RTi10 separate amp?

gregit

I've been reading on the forums where many of you run a separate amp to power their larger fronts. My AVR is rated at 125 wpc. I'm really not interested in gaining volume, I'm more interested in sound quality. Would I benefit from adding a 2 channel amp to my system? As usual, I appreciate your input.

Greg

John K.

Greg, your setup appears to be excellent as is. Your 2400 is a powerful receiver which should be plenty for your speakers, especially since the sub will be taking some of the low frequency power handling burden off the receiver, assuming that you have all speakers set "small". While an even more powerful separate amp would add headroom, since you indicate that you have plenty of volume now, this won't be of any real advantage to you and won't have any effect on sound quality. Unused headroom is just that; unused.

F1nut

Ah, but headroom alone is not the only advantage to a seperate amp. Included are increased resolution/detail, greater damping, greater channel seperation, a better signal to noise ratio and better transients. All of which means better sound quality. Receivers are a compromise and will always be bettered by seperates.

fireshoes

I agree with F1. The RTi10's should sound dramatically better with seperates.

AsSiMiLaTeD

it also depends on your ears...

To me, adding a dedicated amp improved my sound quite a bit, but I have friends who can' tell a difference...

you should listen in a store somewhere and decide that for yourself...

Will an amp improve the sound? Yes...but what difference does it make it you can't hear it?

danger boy

i'll second Polkmaniac's post.. for me.. adding a seperate amp to my receiver added good sound improvement overall. More clarity, seperation, openness, etc. I noticed an improvement right off the bat.

No matter if your receiver is already rated at 125wpc.. adding a amp in the neighborhood of 175wpc will help out. Or even a small a gain as 150wpc external amp will too. It's not all about wpc as most of the people in here will tell you.

As far as I know... using the pre outs from a receiver.. bypasses the processing and any interference you might get from the receiver. therefore providing a cleaner signal.. I think this is correct.. If not.. guys help me out here.

keith allen

I have RTi8's,and were running them off a pretty strong Denon receiver...2 channel,100 wpc...added an amp,sounded a bit better,got rid of the receiver all together and got a preamp...sounds like a different pair of speakers...very happy!

gmorris

No offense, but the added headroom argument, to me, is all nonsense.

I was running the front 2 channels off of my Onkyo rec., rated 85 Wpc. I now am running them from a Rotel amp, rated 50 Wpc. In my case, Wpc means NOTHING.

The improvement in sound quality gained by "upgrading" to a less powerful amp was immediate & dramatic.

So, gregit, to answer your original question, a seperate amp will dramatically increase your sound quality.

fireshoes

That's just a different way of rating watts though.

Tour2ma

Agree...

gm,
Compare the Onk's and Rotel's peak current ratings (if you can find any for the Onk) and I am sure you will find that the Rotel is "more amp" in spite of its lower rated output.

db,
All the processing is done in the Pre, most all the chances of any receiver's output being compromised occur in its Pre-amp stage. So the pre-out signal will be no less processed or cleaner if fed to an external amp than it will be if fed to the receiver's internal amp(s).

gregit,
I too think you will hear a difference whether you use the add-on amp solo or in a bi-amp arrangement with your AVR's internal amps.

gmorris

I now the original question was somewhat related to power vs. volume, with the sound quality issue also there.

I'd like to point out the audiophile favorite, 3 watt per channel SET amp (single ended triode). Go to Stereophile.com or Soundstage.com and read the always rave reviews these amps get. Audioadvisor.com always calles SET amps "the holy grail of amplifier design". My point is amp wattage really has nothing to do with sound quality. I personally have never heard a SET amp, but they must be special for people to drop thousands of dollars on them.

And one last thing to remember, just in case anyone forgot, doubling amp power (i.e. 50 to 100 watts) gives you a 3 Db increase, not a doubling of volume. So, a 100 watt amp will be 3 Db's louder, not two times louder, than a 50 watt amp.

Tour2ma

Really wasn't disagreeing with you as much as I was "amplifying" your watts comment.... Then you had to go an ruin it...

By definition 3 dB is double the SPL and therefore double the volume.
The issue is what we, as in humanoids, perceive to be double the volume. Most tests put this at around 10 dB.

There's a fairly involved thread around this somewhere deep in the bowels of this forum. If I can find it, I'll post a link. The thread has links to papers on human hearing threashold, sensitivity, etc. Pretty interesting stuff...