Pioneer Receiver and Carver amp

awu_gigabyte
awu_gigabyte Posts: 9
edited June 2005 in Electronics
Hi all, I got my hands on a Carver M-400, one of the cube magnetic field amps. My dad used it to power his Klipsch LaScalas and figured it was too hard to use a mixer with it, and just went for a receiver. Well I know that my pioneer D814 has preouts for mains, rears, and center, i'm wondering if the carver amp would give a better sound than the pioneer. The carver is rated at 200wpc and the pioneer is 100wpc. Anyone had any experience with using a receiver for center and rears and using a separate for the fronts? I thought it might beable to relieve the load on the pioneer abit, giving it a chance to make the center and rears sing, while the carver did its job with the monitor 60s. Any suggestions are comments, thanks,
Rob.
Post edited by awu_gigabyte on
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Comments

  • Airplay355
    Airplay355 Posts: 4,298
    edited June 2005
    I suggest you do it. Just use an SPL meter to make sure your system is calibrated correctly.
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  • awu_gigabyte
    awu_gigabyte Posts: 9
    edited June 2005
    Will the receiver not send the correct output to the carver? I was under the impression that the pioneer would take care of the sound levels for me, as it would if i were using its built in amp.

    Thanks,
    Rob.
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  • jcaut
    jcaut Posts: 1,849
    edited June 2005
    For the most part, yes, it will. However, there will probably be differences in the gain of the Carver, versus the built-in amp, and so you'll need to go into the setup menu on the receiver and re-adjust your channel levels so that the fronts are still the same level as the other channels.

    In my experience there is a big difference in sound quality when you go from a HT receiver to a power amp. Let us know what you think, once you get a chance to try it out.

    Jason
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  • McLoki
    McLoki Posts: 5,231
    edited June 2005
    I am using an external amp for my front 3 speakers (and sub) and running my rear speakers off my Onkyo AVR. With my amp I had to turn down the fronts about 5-6db compared to where they were. (going from a 100wpc AVR to 500wpc amp)

    Now that the system is balanced, it sounds great and you would never know there are different amps running different speakers.

    Just get an spl meter so you can calibrate it all correctly.

    Michael
    Mains.............Polk LSi15 (Cherry)
    Center............Polk LSiC (Crossover upgraded)
    Surrounds.......Polk LSi7 (Gloss Black - wood sides removed and crossovers upgraded)
    Subwoofers.....SVS 25-31 CS+ and PC+ (both 20hz tune)
    Pre\Pro...........NAD T163 (Modded with LM4562 opamps)
    Amplifier.........Cinepro 3k6 (6-channel, 500wpc@4ohms)
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  • Airplay355
    Airplay355 Posts: 4,298
    edited June 2005
    the signal from the receiver's preouts is fine
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  • louthewiz
    louthewiz Posts: 581
    edited June 2005
    I got 3 amps running the fronts and surrounds with my Yamaha htr 5790 as a pre/pro and I am never going back to 1 unit to do all the work.
    My gear,
    Acer PH530 720P PJ
    100 inch Da-Lite Video Spectra screen
    Yamaha HTR 5790
    Toshiba HD-A3
    Denon 1600 dvd player with sdi out,
    DVDO iSCAN HD+
    Panasonic Dmr E-80H
    Dishnetwork HD pvr
    1 Audiosource amp300 150 wpc Fronts
    1 Audiosource ampone bridged 200 watts powering center
    1 Onkyo M-282 105 wpc amplifier sides
    polk cs400 center
    polk RT400 mains
    Polk mkII back surrounds,
    Polk FX300fxi dipole surrounds
    Velodyne DPS-10 sub
    Klipsch KSW-10 sub.:cool:
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