may look smaller, but its actually larger because its a true number (i.e. a Onkyo may only actually give you 30 watts with all channels driven though its listed to give 110 watts with 2 channels driven)

3. Research dedicated amps and look used. Unlike recievers which change every year or two, amplifiers haven't really changed for many many years. You can get very good older amps at bargain prices and save some significant money. Your setup doenst need TONS of wattage, it just needs CLEAN DEDICATED wattage. If you get a really good amp following suggestions in #2 you can take your time here.

To give you an idea, I ran my Monitor 60, CS2, Monitor 40 setup off the same Carver 125x5 channel amp I am running my LSi 15, LSiC, LSi F/x setup on currently. Its not just about the rated wattage, its about the ability to provided sufficient wattage

With your setup I would honestly suggest trying to get amplification for just your front 3 speakers, or even just your front 2. Your surrounds wont ever really need that much power. Plus the more speakers you take off your reciever, the more power is availible for the remaining speakers. If you can find a good 5 channel amp, awesome, if not, that fine too.

Out of curiosity where are you located at geographically? There might be some folks around here with used amps they may be willing to sell you.

BigDaveyL

EndersShadow wrote: »

You have a bunch of good questions here to let me kinda give you how I would approach this whole situation.

1. Slow your role a bit :biggrin:. Your speakers will sound good off a decent reciever provided its got enough power. The two specific recievers I suggested will be very good power wise for your entire setup. Some additional suggestions would be some of the Pioneer Elite models which use ICE amps (reason those are better in point below). When looking at recievers look to find reviews, or spec's that show ALL channels driven. Otherwise keep in mind the "2 channels driven" rating isnt really accurate.

2. Spend the money now on a good reciever with pre-outs and try to get one that is THX rated. The Monitor line is pretty effecient as far as speakers go but they do need power to sound their best. As stated most companys list their wattage spec's with just 2 of the 5 or 7 channels driven. Thats obviously a bit unfair as the more speakers you add needing power from the same source, the less they can all get individually.

With that said the Pioneer SC models use ICE amps which tend to be much closer to their rated wattage with ALL CHANNELS driven.

What your missing when your looking at amps v. receivers is that very important phrase "2 channels driven". All amplifiers you look at when they list their rated specifications its with all channels driven. So with dedicated amps the number per channel may look smaller, but its actually larger because its a true number (i.e. a Onkyo may only actually give you 30 watts with all channels driven though its listed to give 110 watts with 2 channels driven)

3. Research dedicated amps and look used. Unlike recievers which change every year or two, amplifiers haven't really changed for many many years. You can get very good older amps at bargain prices and save some significant money. Your setup doenst need TONS of wattage, it just needs CLEAN DEDICATED wattage. If you get a really good amp following suggestions in #2 you can take your time here.

To give you an idea, I ran my Monitor 60, CS2, Monitor 40 setup off the same Carver 125x5 channel amp I am running my LSi 15, LSiC, LSi F/x setup on currently. Its not just about the rated wattage, its about the ability to provided sufficient wattage

With your setup I would honestly suggest trying to get amplification for just your front 3 speakers, or even just your front 2. Your surrounds wont ever really need that much power. Plus the more speakers you take off your reciever, the more power is availible for the remaining speakers. If you can find a good 5 channel amp, awesome, if not, that fine too.

Out of curiosity where are you located at geographically? There might be some folks around here with used amps they may be willing to sell you.

Won't amps give you cleaner power/less distortion as well as the actual rated watts per channel?

phishneslo

Thanks for all the help...
So assuming I have a 5.1 receiver with a pre-out, and I am amping the front three speakers: I assume the surrounds will be powered by the receiver, and because those are the only channels sucking power, the receiver should be able to handle it?

Is there any concern that the volume / power provided to the different channels will not stay consistent if the source volume is turned up or turned down? Like, if the separate amplifier has a 1.5x or 2x gain, and everything is adjusted to sound right at 50% volume on the receiver, if it is turned up won't the amped speakers get relatively louder to the unamped speakers?

Does having only some of the channels amped cause any problems with the autocalibration, or anything else? How does the receiver know what happens after it hands the signal off to an amp?

I apologize for the noobness of all this. My experience with hi-fi and amping is strictly limited to headphones and 2-channel sources...

EndersShadow

BigDaveyL wrote: »

Won't amps give you cleaner power/less distortion as well as the actual rated watts per channel?

Correct as well.

phishneslo wrote: »

I apologize for the noobness of all this. My experience with hi-fi and amping is strictly limited to headphones and 2-channel sources...

No need to apologize, we were all new to this at some point. Your asking good questions.

phishneslo wrote: »

So assuming I have a 5.1 receiver with a pre-out, and I am amping the front three speakers: I assume the surrounds will be powered by the receiver, and because those are the only channels sucking power, the receiver should be able to handle it?

Yes. You wont really need to amplify your surrounds off a dedicate amp in either a 5.1 or 7.1 setup most of the time. Your surrounds dont draw/need nearly as much power as your front 3 speakers do. In my case I have to use a dedicated amp for my surrounds because they are 4 ohm rated (your Monitors are 8) and most recievers cant handle that type of ohm rating for any channel. ~90% of your dialog comes from your center so you want to make sure its got enough power. About ~90% of your surroud effects come from the left and right speaker, so you want to make sure those get as much power as they want too.

Your surrounds mostly are used for ambient and directional sound (like arrows wizzing by) and dont really require nearly as much power as your front three.

But just because you dont really need to doesn't mean you cant just because.

