I need an amp-strike that I want an amp.

friggy

Hey guys, I know there are differeing opinions on whether you need an amp or not and I appreciate all opinions but I do want an amp. So I have been checking out the Emotivas, Marantz as well as some used ones on Ebay. I've been told Adcom and Parasound are great amps. What are some other quality amps? The majority of my use is movies if this makes a difference. The Emotiva seems like a pretty good amp at a good price but want to explore all my options.

Thanks Ken

jeremymarcinko

NAD, Niles, Anthem and onkyo are all worth a look as well.

friggy

How about Shebourn, BK, and Sunfire are these pretty good amps?

tonyb

B&k for the win only don't go to ebay. Check out Audiogon.com.

cfrizz

friggy wrote: »

How about Shebourn, BK, and Sunfire are these pretty good amps?

Yes they are.

blehmbo

rotel, wyred 4 sound, ... it can be a very long list. What is your price range?

friggy

It's not so much a budget as it's a leash....and she has got pretty good grip on it! I was thinking about $1000 but can increase if needed. I was thinking of a 3 or 5 channel amp at 200 wpc.
Thanks Ken

EndersShadow

Ken you should be able to get something really nice in that price range and the amps mentioned above (Sunfire, B&K, Rotel) would all be good choices.

dhart86

EndersShadow wrote: »

Ken you should be able to get something really nice in that price range and the amps mentioned above (Sunfire, B&K, Rotel) would all be good choices.

+1 What he^^^^^^^^^^^^^said

kuntasensei

If you want to roll the dice on a used amp, I've got an Adcom GFA-5503 that is being repaired right now. 200w x3. The right channel on it was being flaky, and my repair guy found that one of the traces on the board for that amp was iffy, so he's bypassing it with a short length of wire and stress-testing it to make sure all is well. I'm supposed to get it back from him this week, and I'm willing to let it go pretty cheap - like $300 + shipping from 36695 (basically to cover the cost of repairs to my two Parasound amps that the same tech just finished repairing). Just throwing it out there. I was gonna post it for sale here once I got it back anyway.

friggy

Thanks for the offer kuntasensei, I'll keep that in mind. There are just so many choices. I am a little leary of buying used but it seems alot of people do. Thanks again for all the suggestions, I will check some more out tonight at work. And I'm looking for more places to look for amps any suggestions? Of course I've looked at Ebay, Craigslist, Amazon, Newegg, and audiogon. Any others I should be perusing.

Thanks Ken

kevhed72

kuntasensei wrote: »

If you want to roll the dice on a used amp, I've got an Adcom GFA-5503 that is being repaired right now. 200w x3. The right channel on it was being flaky, and my repair guy found that one of the traces on the board for that amp was iffy, so he's bypassing it with a short length of wire and stress-testing it to make sure all is well. I'm supposed to get it back from him this week, and I'm willing to let it go pretty cheap - like $300 + shipping from 36695 (basically to cover the cost of repairs to my two Parasound amps that the same tech just finished repairing). Just throwing it out there. I was gonna post it for sale here once I got it back anyway.

Trying to PM you but your box is full.....RE: your repair guy

kuntasensei

Cleaned it out some. Fire away, sir.

xantonin

Found these listed in someone's signature who was powering some RTi12's.... I don't understand anything... Who would buy a motiva when these seem way better?

http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-EP4000-Professional-Accelerated-Technology/dp/B001U5JFNM

http://www.amazon.com/Gemini-XGA-3000-Professional-Power-Ampflier/dp/B002JM7NSO

michael1947

Hi there Xantonin and welcome as I see you just joined up this month. The amps you have illustrated from Amazon are "pro" amps and generally not suitable for home audio playback. Without getting into scads of details the pro amps are something of a Mac Diesel Truck grinding through the gravel pits and what you are looking for is a nice smooth running powerful sedan.

Now for Friggy I see you're kind of a new-be so welcome to the club. I wish you the best and if it wouldn't invade your privacy too much the inclusion of your location would be nice in your header. As you continue to write in the forum the location will give you added insight to the writers personal preferences and problems which may be his/her location. We have several active people way up north in Canada and others out in the southwest. Still others are located in isolated rural locations without access to large shopping centers for electronics or the simple hardware items we all find necessary at the Home Depot. We have active posters in Europe and I believe either zingo or zero lives in Japan. I think that's a real fun part of this outfit.

Now for that nice home theater you're fixin' to build ( I just tried to talk southern but I don't think I pulled it off) it is critical to consider your competition, yes competition. We all compete for dollars and for a lot of the members the competition is directly related to TWF. TWF is an acronym for The Wife Factor...critical component, do not under-estimate her as she will not forget the exact dollar amount(s) you put into YOUR new rig. She will remind you that she would be completely happy to watch Bruce Willis and the boys blow things up on the old tube tv while listening through a sound bar or some mini Bose speakers. She will be eyeing up all those little sparkly things that dangle from her ears and adorn her little fingers each time you make an addition to YOUR rig. She will keep a running total and at the most opportune time she will spring it on you....well you spent xxxthousand on YOUR system now it's time for me to go shopping. So if your budget is 1 thousand, plan on 2 thousand in the long run.

