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Power Question


shake777

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Hey Shake,

Where are you getting the 30 Watts Per Channel?

There are tests on Denon Receivers that give them much better result in terms of power than most competitors in the same price range. I think they produce only slightly less that full rated power for 5 channels.

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you could always google spl calculator and fill in the blanks about speaker efficiency , distance from source, room clutter, and other info and get an idea of how much power you need for various situations.

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Thats 30 wpc 7 channels. Im driving 9. Its a shame that denon misrepresents that way.

This is a common practice, and will be until either the manufacturers or the Fedral Trade Commission officers (if they still have authority over the audio field) decide to make a change. It is my understanding that both home theater and car stereo are not held to as high a standard as is regular 2 channel stereo for the home, but I could be wrong.

The current Home Theater mag (April 2011) reviews the Marantz MM7055 5 channel power amp (not receiver). They point out that it is rated at 140 watts per channel for only 2 channels driven (page 59). They say, "Marantz doesn't provide specs for all channels driven, which is a more useful surround sound spec. Still, some people would argue that all channels are rarely called upon to perform full blast." HT's tests (page 60) found that the Marantz produced about 108 watts per channel for 5 channels, all channels driven into 8 Ohm loads, at a decent level of distortion (0.1%). It's true that that isn't much of a decline in terms of decibels, but the published specs still have the capacity to mislead.

It is true that all channels rarely need to pump out a great deal of power at the same time, but if I were a filmmaker, I wouldn't feel obliged to have loud effects in only a few channels at a time, and if I were a composer or recordist preparing music for a multi-channel SACD, I wouldn't want to limit the ff passages to two or three channels. In fact, I was involved in a "movie of the mind" (quadraphonic sound only, no visual) that called for loud acostical instruments, synthesizers, and a sampled recording of an atom bomb blast to totally surround the listeners, and that was in 1974.... hasn't it been about 36 years +? In the decades since then the average speaker efficiency has gone down to 90 dB @1w @ 1M -- or below -- making relatively high amplifier power even more necessary.

At least you have efficient speakers.

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Thanks again for the interest. I saw 124 for five channels and 31 for seven channels from Home Theater. Did you see different and if so where? I'm told if I bi-amp my Denon avr 4306 I'm supporsed to get 230. That's hard to believe but that's what they claim. Of course they swear that I am getting 140 out of all channels driven from the 4810 That's what was told to me from a supervisor on their tech service line. For shame. At least I should get 130 out of the 4306.

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Nic, even if you don't get the full 230 wpc when biamping, you should still end up with more power than if you were to run your Denon AVR- 4306 in stereo. You are effectively giving each speaker its own "pipeline" to the amp's power reserve. This allows each speaker to behave as though it has its own power amp and is not "fighting" for its own piece of the electrical pie. This in turn allows each channel to act like a personal trainer. This keeps distortion down and when amps run at vanishingly low distortion, they sound cleaner, and allow the speakers to bring forth more detail in the recording. Stop making yourself crazy and just try it.

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Thanks, you're the main reason I did this so I have to express my gratitude. This turned out to be a well used thread and a lot of members had thoughts on the matter. I'm convinced it's going to be a great improvement. I hope you will allow for the possibility of coming to help me set up when the time comes. I bought new interconnects and all new banana plugs... and 500 feet of speaker wire so I can move things around to something like their real configuartion. It should be a fun project and I imagine you enjoy getting out of the store. Anyway I'd appreciate it and Pep said it would be OK. Maybe we can find another nice DVD or something. Nic

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the emo is up for a couple of days now and ive been locked into listening to it ever since. i knew right away it was different but i wasnt sure at it was worth nine hundred bucks. im coming around though. a milestone was this afternoon when i listened to a cut from an old delbert mclinton tune that nearly blew the cover off old sub a while back before the change because it was so poorly produced i couldnt listen to much of it but now it sounds almost new now. its the same old story when members make significant changes to their systems im hearing things ive never heard before and enjoying everything more another tell tale sign was when I was trying to turn my subs down and i realized they were already off Im thinking ive just scratched the surface or I could be making it up to justify my expenditure time usually tells as you suggested big cliff im listening for myself nic

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  • 1 month later...

Everyone, I feel again like Dr. Frankenstein down here in the Cave. Now that I've been sold on the beauty of big power I'm thinking of going all out. It will be expensive so I'm wondering if its going to be worth it.

I'm thinking of going with 500W Emotivas on the front three vs 200 that I already have, doing 300 on the two surrounds and 200 on everything else. Its an 11.2 system. Is that overkill or is it going to pretty everything up real well? Thanks, Nic

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  • 4 weeks later...

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