Also if you look at recievers with heights and wides, Wides may need dedicated power, Heights wouldnt IMHO, but I havent setup/used either so I could be wrong there.

phishneslo wrote: »

Is there any concern that the volume / power provided to the different channels will not stay consistent if the source volume is turned up or turned down? Like, if the separate amplifier has a 1.5x or 2x gain, and everything is adjusted to sound right at 50% volume on the receiver, if it is turned up won't the amped speakers get relatively louder to the unamped speakers?

Does having only some of the channels amped cause any problems with the autocalibration, or anything else? How does the receiver know what happens after it hands the signal off to an amp?

No concern. The reciever tells the speakers what amount of power to draw regardless of if its using its built in amplifier or a dedicated one. The auto calibration will take care of making sure the speakers are level calibrated correctly and produce the same SPL regardless of how many speakers are running off a dedicated amp or not and regardless of what gain the amp has.

The only possible issue would be that in theory your AVR could run out of gas for your surround channels before your amp does for your fronts. But in reality I have never seen that be an issue.

xantonin

This is all great information. I'm in the same boat as the original poster with almost the identical set up, except I already have a VSX-1021-K I got for a great deal. It's alright but I'm seeing it run out of power and I'm really disappointed it has no PREOUTS.

Is there a way I can implement it in my setup if I buy an AMP or would I just have to write it off and get a new receiver with preouts?

Or, could I get a better receiver with pre-outs and then use the Pioneer 1021 to power whatever other channels? (not to hijack OP's thread, just curious on the set up)

phishneslo

Thanks again for the help.
ES - I am located in Michigan a little North of Detroit.

I'll keep looking for a receiver with a pre-out... Something about amping only the front channels seems wrong to me... I have this intuition that all the signals that power the speakers should make their way through the same links in the chain. And it seems inefficient or inelegant to have amplifier capacity in the receiver/amp that you aren't using, and just passing the processed signal to some other manufacturer's amp.

I am well aware that I am wrong, and that these aren't valid concerns if we are talking about what things actually sound like... (too much time on the audiophile boards with people talking about bit-perfect signals and how audio cables affect the sound-stage, and comparing the performance between DAC chips, I guess)

EndersShadow wrote: »

No concern. The reciever tells the speakers what amount of power to draw regardless of if its using its built in amplifier or a dedicated one. The auto calibration will take care of making sure the speakers are level calibrated correctly and produce the same SPL regardless of how many speakers are running off a dedicated amp or not.

I don't understand this... But I like it. Makes things much simpler than they were in my head a few minutes ago...

Doesn't the signal get amplified by the amplifier on its way to the speaker? If only some of the channels are amplified... How does the receiver know? Am I confusing gain with something else?

The line-in on the amp has a high impedance, so the amp doesn't care about current, just voltage, right? So the amp passes that much voltage on to the speaker, which determines the current draw (ohms law, or something). So does a weak receiver's amp send the same voltage to the speaker as a powerful amp, but the receiver's amp can't pump the current to keep that voltage going so it clips, whereas a powerful amp can maintain the flow? Is that how speakers and amps work?

EndersShadow

phishneslo wrote: »

Thanks again for the help.
ES - I am located in Michigan a little North of Detroit.

I'll keep looking for a receiver with a pre-out... Something about amping only the front channels seems wrong to me... I have this intuition that all the signals that power the speakers should make their way through the same links in the chain. And it seems inefficient or inelegant to have amplifier capacity in the receiver/amp that you aren't using, and just passing the processed signal to some other manufacturer's amp.

I am well aware that I am wrong, and that these aren't valid concerns if we are talking about what things actually sound like... (too much time on the audiophile boards with people talking about bit-perfect signals and how audio cables affect the sound-stage, and comparing the performance between DAC chips, I guess)

No worries mate, as long as your happy with the end results thats all that matters.

phishneslo wrote: »

I don't understand this... But I like it. Makes things much simpler than they were in my head a few minutes ago...

Doesn't the signal get amplified by the amplifier on its way to the speaker? If only some of the channels are amplified... How does the receiver know? Am I confusing gain with something else?

The reciever knows some speakers are using a dedicated amp because when you connect the pre-out from your reciever to a dedicated amp your telling it that. I believe it breaks some sort of circuit so the signal being sent for that channel gets re-directed to the pre-out to your amp. In this way it never gets to the receivers amp section.

Regarding gain/voltage I am not the most techy guy here with those kinda answers so I will let others jump in so I dont confuse you with incorrect terminology.

phishneslo wrote: »

The line-in on the amp has a high impedance, so the amp doesn't care about current, just voltage, right? So the amp passes that much voltage on to the speaker, which determines the current draw (ohms law, or something). So does a weak receiver's amp send the same voltage to the speaker as a powerful amp, but the receiver's amp can't pump the current to keep that voltage going so it clips, whereas a powerful amp can maintain the flow? Is that how speakers and amps work?

I am not super techincal myself so I will let someone else jump in here with a better more technical explination so I dont muddy the waters.

tspitzer

I also have a pair of Polk Monitor 70s, and had a similar idea of dedicating an amp (in my case another receiver) to
drive them. To test that, I hooked up the receiver (an Onkyo TX-SR702, a number of years old) to the bottom posts
on the Monitor 70s, hooked a CD up to it, and played. after about ten minutes, the protection circuitry shut the
receiver down. I noticed that it felt pretty warm.

In the configuration I had, this receiver was hooked up only to the bottom binding posts. The other receiver was
hooked up to the top binding posts but it was off. The metal piece connecting the two was in place, since I was
planning to do A-B tests with one receiver on at a time.

Is there a problem with hooking up the amp to the bottom posts? If they are connected, I would think that it would
not make a difference. Do I need to disconnect the speaker wire from the top posts when I do this, even if it is not
carrying any current?

thanks.