Seperate Amp for Mains

TheMARPATNinja7

I currently am running a 7.1 setup with a Denon 1709 providing 80 wpc. My mains can handle 300w and now I'm thinking it's a crime to only give them 80w. Is is possible for me to have a seperate amp powering the mains? My 1709 does not support any type of RS232-3 connection but is there any other way I can power my mains with a seperate amp? If is it possible, any amp reccomendations would be highly appreciated. Thanks

thsmith

If your Denon has pre-outs you can run the mains to amp

raidersrule76

Not sure if you have preouts on the denon but if you do thats how you would be able to hook up the external amp. As far as suggesting an amp first off what kind of budget are you working with and what kind of speakers are you using. After that I'm sure that a few people here would be happy to suggest an amp or two or three that would work.

Best regards
mark

jinjuku

Sry you *actually you need the 2809

Do you have an price range for external amplification? What speakers are you driving? Are they 4/6/8 Ohm? You will obviously need a two channel amp (or two mono blocks) and some interconnects (IC's for short).

For cables to go between the receiver and amp:

Cables for less Belden/Canare

or try

Blue Jeans Cable

Quality I.C.'s at a really good price.

Conradicles

He is wrong...bad info jinjuku

Conradicles

jinjuku wrote: »

The 1709 has a 8 channel ext in

That is an input dillweed.

jinjuku

Conradicles wrote: »

He is wrong...bad info jinjuku

Yep, saw the 8 channel on the back and thought it was output. You would need to get the 2809 to have the output that you need. How new is the receiver? Is it in its return period?

bigred7078

TheMARPATNinja7 wrote: »

My mains can handle 300w and now I'm thinking it's a crime to only give them 80w.

As others already stated your receiver does not support pre-outs for the ability to hook up an external amp.

Also pay no attention to the wattage ratings on the back of the speaker. Unless you have power hungry speakers (which will be determined according to their sensitivity) or low impedence dips your probably fine with what you have. If you feel like taking this quest for an amp forward, you will need a new receiver or processor.

TheMARPATNinja7

jinjuku wrote: »

Yep, saw the 8 channel on the back and thought it was output. You would need to get the 2809 to have the output that you need. How new is the receiver? Is it in its return period?

Dang, looks like I can't do it than, I got the AVR in December and it's not in the return period, so I'll live with what I have than. Thanks all

dpowell

One thing to note for the future is that you'd be better off running all speakers in your surround sound from the same amp or amp with . I just added a second set of surrounds to my setup last night. Because I don't have a 7.1 amp yet and don't have another power amp, I decided to test them out by using the internal amp of my AVR (80wpc) to power them as a 'second set of rears'. The result was that the 1st set of rear speakers powered by the adcom (150wpc) were noticeably louder than the second set powered by the AVR.

If you did power only the mains with a separate amp, you may find that you have to increase the output on the AVR for the center and rear speakers so that they are playing at adequate levels.

cnh

dpowell,

How is that a problem. It is fairly easy to balance external powered and receiver powered surrounds as long as your surrounds are not 4 ohms or hard to drive. And you would, normally power the Fronts, in any case, with a power amp which need more power as a rule. This also allows you to use your R/L fronts as a two channel system off a power amp and so on.

I'm not disagreeing necessarily, it's just that the above is a tad confusing?

cnh

TheMARPATNinja7

dpowell wrote: »

One thing to note for the future is that you'd be better off running all speakers in your surround sound from the same amp or amp with . I just added a second set of surrounds to my setup last night. Because I don't have a 7.1 amp yet and don't have another power amp, I decided to test them out by using the internal amp of my AVR (80wpc) to power them as a 'second set of rears'. The result was that the 1st set of rear speakers powered by the adcom (150wpc) were noticeably louder than the second set powered by the AVR.

If you did power only the mains with a separate amp, you may find that you have to increase the output on the AVR for the center and rear speakers so that they are playing at adequate levels.

Oh believe me I know, when I bought this AVR back in December there was just one of those pesky budgets so I couldn't go all out and aimed for simplicity for this HT. When I'm rich an famous I'll of course have a pre-amp along with at least a 7 channel amp to give every speaker equal power.

dpowell

cnh wrote: »

dpowell,

How is that a problem. It is fairly easy to balance external powered and receiver powered surrounds as long as your surrounds are not 4 ohms or hard to drive. And you would, normally power the Fronts, in any case, with a power amp which need more power as a rule. This also allows you to use your R/L fronts as a two channel system off a power amp and so on.

I'm not disagreeing necessarily, it's just that the above is a tad confusing?

cnh

I may not understand how to balance them well. They are 8Ohms. My system really is a hybrid at this point until a 7.1 receiver lands on my doorstep. What I hear now is 2 rear speakers powered by the Adcom more loudly than a second set of rear speakers powered by the AVR for the same rear channel. I don't know how to adjust them since adjusting the volume level of the rear channel in the AVR adjusts both the rear speaker outputs as well as the pre-outs. Maybe it's a shortcoming of the AVR.

I would also think that for HT, a person would want the center channel powered the same as the fronts to present a unified front soundstage.