Got SDA Speakers Need Advice On Amps

Frank Hundreds

Hey all, need help building a system. Got speakers for a great price and now need help finding a amp to drive them. Would appreciate all input. Thanks

Ricardo

Nice grab; anything 200WPC or more, with common ground and you'll drive those babies; what's your budget? What's the rest of the equipment?

Welcome!

Frank Hundreds

Budget is around 4000.00 and this is all i got to start with

Ricardo

Frank Hundreds wrote:

Budget is around 4000.00 and this is all i got to start with

You mean, $4000 for an amp, pre and source? Plenty of options out there; with that amount you can get a pretty good system, if you buy used; check Audiogon; most of us have gone the used road, you get a lot more for your money.

Tube preamp: $800-$1000
CD Player: $500-$800
Solid State 200WPC Amp: $1000-$2000
Wires, interconnects: $200-$500

Libertyc

Hey Frank looks like you off to a great start. You do have many options with new/used. I would at least go 200WPC to power the big boys.

starchaser

nice score!

schwarcw

Very nice score! Welcome to the Club Polk Forums! Like the others have said, 200 wpc as a minimum. You MUST use a common ground amp with SDA's. Otherwise you could damage the amp and the speakers.

There are a lot of good amps in that price range. I use a Parasound Halo A21. I know some others are using it also. I have heard my buddy's Krell KSA-250. That would be a great amp for your big SDA's. Lot's of other choices. Check out audiogon.com. They are a high end audio wesite with classifed ads.

Welcome to Club Polk and good luck!

danger boy

Oooooo.. Ahhhhhhh! nice pair you got there.. do it right the first time.. and you'll be happy for a very long time. Have you heard SRS's before you got them?

reeltrouble1

As you research amplifiers you might look at the weight spec'd for each piece. In this case the heavier the better, they are not using pig iron for that bulk, the power supplies though.

Some things to consider:

Ampre rating--In general the 200 watt per channel is OK, you also want to know the ampre rating, this is what determines how much current can flow down the line. I suppose 25-30 rating would be the minimum but the more the better.

Signal Paths--Are they kept to a minimum distance.

Gain stages--How many are utilzed to process the signal.

Capacitor--What materials are they made of, do you want a few large caps or a series of smaller ones.

Slew rate--Determines how "fast" the amp is in reproducing sound.

Headroom--Requires a bit of study, depending on amp design. Most of the time you are looking for enough reserve headroom to handle transient sounds.

Global Feedback--Does the amp utilize feedback to cancel out noise, not really a good thing, zero feedback designs are generally held as more desireable.

Outputs--Do you think you might need balanced XLR for long connects and noise cancellation.

Amp Design--Tubed or Solid State or Hybrid, say tubed input with ss output stage.

Well, I am sure there are other things but those are a few things to get you started.

Enjoy the search, its alot of the fun.

RT1

Deadof_knight

Holy ......4000.00 Sorry to me thats not much of a constraint Thats permission to do some online shopping. giving what you can find for that kinda money. You already have a large portion withthe speakers out of the way. Go for the big power you can always turn it down but you cant always turn it up more. Sounds like you got sweet grab. Carver tfm-75x twice Bi-amped would be my wishes.

TroyD

My .02....

Before I went in search of an amp, I'd look farther up the chain. Nail down a decent source and preamp, then the amp. If you got shiite flowing downstream, a decent amp is a waste of time.


BDT

amulford

For $4K, you can build one hell of a rig. I echo Troy's words though. Garbage in, garbage out.

ohskigod

Jolida jd100 CD player - 900 ish new, 1500.00 level one mod
Preamp (Cary, Anthem, Melos, Dodd MLP, Conrad Johnson, Audio Research) 600-2000
Amp (Carver, Parasound, Bryston, Krell).

Troy has a good point, swing hard for a good pre and source, the amp will be easy. a Carver 4.0t like mine can be had for 500.00 or less and will power those Polks fine

used market, you got tons of options. time for a shopping spree on Audiogon. look at some pieces, keep us posted

ohskigod

I'd say put some sheckles into good cables and speaker wire, but thats gonna reignite the cable debate and OH GOD I do not want to do that

mlhm5

Search ebay for the following. Serious power here. All probably performed at 30% better than spec

Yamaha M-2 - 250wpc
Yamaha B-2 or B-1 - probably the best of the V-Fet amps
SAE MARK XXV/2500 - 300wpc - seen them sell for <$500 on ebay.
SAE MARK XXIV/2400 - 200wpc

visit AudioKarma and ask.

snow

first of all, congrats great score. i can tell you what i have with mine now. and it sounds great to me, with that budget you will be able to do better though.:) i am currently using an lexicon mc-1 pre pro- carver tfm-35x amp 250 wpc and it sounds great power to spare. i paid $900.00 for the mc-1 $250.00 for the carver tfm-35x amp. pioneer elite F-91 tuner $40.00 i bought a very nice by most reviews oppo 970 universal player for $149.00 for digital playback. $ 600.00 for the sda srs 1.2 tls so roughly 2k invested here and you have twice that to spend so i would look at at what i have and see how much better you can do on your budget if you buy used. i think you will be very happy with whatever you do because you have a great start allready with the sda srs. REGARDS SNOW

reeltrouble1

visit AudioKarma and ask.

yea, you can probably do better asking there.

RT1

avguytx

Hmmm. If I had those (and one day I will!) there would be a pair of Carver M1.0t's or M4.0t's on them. Maybe the M500's. I remember those driving them oh so well! Team that up with a C-4000 pre amp and put the rest of the money into the CD and/or T/T, get a line conditioner and good cables. Maybe I'm just simple but I know $4K will buy a lot of good stuff and there is a lot of it out there.

TroyD

mlhm5 wrote:

visit AudioKarma and ask.

Yeah, they could probably put you onto a vintage Pioneer or Kenwood receiver.

BDT

dudeinaroom

no matter what you use make certain that you use cat5 interconnects:eek:

dudeinaroom

sorry could not resist (audio cable thread)

tonyb

You boys got me peeing in my jammy's this mornin'!!:eek:

Frank Hundreds

WOW, I just got back in town and read all these replies and thank you all for your input. Now I know I am a virgin when it comes to building a kick **** system. Gives me lots to research over the holidays. Have a great holiday all and will update as i put it together......