Amp/Speaker question--Help Please

thomask

I just ordered an Onkyo 804, 2 rti8's, 2 rti4 rears, 2 fxi5 sides, and csi5 center. I know sometime down the road I will want to add an amp. Let's say I add a 2x200 amp to run my rti8's. My question is twofold:

1. When I connect the amp to the front preout, do I lose the power in the receiver and only the 200wpc run the fronts?

2. Is there some way to use the 105wpc power from the receiver and "add" it to the 2x200 amp?

Along those lines, as a side question, for large and heavy amps (like the outlaw 7x200) should I run a dedicated circuit for an amp this size if I ever wanted to go this big? How many amps do they draw powerwise? Just curious.

Thanks for the help!

TN_Polk_Lover

Hello, and welcome to Club Polk. Q#1, yes you do "lose" the power in the receiver and are running from the external amp.

#2 - The answer is, you really wouldn't want to "add" the 2 together. It is not neccessarily trying to add the wattages together thinking that more watts = better sound, but that the watts provided by the external amp are usually "cleaner" "better" watts (if that makes any sense). Also, since you are taking a lot of the load off of the receiver, in theory, the sound to the center and surround speakers should be better because the receiver will not be having to work as hard.

Someone else can probably explain it better than I did, but that is how I understand it.

TN_Polk_Lover

In addition, having a dedicated 20 AMP circuit is suggested as helpful by lots of people here. I am eventually going to do it myself. I don't know, however if you really need a 20 AMP circuit for your external AMP, and then another one for your receiver and source components. Again, someone else should be able to chime in and give a better answer to this.

cyberhazard

1. No. All other channels will work as normal.

2. If your asking if you can add 105 to 200 for a 305 total, then no.

Side question.
A quick lesson in ohms law.
Lets say you have a 20A circuit running a 110 volts.
20A X 110V = 2200 watts.
Now lets say you never want to put more than a 80% load on any given circuit. That leaves you with about 1760W to work with.
A Outlaw 7200 draws 1800 watts at its max.

Bottom line.
Can you run that big Outlaw with out popping the breaker? Yes, your head would probably pop first.
But be mindful of what else you plug into that circuit. You could get into trouble if you really pour on the coal.

thomask

So, in essence, if I had a 7x100wpc receiver, and I ran an external amp at 7x100wpc, it would sound much better, even though it's no more power than the receiver? The external will give more clean, pure sound even at the same output?

Ern Dog

Yup, that's right!