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Matching Amplifier With Speakers


Vivek Batra

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Hi

 

Please excuse me if this question seems to basic to you guys. I am still very naive in understandings some basic things. I have a Denon X4500H with RP-8000F and R-115SW. I am not very happy with the sound quality. I am planning to change the whole equipment. My inclination is towards Anthem STR series Pre and Power Amps and to replace RP-8000F with either Forte or Cornwall.

 

Below are some specs for all the equipments.

 

Planned Anthem Power Amp at 8 ohms 400 wpc

Current Denon X4500H at 8 ohm 125wpc

 

From Klipsch Web Site

 

RP -8000F power handling Continous/Peak 150/600 watts, Senstivity 98db

Forte III Continous/Peak 100/400 watts, Senstivity 99db

Cornwall III Continous/Peak 100/400 watts

 

I did not find anything on Klipsch specs that says suitable amplifer range (as other manufactures list in speaker specs).

 

My  doubt is can i pair the Anthem power amp that produces 400/wpc with any of the towers? Am I at risk of burning my speakers? How come 8000F can handle more power but is low on SPL?

 

Or Can I still use Denon and replace to 8000f and Denon will be powerful enough to drive Forte or Cornwall?

 

Thanks for the help.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Vivek Batra
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1 hour ago, Vivek Batra said:

I have a Denon X4500H with RP-8000F and R-115SW. I am not very happy with the sound quality. I am planning to change the whole equipment.

What is it you do not like about the combination?  Do you have room treatments?  Have you experimented with placement, crossover frequencies, phase?

 

1 hour ago, Vivek Batra said:

My inclination is towards Anthem STR series Pre and Power Amps and to replace RP-8000F with either Forte or Cornwall.

 

RP -8000F power handling Continous/Peak 150/600 watts, Senstivity 98db

Forte III Continous/Peak 100/400 watts, Senstivity 99db

Cornwall III Continous/Peak 100/400 watts

 My  doubt is can i pair the Anthem power amp that produces 400/wpc with any of the towers? Am I at risk of burning my speakers? How come 8000F can handle more power but is low on SPL?

The Anthem will be just fine with any of the mentioned floorstanders as long as you are "smart" with the volume knob.  Any of those Klipsch speakers will not see anything near 400w/ch continuous due to their high sensitivities.  Dynamic power maybe.

 

2 hours ago, Vivek Batra said:

Or Can I still use Denon and replace to 8000f and Denon will be powerful enough to drive Forte or Cornwall?

Yes.

 

Bill

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As Willland said, what is wrong with the sound of the current setup and what would you like with the sound?

How large is your room?  The RP-8000F speakers should be good for most moderate sized rooms, particularly with the R-115SW.

 

You really should look to see if the Denon is not set up correctly and possibly not use the Auto settings.  In stereo running the speakers full range (no room eq) with the sub dialed in (low crossover point to match the RP-8000F speakers) should sound very good by itself.

 

You can get better amplification which never hurts and even with 400 watts, unless your room is very large or you demand way more bass than reasonable, you should not have any issues with the speakers.

 

Stepping up to Heritage speakers may be reasonable though I would not be sure without you describing your current dislikes.

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@pzannucci @willland Thanks for pitching in. So here are some details. The room size is aprrox 18*12 *10 (L*W*H). 

 

My Settings on AVR are

Audessy MultiEQ XT32 - Reference

Dynamic EQ - On

Reference Level Offset -0db

Dynamic Volume - Off

Speakers - Small

Bass - LFE Only

Crossover - 80Hz

LPF for LFE - 120Hz

 

Now my dislikes

I fee that the horn tweeter of RP-8000F dominates the mid range woofers. In other words sound signature is not soft and warm but too thin and bright. I had a audition last week comparing RF 7 III and RP-8000F with switcher and switching intermittently. RF 7 III were surely better than the 8000F. Other short coming I have is I am plyaing from Spotify. And I need to crank up to volume upto -25 or -20 db then I feel some dynamics otherwise 8000f's sound pretty flat to me.

 

I am not aware what other settings I can tweak in the AVR to benefit. I am Ok wiht the bass but not happy with mid range. I tried setting Audessy to off but not much improved rather sound level declined further. My expectation from the system is clarity even at low volume levels without loosing any details and some air around the music.

 

God know my expectation is even real or hypethetical.

 

BTW I am listening to Kenny Rogers, Carlos Santana, Pat Boone, Queen, Beatles, Connie Francis etc

 

Edited by Vivek Batra
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25 minutes ago, Vivek Batra said:

@pzannucci @willland Thanks for pitching in. So here are some details. The room size is aprrox 18*12 *10 (L*W*H). 

 

My Settings on AVR are

Audessy MultiEQ XT32 - Reference

Dynamic EQ - On

Reference Level Offset -0db

Dynamic Volume - Off

Speakers - Small

Bass - LFE Only

Crossover - 80Hz

LPF for LFE - 120Hz

 

Now my dislikes

I fee that the horn tweeter of RP-8000F dominates the mid range woofers. In other words sound signature is not soft and warm but too thin and bright. I had a audition last week comparing RF 7 III and RP-8000F with switcher and switching intermittently. RF 7 III were surely better than the 8000F. Other short coming I have is I am plyaing from Spotify. And I need to crank up to volume upto -25 or -20 db then I feel some dynamics otherwise 8000f's sound pretty flat to me.