If you try to invent a total system you will most certainly play a lot of change-out and up-grading which is also expensive. If you put together a system that someone else already is having success with than you have a very good chance of getting it right the first time. For me and a lot of others a home theater system is quite different from your future 2 channel audio...think mini-van and M3 BMW.

I have 3 HT systems and my main one is complete to my standards and is comprised of: 46" Sony, Sony Blue Ray, Belkin power scrubber, direct cat 5 wire from the modem to both the blue ray and the Onkyo TXNR708. From the pre-outs on the Onkyo 708 signal is passed to an Emotiva 5 channel amp with 200 wps @8ohms. From the Onkyo via a splitter to 2 Polk Micro-Pro 1000 sub woofers and then to the rear tower powered speakers, Polk RT2000p's which each have 2 powered 8" sub-woofers, then cables to the two side/effect channels which are Klipsch KG 1.5's. So the Onkyo is only powering 4 6 1/2 inch speakers and 4 tweeters on the sides and rear and can do that easily. The big Emotiva XPA-5 is doing all of the work with the 2 front speakers, SDA-SRS with mods and the center speaker which is a Polk RT series CS-5, the center is bi-wired and the big SDA's are bi-amped which gives them 400wps @8 ohms and a lot more if they dip lower. I don't know how much I have invested, purchased the rear towers used locally for $200 /pair, maybe $125 for the Klipsch KG 1.5's and the center used for $75. The Polk Micro pros were in the $400 range each through Polks ebay site and the SDA's will cost around 2k with some modifications. The Onkyo was around $300 through Club Onkyo and you get a little discount and it is a re-furb with maybe a 2 year warranty, maybe 1 year, don't remember. I have interchanged my Polk RTI A9's in this system and cannot hear too much of a difference but I have kept the SDA's just because they don't fit anywhere else properly. If you're a numbers guy the'res about 4000 watts and about 4000 bucks. I wouldn't go below a RTI system for the fronts. Don't go overboard with speaker cables in a HT set -up, I use Signal Cable Classic. That is my best HT and I really like it

And before I forget please purchase a good quality SPL meter first, it will cost less than $100 and well worth it. Good Luck, Mike

friggy

Thanks Michael. Funny I was just on the phone with the wife and my new HSU sub arrived....as he wheeled it in with hand truck she was admiring how big it wass, ok admiring may not be exactly what she was doing but she did want to know the cost! Since at work I told her we would talk in the morning....now I' m afraid to go home! You hit the nail on the head as she said she was happy with it the way it was. Now I have to figure out how to get the amp without her knowing about it.

Geoff4rfc

michael1947 wrote: »

Now for that nice home theater you're fixin' to build ( I just tried to talk southern but I don't think I pulled it off)

I speak fixin

michael1947

Yeah, biker boy, I'm sure you do......And by the way we ain't seen those knee draggn' photos in a while, wanna post 'em again.

xantonin

michael1947 wrote: »

Hi there Xantonin and welcome as I see you just joined up this month. The amps you have illustrated from Amazon are "pro" amps and generally not suitable for home audio playback. Without getting into scads of details the pro amps are something of a Mac Diesel Truck grinding through the gravel pits and what you are looking for is a nice smooth running powerful sedan.

Now for Friggy I see you're kind of a new-be so welcome to the club. I wish you the best and if it wouldn't invade your privacy too much the inclusion of your location would be nice in your header. As you continue to write in the forum the location will give you added insight to the writers personal preferences and problems which may be his/her location. We have several active people way up north in Canada and others out in the southwest. Still others are located in isolated rural locations without access to large shopping centers for electronics or the simple hardware items we all find necessary at the Home Depot. We have active posters in Europe and I believe either zingo or zero lives in Japan. I think that's a real fun part of this outfit.

Now for that nice home theater you're fixin' to build ( I just tried to talk southern but I don't think I pulled it off) it is critical to consider your competition, yes competition. We all compete for dollars and for a lot of the members the competition is directly related to TWF. TWF is an acronym for The Wife Factor...critical component, do not under-estimate her as she will not forget the exact dollar amount(s) you put into YOUR new rig. She will remind you that she would be completely happy to watch Bruce Willis and the boys blow things up on the old tube tv while listening through a sound bar or some mini Bose speakers. She will be eyeing up all those little sparkly things that dangle from her ears and adorn her little fingers each time you make an addition to YOUR rig. She will keep a running total and at the most opportune time she will spring it on you....well you spent xxxthousand on YOUR system now it's time for me to go shopping. So if your budget is 1 thousand, plan on 2 thousand in the long run.

If you try to invent a total system you will most certainly play a lot of change-out and up-grading which is also expensive. If you put together a system that someone else already is having success with than you have a very good chance of getting it right the first time. For me and a lot of others a home theater system is quite different from your future 2 channel audio...think mini-van and M3 BMW.

