Amplification for Heresy IV's, how much is too much to spend?

[M_Klipsches]

On 12/22/2021 at 11:17 PM, DJEditor said:

I’m sticking with a 2.1 stereo receiver for music only. TV is my business and a sound bar , no snickering now, gives me all I need from broadcast and cable channels. 

The Yamaha Aventage Receivers will do exactly what you want. Sure they may have more channels than you want, but just don’t use them if you only want 2.1.
I do use an external amp with mine, but probably 85% of listening is 2.1. But if I want to do more, it’s 5.1.2 with a button push on the remote, or my phone.

[Idontknow]

I’d never put any receiver for music with a Heresy. Ruins the sound. For movies if that’s your thing.

[Woofers and Tweeters]

On 12/29/2021 at 8:50 PM, Idontknow said:

I’d never put any receiver for music with a Heresy. Ruins the sound. For movies if that’s your thing.

I have heard a few receivers that sound great. I have heard several amps that weren't keepers.

[KT88]

I am also interested in this thread out of personal interest. I am about to reinstall my Underground Jubilees with TAD4002 and Yamaha DSP after a few years.

Currently I'm running old beautiful LaScala with a MC275 MK4. When I reactivate the Jubilee I need a second power amp. I have the choice between MC2102 and two old Quad II mono amps.
In favor is that it is a beautiful sound. Against speaks a) that the volume differences between the amps is quite large. But if I equalize 10dB on the Yamaha DSP2060 the digital resolution gets worse.
b) we also use the system in everyday life, for TV or even background music. Since the consumption of 12 KT88 per year is too unrentael and it gets warm in the room.

That's why I had a memory what I liked 35 years ago. At that time I was in my time before tubes. I was very happy with a Quad 405 amp and in the early 90s with a Quad 306 from UK. Back then on smaller 10" HPD295 Alnico Tannoy with very noteworthy results. In my memory I know the Quad 306 sounded much better than most transistor amps from friends etc.

Quad invented a very special circuit of their own. The music is processed in class A by a small amplifier. In addition, large power amplifiers provided the coarse. But the sound is controlled by the class A amp. Quad calls the principle current dumping and got the Queens Award for it at that time.

I'm thinking of buying two Quad 306s for everyday use, they could work perfectly with Heresy 4 or Jubilees. They combine subtelty with authority and power and they are dead quite. They are also very small and have nice aesthetics.
The input sensitivity is too high at 0.7 V but with just two resistors R1 and R2 you can lower the sensitivity to 1.25 V.

 

For about 300€ I get a Quad 306 used. For 20€ I will renew the power supply electrolytic capacitors.

 

Here a link to a description.

 

http://www.stereo-amplifier.net/review/9-quad-306

[captainbeefheart]

The main problem with receivers is they make compromises in performance to put everything into one neat little package. This is why you see so many serious audiophiles going to a modular approach where everything in the signal chain is separate. The latter has the flexibility to quickly swap out any "section" for improvement or analysis. For example we know the phono stages are extremely sensitive gain stages, it needs to take a very small signal (on average 5mV for MM and much less for MC) and bring it up to line level ~1-2Vrms. With a separate phono amplifier you can usually achieve better signal to noise figures for example without having large EMF fields nearby via the power amplifier being such close proximity to sensitive circuitry. Or the large current changes from the power amplifier section may modulate shared signal grounds etc...

 

Having a modular system has the advantage because you can easily swap in and out different sections of the signal chain and with an all in one receiver you are stuck with everything you get. Want a different type of power amp? You can do that and keep your AM/FM tuner, preamps, etc..  and just swap out the power amps. The only advantage to having an all in one receive is just that, it's all in one tidy little package, but it's a compromise much like everything else.

 

This is why I highly recommend anyone serious about music reproduction to go modular. Home theater is different, I too have home theater receivers just for that purpose and they work great for that application. My living room system is an old Sherwood receiver and it sounds great but it doesn't compare to my serious system comprised of modular components. I like the separate power amps especially because I can place each mono power amp very close to the speakers for an extremely low resistance speaker cable of only 16 inches. This makes the variables in speaker cable (mainly resistance) have next to zero impact of the performance.

[JohnA]

On 12/22/2021 at 11:06 PM, Invidiosulus said:

You don’t say.

 

A number of years ago I switched from an HK-430 on my H1’s to an NAD preamp into a little Alesis RA-100 power amp.

 

There was, I seem to remember, a noticeable difference.

 

The damping factor on the Alesis is listed at 200.

 

 

I bought an Alesis RA-150 for the church a few years back.  I sounded "rather decent". 

[JohnA]

On 12/11/2021 at 3:12 PM, Invidiosulus said:

No worries, I was just wondering since the receivers John mentioned look to be in the 40 range.

 

Importantly, those '70s receivers have the correct cosmetics to make a 2-channel system look right.  Since they sound pretty good, I get both things.