 

I am not aware what other settings I can tweak in the AVR to benefit. I am Ok wiht the bass but not happy with mid range. I tried setting Audessy to off but not much improved rather sound level declined further. My expectation from the system is clarity even at low volume levels without loosing any details and some air around the music.

 

God know my expectation is even real or hypethetical.

 

BTW I am listening to Kenny Rogers, Carlos Santana, Pat Boone, Queen, Beatles, Connie Francis etc

 

 

Disable your AVR Audessy and run the 8000F's full range.Set the sub for around 60hz or lower, match the output.  You might be quite surprised.

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26 minutes ago, pzannucci said:

 

Disable your AVR Audessy and run the 8000F's full range.Set the sub for around 60hz or lower, match the output.  You might be quite surprised.

Hi 

I have turned off the Audessy, seems better but at lower crossover I loose bass so 80hz sounds best for now. Lets see how this works out for less acoustic songs.

 

Thanks.

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50 minutes ago, Vivek Batra said:

Hi 

I have turned off the Audessy, seems better but at lower crossover I loose bass so 80hz sounds best for now. Lets see how this works out for less acoustic songs.

 

Thanks.

Good to hear.  Sounds like a better starting point for you.  Do some changes from there.

 

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It's like I used to tell people when I was in retail home & car audio sales and also as a rep; You can have $10,000 worth of gear but if your source is an AM radio, your sound is going to be a $10,000 AM radio.  Or as it's also said, trash in, trash out.  Spotify is great and all but it's going to be a little more limited in its range.  Make sure you Spotify set for the best mode possible.  If on the desktop app, make sure Streaming Quality is set to Very High and make sure it's NOT set for "Normalize volume" where it sets the same level for all songs.  That will restrict it as well.  Are you streaming from a phone or a PC?  Your DAC could be a shortcoming too if you're coming straight off of a computer, or phones, 1/8" audio output and using an adapter that converts to R/L RCA cables.  I use a desktop PC and run Spotify, along with JRiver running FLAC files from my NAS, from the USB output into my Onkyo P-3000R and its DAC does a great job of SQ.  I've tried Tidal and Deezer....neither sounded that much better to justify the extra money not to mention their wonky interface.

 

Do you have a CD player or turntable where you can test with a different source?

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14 hours ago, avguytx said:

It's like I used to tell people when I was in retail home & car audio sales and also as a rep; You can have $10,000 worth of gear but if your source is an AM radio, your sound is going to be a $10,000 AM radio.  Or as it's also said, trash in, trash out.  Spotify is great and all but it's going to be a little more limited in its range.  Make sure you Spotify set for the best mode possible.  If on the desktop app, make sure Streaming Quality is set to Very High and make sure it's NOT set for "Normalize volume" where it sets the same level for all songs.  That will restrict it as well.  Are you streaming from a phone or a PC?  Your DAC could be a shortcoming too if you're coming straight off of a computer, or phones, 1/8" audio output and using an adapter that converts to R/L RCA cables.  I use a desktop PC and run Spotify, along with JRiver running FLAC files from my NAS, from the USB output into my Onkyo P-3000R and its DAC does a great job of SQ.  I've tried Tidal and Deezer....neither sounded that much better to justify the extra money not to mention their wonky interface.

 

Do you have a CD player or turntable where you can test with a different source?

I have followed your suggestion on settings on spotify. I am playing spotify on laptop and through HDMI (DVD port on Denon) routing the sound. Occasionaly I use the Spotify Connect (direct pllayback on Denon via same network) so no wires. Does any of the method makes any difference? I am done with all other options except using a turntable or a cd player. I'll try to arrange that. Thanks for your suggestions.

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22 hours ago, Vivek Batra said:

Hi 

I have turned off the Audessy, seems better but at lower crossover I loose bass so 80hz sounds best for now. Lets see how this works out for less acoustic songs.

 

Thanks.

Have you started running the RP-8000F speakers full range?

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1 minute ago, Vivek Batra said:

Yes now I am running them as "Large" and bass as LFE + MAINS

Those settings should have brought up the midrange some and made a warmer sound.  The highs may still be a little "in your face" depending on placement and room treatment.

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Just now, pzannucci said:

Those settings should have brought up the midrange some and made a warmer sound.  The highs may still be a little "in your face" depending on placement and room treatment.

Yeah  increase in bass but still bright. I do not have any room treatments. But I guess whole reference range of Klipsch is too bright same was the case with RF 7 III. Did not get any chance to listen to any of the heritage series. Let's see how happy  I may end up with tweaks. Thanks a lot for the help.

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53 minutes ago, pzannucci said:

If you have availability to resistors such as https://www.parts-express.com/mills-1-ohm-12w-non-inductive-resistor--005-1

You can remove one of the straps on the back of your RP-8000F speakers (where they can by bi-wired) and replace the strap with the resistor.  That can provide a slight drop of the horn in output.

Recognize this is not optimal but will likely work unless you push your speakers very hard.

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