Montana93

Hi there, A little bit of background about my situation first. I am a college student attending school 3 hours from home. I have a set of rb-61's and a set of RF-82 II's at home with a Yamaha RX-497 receiver and a Mirage Prestige S10 subwoofer. I am currently running the 82's to zone 1 and the 61's to zone 2. The plan is to eventually get a center channel speaker and 5.1 channel receiver and have a nice surround sound and music set up. For the time being, however, I don't have much in the way of audio at my apartment at school. I am trying to build a small set up that I can enjoy while at school. The primary use of the system will be tv audio followed by music listening and movie watching. I live in an apartment complex with upstairs neighbors so this system can't be very loud at all. I just want something that will work fine with the tv and give me a system to listen to music at low levels and decompress from the stresses of school. I want to use my 61's along with a cheap, low wattage amp to complete this goal. The room they will be in has a couch about 12 feet from the tv. The speakers will sit on either side of the tv, approximately 6 feet away from one another. The room is connected to the kitchen and a hallway to form a rather open layout. The floors are fake hardwood and there is not much else for sound absorption other than the couches. I have been looking at a Dayton Audio DTA-1 amp with a TCC source selector as the amp only has a headphone jack input. The thing that I am wondering about is if the amp will do the job and meet my needs. The amp is spec'd at 10 wpc at 0.1% THD through 4 ohms. I assume this means I would get around 5 wpc through 8 ohms. If we assume a bit of embellishment on the specification I think I should be able to get around 2-3 watts through my speakers with good sound quality. If this is the case, then I should be making approximately 98 dB at one meter assuming a 3 dB gain for each doubling of power based on the 95 dB efficiency spec of the speakers. Then if I assume a 6 dB loss per doubling of distance, I should be right around 86 dB at the couch. Are these assumptions and rough calculations somewhat accurate and would this set up achieve my goal of good tv audio, good music listening at low volume levels and decent movie performance at low volume levels? I am not counting on getting much bass response here but that's sort of the point with the whole neighbor situation. Any thoughts about this and any experience with this amp and similar efficiency speakers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks for your feedback. I agree it will help even the room out and that is definitely something that my system is lacking right now. If I can't get the dynamics that I want that is fine with me because I think the gains in balance and fullness will be considerable and worth while. At some point in the future I will need to make the swap to a large floorstanding set up. On that note, how do you like the RF-7's? Is their bass response full enough on a good amp to not need a subwoofer? How do they stack up to similarly priced speakers that you have experienced? What kind of music do you primarily listen to and how do they perform for that kind of music?

Hello all, The topic of this post is adding a second subwoofer to my 2.1 channel stereo system. Current set up includes: Receiver: Yamaha rx-497 2.1 channel (75 Watts per channel, single subwoofer output) Speakers: Klipsch RB-61 bookshelf speakers (100 Watt power handling, 6.5" woofer, 1" tweeter) Subwoofer: Mirage OMD Prestige S10 (Front firing 10" driver, dual rear firing ports, 300 Watts continuous power, 1200 Watts dynamic power (don't know if I believe that)) This system is primarily used for listening to rap music and watching movies. I enjoy generous amounts of bass but not at the expense of overall sound quality. I have found that when I use the receivers' pure direct function, (bypasses all treble, bass, loudness and balance controls) to maintain the most fidelity I can, the tweeters run away from the woofers and subwoofer. I understand that this system is not necessarily a hi-fi system but I want to keep the sound as clean as possible which is actually the reason for the second subwoofer (not just copious amounts of bass as heard in a car with dual subwoofers in it). With my current set up I can get the desired balance of bass and treble at around 3/8 volume but I would really love to hear a balanced, confident low end that can keep up with the tweeters while also playing back low frequencies at a lower volume (not needing to get to 3/8 volume before hearing the bass response that I want). In essence, I am looking for the dynamics of a large 2 channel floorstanding stereo set up. With the second subwoofer, I will also be taking a fair amount of load off of my current subwoofer and hopefully increase its longevity. As I already have the components listed above, it doesn't make much sense for me to start fresh on an entirely new set up. That being said here is what I am considering purchasing to make the advancements I want. Subwoofer: Klipsch SW-110 (Front firing 10" driver, front firing slot port, 200 Watts continuous) Y-Splitter: Single male to dual female Subwoofer Cable: Male to male subwoofer cable The Mirage subwoofer is currently directly wired to the back of the receiver. Here is what I want to do: Connect the Y-splitter to the receiver, connect existing subwoofer cable to one female port and Mirage subwoofer, connect new subwoofer cable to other port and Klipsch subwoofer. My question is this. The Klipsch subwoofer has a Left/LFE and Right RCA input. Can I directly connect a standard subwoofer cable to that LFE RCA input? Also, what would you call the subwoofer output on the Yamaha? Finally, what do you call a subwoofer cable? Is it just a Coaxial cable? Thank you, Ross Wickes

Bill, Thank you for your help. I just have a few more questions. Would that pre amp allow me to run my sub with the speakers if I so desired? Also, for future integration into a 5.1 channel home theater system, all I would need to do is get a 5.1 channel compatible pre amp and use the bypass feature of the 2 channel, correct? Lastly, what gauge wire would you recommend for running this set up?

Thank you for pointing out Emotiva to me. They definitely seem to have some good options and might fit nicely into my set up. I am looking to spend around 1000 but am open for suggestions for higher end components as a potential future purchase. I really want to stick with new. Please keep the questions and comments coming, I am here to learn.

Answering your questions in order, I will be powering two channels with this system. I am planning on just using the RF-7 II's but I do currently have a set of RB-61's that I could incorporate. I have a mirage omd prestige s10 subwoofer that I can use for the system if I want. Dimensions are approximately 15' X 20' X 7' My budget is 1000 for receiver/amp or just receiver but I am up for suggestions for higher priced options that I could do in the future if 1000 isn't enough. I'm originally from Missoula. Thanks for your feedback and please keep the questions and comments coming. They are much appreciated.

My room is roughly 15 ft wide, 15-20 ft deep, 7 ft tall. I will be sticking with a 2 channel set up. I would like to keep the cost of the receiver or preamp/amp set up around 1000. Thank you for responding and please keep the questions and comments coming. I want to learn as much as possible about this.

I am considering purchasing a pair of rf-7 ii's and am wondering about what I should do for an amplifier. I have a Yamaha (rx-497) which outputs 75 watts per channel. Is this receiver enough to power the rf-7's? I enjoy solid bass and am concerned that my receiver won't be able to push around the 10's. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.