To Amp or not to amp

fishoften

Hello everybody...anybody. Am new at this so, help. I have a pioneer vsx80-txv 7.1 w/ 110 watts per channel hooked up to a pair of polk lsi25's and a lsic center channel. Question is: will I get a noticeable difference if I put in a 200 continuous watt 3 channel amp at the same volume or will it just be louder? If it will make a difference I am open for suggestions for a warmer solid state amp. Thanks

cfrizz

Welcome Fish! Yes you will have substantial improvement over your Pioneer. The least of which will be loudness.

Your Pioneer is not designed to push 4ohm speakers, so the sooner you get a 200wpc or more amp the better off you will be.

Until you do, don't turn it up too loud, & do a search here on the club for threads regarding amplication & LSI's.

Lowell_M

Welcome to CP!! The LSI to amp, or not to amp question might be the most often asked on the forum. Do a search and see what you come up with.

First, You will almost always hear a noticible difference when adding an external amp, especially with LSI's. In fact, I have learned that you will hear a noticible difference between almost every piece of equipment that you hook up. I have had some great listening experiences with Parasound and ADCOM (which is how I ended up with my ADCOM amp) and a brief, non-critical listen to a Rotel amp. Out of the three, the ADCOM has a nice warm, but detailed sound that I like. The Rotel seemed similar, but I was in a show room, so didn't have much to compare to.

The best thing for you to do is to find someone on the forum that lives near you who would be willing to give you a demo. I've met some very nice people around where I live that way.

Second best... Try the used market. You can find some killer equipment for 30% of it's original cost, and best of all, if you don't like it, you can sell it for about what you have in it. An ADCOM GFA-555 would fire those LSI's up nicely.

TN_Polk_Lover

Welcome to Polk Forum. Ditto to what cfrizz and a_mattison said ^^.

98thumpin

Welcome fellow polk fan. I will try to put in what little knowledge i have. Pioneer im not a huge fan of but if its what you like thats what matters most. I have a DENON avr-1907 85wpc 7.1 channels. I love it but i am going to add external amplification. I have the monitor 70 speakers only 8ohms. But i will say this he more power (Clean power) you feed those polks the better they will sound and open up at lower volumes. meaning you you wont be driving your reciver to hard. In turn that means longer reciever life, and speker life. Your reciever when pushed too hard can Clip and send dangerous DC current to the speakers which could ruin your tweeters. And you dont want to do that.

So yes i would say Externaly amp them with a good quality amp That delivers clean power. Never go by total wattage, go by the Rms rating. And may i also suggest Bi-wiring them or even better Bi-amping them.

ben62670

Where do you live Fish?
Ben

fishoften

cfrizz wrote:

Welcome Fish! Yes you will have substantial improvement over your Pioneer. The least of which will be loudness.

Your Pioneer is not designed to push 4ohm speakers, so the sooner you get a 200wpc or more amp the better off you will be.

Until you do, don't turn it up too loud, & do a search here on the club for threads regarding amplication & LSI's.

Thanks for the good info am reading alot of this and that....

fishoften

a_mattison wrote:

Welcome to CP!! The LSI to amp, or not to amp question might be the most often asked on the forum. Do a search and see what you come up with.

First, You will almost always hear a noticible difference when adding an external amp, especially with LSI's. In fact, I have learned that you will hear a noticible difference between almost every piece of equipment that you hook up. I have had some great listening experiences with Parasound and ADCOM (which is how I ended up with my ADCOM amp) and a brief, non-critical listen to a Rotel amp. Out of the three, the ADCOM has a nice warm, but detailed sound that I like. The Rotel seemed similar, but I was in a show room, so didn't have much to compare to.

The best thing for you to do is to find someone on the forum that lives near you who would be willing to give you a demo. I've met some very nice people around where I live that way.

Second best... Try the used market. You can find some killer equipment for 30% of it's original cost, and best of all, if you don't like it, you can sell it for about what you have in it. An ADCOM GFA-555 would fire those LSI's up nicely.

Thanks for the good information, what are your thoughts between the GFA-555 and the GFA-555-2? For what I have read it sounds like the amp I am looking for.

fishoften

ben62670 wrote:

Where do you live Fish?
Ben

Am in the far NW of the country...Washington State approx. 30 miles South of Seattle.

Lowell_M

fishoften wrote:

Thanks for the good information, what are your thoughts between the GFA-555 and the GFA-555-2? For what I have read it sounds like the amp I am looking for.

I have not put my ears on the 555MKII, but I believe the circuit design is very similar. Now would be an excellent time for Heiney9 to chime in if he sees this. He has a very in depth knowledge of the older Adcom products.

fishoften

a_mattison wrote:

I have not put my ears on the 555MKII, but I believe the circuit design is very similar. Now would be an excellent time for Heiney9 to chime in if he sees this. He has a very in depth knowledge of the older Adcom products.

I am open for any other suggestions on amps. The reason I am thinking warmer is the ring tweeters sound sharp, but that could be from the pioneer @ 6 ohms

ben62670

I have the GFA-585, 555, 7500, just sold a 5400.
They all have very tight bass. The 585, 555 handle 2ohms very well, I thought that they were a little edgy, but I have old SDA's. I upgraded the tweeters, capacitors, and the resistors. Now I have a lot more respect for the older amps. The older amps had a less components in the circuit path. The Mark II isn't recommended for bridged loads of 4 ohms by Adcom, and the originals were. I would go with the same old GFA-555 if I were to do it again. The power supply, and capacitor design can handle very demanding speakers at low ohms.
Ben

ben62670

http://cgi.ebay.com/Adcom-GFA-555-power-amplifier-stereo-amp-GFA555_W0QQitemZ180098468308QQcategoryZ71543QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here you go
Ask him to throw in free shipping with BIN
Ben