I have 3 HT systems and my main one is complete to my standards and is comprised of: 46" Sony, Sony Blue Ray, Belkin power scrubber, direct cat 5 wire from the modem to both the blue ray and the Onkyo TXNR708. From the pre-outs on the Onkyo 708 signal is passed to an Emotiva 5 channel amp with 200 wps @8ohms. From the Onkyo via a splitter to 2 Polk Micro-Pro 1000 sub woofers and then to the rear tower powered speakers, Polk RT2000p's which each have 2 powered 8" sub-woofers, then cables to the two side/effect channels which are Klipsch KG 1.5's. So the Onkyo is only powering 4 6 1/2 inch speakers and 4 tweeters on the sides and rear and can do that easily. The big Emotiva XPA-5 is doing all of the work with the 2 front speakers, SDA-SRS with mods and the center speaker which is a Polk RT series CS-5, the center is bi-wired and the big SDA's are bi-amped which gives them 400wps @8 ohms and a lot more if they dip lower. I don't know how much I have invested, purchased the rear towers used locally for $200 /pair, maybe $125 for the Klipsch KG 1.5's and the center used for $75. The Polk Micro pros were in the $400 range each through Polks ebay site and the SDA's will cost around 2k with some modifications. The Onkyo was around $300 through Club Onkyo and you get a little discount and it is a re-furb with maybe a 2 year warranty, maybe 1 year, don't remember. I have interchanged my Polk RTI A9's in this system and cannot hear too much of a difference but I have kept the SDA's just because they don't fit anywhere else properly. If you're a numbers guy the'res about 4000 watts and about 4000 bucks. I wouldn't go below a RTI system for the fronts. Don't go overboard with speaker cables in a HT set -up, I use Signal Cable Classic. That is my best HT and I really like it

And before I forget please purchase a good quality SPL meter first, it will cost less than $100 and well worth it. Good Luck, Mike

Thanks for the reply to my post. It does make a bit of sense. I've been doing a lot of research and wouldn't mind to know the technical explanation of what makes the pro amps different.

I really enjoyed reading about your setup too. That sounds awesome. It helped me understand a bit on how some people wire their setup.

friggy

So I have been checking out some amps but still can't decide. I am a little leary of buying used....it's not that I don't trust people it's that I trust them too much! Probably 80% of the use will be TV/Movies, when listening to music we use a CD player or radio, nothing fancy. If I decide to buy new it looks like the Emotiva is a good deal, most others new are much more expensive. Most say that the Emotiva is good for video but not so much for audio, would I really even be able to tell since my listening device will be a CD player or radio? I'm still looking at used amps also but just can't decide.

98Badger

Despite what some of the members here will tell you, there is nothing wrong with using Emotiva amps for music. I run my Paradigm S8s with the XPA-1's and they sound excellent. I wouldn't be afraid of buying used amps either. I have had a few used amps in my systems, and never had any problems.

blehmbo

You can tell the wife the truth about the amplifier, you need/want it for extra headroom to protect your tweeters from clipping! Cost of replacement tweeters could be included. FYI clipping is probably not be a real risk for your RTi10s with your Marantz.

A lot of folks buy used amplifiers. They are usually built to last and tend not to break with normal use. I believe if all of the channels sound right when pushed a bit you usually don't have much to worry about if you're looking at recent model used amps. Older amplifiers (15 years+) may need some electrolytic capacitors to be replaced. I've only dealt with a few used amps, so I'm sure others can chime with a bit more info.

gp4jesus

Some Circa '80s suggestions: Hafler XL-280 or Belles 1. Others have chimed in w/other brands I'd suggest.

friggy

You guys have certainly given me alot of ideas, thanks for that. If I find an amp I like that exceeds my speakers capabilties it should still be okay as long as I don't push it correct? I have found a few that have caught my eye. Rotel 1095, Sherbourn, and Sunfire cinema.

PubFiction

Check out ATI, they make the amps for some of the big players. classic audio parts often has great prices. I just went through this same issue. Its hard to beat emotiva at the price points, but ATI comes close. Used amps are good but you have to know all your options and look around basically its easier to find deals when you know amps well already otherwise its hard to find them because you need time to research every amp offered on audiogon.

blehmbo

friggy wrote: »

If I find an amp I like that exceeds my speakers capabilties it should still be okay as long as I don't push it correct?

If you haven't damaged your speakers running them off of the AVR you will be less likely to damage them a more powerful amplifier. A lower powered avr/amplifier would clip before a more powerful amp. Many people run with amplifiers that have a higher max output than their speakers can handle, without issue. In an average sized room the SPLs would likely become unbearable before you reached the power limits of the RTis.

If you do manage to exceed their power ratings and blow them ... Then take it as a sign that you need pro audio speakers and gear.

ErasmusBDragon

gp4jesus wrote: »

Some Circa '80s suggestions: Hafler XL-280 or Belles 1. Others have chimed in w/other brands I'd suggest.

+1 on the Belles 1

friggy

I ended settling on the Emotiva XPA 5, while you guys provided me with alot of enticing options it was the fear of the unknown that directed to new. I believe for my use this will suit my needs just fine. I needed some money left over from my entire budget to get some more speakers. Again I want to truly thank everyone for their help and suggestions as always they are greatly appreciated.

Thanks again, Ken

Geoff4rfc

Congrats, You'll be pleased.