[ooheadsoo]

Cool first impressions. I hope you have the flexibility to work on the placement. A sub with those and a new amp will do you wonders

You might consider one of the new digital amps since a lot of people are enjoying the bang for buck value immensely. I hope to be one of those people in a few weeks! My cabinets for my diy speakers are shipping out today, so I guess I'll be ordering my drivers, xover, and amp soon. There are a lot of subwoofer options out there and all of the good ones will cost you a few hundred

 

[darcangelo]

aha interesting what you guys say about the amp factor... I never thought amp was that important... guess I'll have to give the question some more thought then....

 

[ampgalore]

The amp section in most modern day receivers cannot compare to dedicated amps.

It's just like the headphone world. You have $100 headphone amps, and you have $1000 headphone amps. And we have all debated about these headphone amps ad nauseum.

P.S. I am NOT going to purchase another stationary headphone amp (unless someone buys my Grace 901

)

 

[erikzen]

Yeah, the amp is what's going to kill me. Right now I have very limited funds so I'm going to have to live with the setup as is for a while.

I'm not going to be able to do much with placement but where I have them, on either end of a fairly large mantle, is pretty ideal. On a shelf, so to speak, near the wall and about 10 feet apart.

 

[3lusiv3]

I have a Musical Fidelity X-A100R amp which I have found is of extremely good value. It's no longer in production but if you see one second hand you should check it out.

 

[erikzen]

Thanks for the tip!

I eventually also want to have a real home theater setup. Are there any surround sound amps that are of good value? How about a decent amp and then eventually a separate processor?

 

[ampgalore]

The more I listen to the Rotel, the more I find it to be very similar to Ray Sammuel's house sound.

Now I know where Ray gets his house sound from

 

[ooheadsoo]

I highly recommend checking out the digital amps. I'm planning on buying a jvc digital amp that is (true) 100w peak into 6ohms for 5.1. It should be no sweat driving your micros. It's under $200 because it's discontinued, $300 street price retail. There are also digital surround amps available for around $100-160. It's fairly good stuff, I'm sure. A guy I know was satisfied enough to sell his sugden integrated off to a friend in place for one of these surround amps. I don't know if you could say that the digital amp beat the sugden down hands down, but close enough. He went from a $1600 integrated to a passive pre and a $100 digital surround amp.

 

[soundboy]

ooheadsoo,

I received an e-mail from J&R informing that the TEAC digital power amp is back in stock. I am so tempted to get one and use my Cambridge Audio A500 as a pre-amp.

 

[erikzen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo I'm planning on buying a jvc digital amp that is (true) 100w peak into 6ohms for 5.1. It should be no sweat driving your micros. It's under $200 because it's discontinued, $300 street price retail.

Do you have a model number or link for that amp?

 

[ooheadsoo]

Do you need it soon? If not, I'll wait til after I make sure I get one before handing out any more info

There seem to be only a few left, literally. Well, even so, the replacement amp for it is only $280 street price and it IS better. It's called the jvc rx-f10 is 6.1 and has a digital equalizer built in. The eq is only functional when fed a digital signal though. $100 for an extra amplifier channel, probably better dolby processing, and the opportunity to use a digital eq, amongst probably more added features, seems like a bargain to me

oooh, teac digital. I'm struggling right now between getting the teac digital and the jvc. I'm leaning towards the jvc right now.

 

[Wodgy]

ooheadsoo, have you ever heard any of the digital amps you're recommending?

Soundboy, I doubt that you'll be able to better your Cambridge Audio A500 with a cheap digital amp. Make sure you try before you buy. My experience with digital amps (I own two) is that you get what you pay for. The deep, pounding bass and low distortion of a good solid-state amp are not what digital amps are known for.

 

[ampgalore]

How does a digital amp work? Do you input digital signals or analog signals into the digital amps?

 

[ooheadsoo]

Nope Wodgy, I haven't. I hope to soon. I'm going to have to decide on which one to order in a few days. I have heard the equivalent priced normal solid state competition and can't say that I am impressed in any way shape or form though. I don't trust those reviewers who gush about what great values budget oriented NAD/Rotel/etc amps are anymore. Got burned by what I bought twice and was never impressed at the stores, but I just figured that it was their particular setup at the time.

Wodgy, remind me again which two you own? I also remember you recommended an inexpensive amp before as being quite good, but it all slips my mind now. I really still continue to hear nothing bad (considering the price) about the jvc's, teac tripaths, and the panasonic xr series digital amps. Not to mention the Carver Pros and a few other pricier variants.

 

[ooheadsoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ampgalore How does a digital amp work? Do you input digital signals or analog signals into the digital amps?

It can work either way. Class T amps like the tripath accept an analog signal. The digital part of the name refers to the way class T tries to deal with transistors in a digital way. I don't claim to understand any of it, of course, but here is a general overview: http://www.tripath.com/downloads/an1.pdf

Panasonic's xr series is the only amp confirmed for sure that works natively in digital. There is possibly a Kenwood receiver that is also pure digital like the pannies. The ADC portion of the original xr-25 and 45 were said to be utter crap, but the new 50 is reportedly improved. On the 25 and 45, the digital inputs are what people are raving about.