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Why should I have a separate 2 channel amp?


gigantic

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41 minutes ago, YK Thom said:

Seems to be an appreciation for multichannel music - I haven't really heard it.

Sadly it didn't really catch on and I think there's a few reasons why:

 

1) DVD-A/SACDs were expensive when they came out and there were a limited titles available. 

2) There was competition between formats and usually the components that played both were expensive. 

3) 9/11 happens and folks weren't spending money at the time

4) 2-channel aficionados weren't willing to purchase additional high quality speakers and were satisfied with their own rigs/music.

5) Limited Home Theaters at the time and smaller surrounds didn't do this material justice.

6) Evidently remixing old albums was expensive and studios didn't want to invest to do so.

 

Regardless, I'm glad I collected the disks I wanted and listen to them like I used to records and CDs of the past. Fwiw, there are several threads on the forum giving good recommendations for those I interested. 

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7 hours ago, YK Thom said:

Seems to be an appreciation for multichannel music - I haven't really heard it.

 

It's terrific with SACD multichannel 5, 5.1, and reissues of "Quad."

 

It's still pretty good with 2 channel sources and PLII Music.

 

I resisted it for a while, then tried it, and am now in love with it.

 

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6 hours ago, Zen Traveler said:

4) 2-channel aficionados weren't willing to purchase additional high quality speakers and were satisfied with their own rigs/music.

5) Limited Home Theaters at the time and smaller surrounds didn't do this material justice.

 

(4) My surrounds are Heresy IIs, which aren't as good as my front speakers (updated Klipschorns and  a modified Belle Klipsch center), IMO, but keeping bass out of the H IIs, letting  a sub do it, worked wonders.  My FL, FR, and C crossover to the sub at 60 Hz, and the H IIs crossover at 80 Hz. 

 

(5) See (4)

.......................

Many SACDs of classical and some of jazz are still available, including some new issues.

 

 

 

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48 minutes ago, garyrc said:

(4) My surrounds are Heresy IIs, which aren't as good as my front speakers (updated Klipschorns and  a modified Belle Klipsch center), IMO, but keeping bass out of the H IIs, letting  a sub do it, worked wonders. 

You have a really nice setup. :) We have a small weirdly shaped, Library HT which can't accommodate large speakers. That said between my LCR (RF-7s/ RC-7) and RB-75s on the sides and rears with the lower end going to Klipsch RSW subs it really is seamless. 😊 The RB-5IIs used as heights adds a nice touch and I play all this material in Dolby PLIIz, until the Denon breaks down, then we're  going to add Top centers and have a 7.2.4 system. Fwiw, it seems that Dolby Surround (Atmos)works great with multichannel disks.

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As @YK Thomsaid, many of us including me, have only 1 room and family needs that dictate one setup to do music, movies and inputs of all kinds from vinyl to streaming.  For me, I've gone from one AVR running everything to an AVR with power amp, to 3 x Luxman R-117 and now back to AVR with 1 Luxman R-117.  This last setup is best, and only because I caught a heck of a deal on a Denon x7200WA where a gentleman was told by his new GF to get that HT junk out of their to be new house.  Yikes!  His loss, my gain.  The combination of AVR and a vintage amp (in my case receiver) lets me meet the various needs, with some integration that the rest of the family can use etc. while still letting me enjoy 2 channel with the vintage sound I like.  Only my 2 set of modified Heresy and my music server were purchased new (oh and the TV).  All other items; AVR, receiver, BluRay, TT were purchased used.  I've done my own Heresy modifications, and built cables to keep costs down.  The collection is not "high end" but it does what I need in a limited budget, one room multipurpose setup.

 

I have a friend, who has more money than I will ever know in my life, who has a dedicated purpose build 2 channel room with expensive gear and a separate large HT room.  I love his 2 channel room.  But, he's let's just say not hurting for cash and it is way way way beyond my means.

 

The combo of ARV with preouts to an external 2 channel amp seems to fit my needs best.

 

When the lotto comes in, there'll be some other gear.  Otherwise, I'm just fine.

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On 10/1/2022 at 1:43 PM, Shakeydeal said:

I don’t think people have drifted from home theater. If anything, people have drifted from serious music appreciation. All people seem to care about is how many speakers and subwoofers  they can shove into a room with a gigantic screen. Who remembers back in the day how important it was to have the best stereo in your circle of friends? That’s long gone now. Who has the best and loudest home theater system is top dog these days. Shameful as it is…..


I have been guilty of this. on the 90's & 00's, I had a pretty decent system, not audiophile quality, a mid level Pioneer receiver and Infinity SM112 speakers that I got at the AAFES PX, later, a better Marantz AVR with surprisingly good Peavey PA speakers and JBL monitors & an upper echelon Denon turntable. I had some health issues which led to me temporarily moving to the midwest, only to come back Philly, 6 weeks later, leaving all of my stuff behind. I spent the better part of the decade listening to music on my phone, eventually upgrading to a portable speaker at work and a Bose Wave radio at home. I'd digitized all of my music, a collection of +5000 cds and a few hundred LPs and sold all of the physical media. Listening to music was something that was in the background via playlists and random, not necessarily the active experience it had been previously.

That all changed recently, like in the past two months, when I was gifted a receiver, sub and 6 speakers. Ironically, I've upgraded most off that and purchased a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Turntable and now have a handful of LPs. That's changed how I listen to music: I've returned to the ritual of listening to records, savoring the sound, analyzing the playing, production and enjoying the sound; my Heresies have been a big part of that, too. At any rate, back on topic...


Here's what I've done and why: because of space limitations in my flat, my Heresies are placed about 8 feet apart, which is narrower than I'd prefer. to widen the sound stage, I've added a pair of Energy bookshelf speakers that are about 12 feet apart. These are set as the front speakers in my AVR, with a subwoofer for 2.1 channel. My Heresies are running off of an Alesis RA100 power amp from my recording studio, on the pre out front channel of my Marantz AVR. I had to upgrade my AVR, as the denon I'd been gifted didn't have pre outs. at any rate, it's working pretty well. Eventually, the Alesis will be cycled back to the audio and replaced with a tube power amp, but for the time being, I like it.

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On 9/26/2022 at 12:53 PM, Khornukopia said:

 

Most upper end AVR's have good sound quality. Many bottom end AVR's may not.

 

Most separate components have good sound quality. There are some cheap separates that don't, but I will not lump all separates together as a category, because that would not be fair.

 

I like my high end AVR's, mainly for the features, but they sound really good too.

You very precisely summarized all the points I made here.

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On 9/19/2022 at 2:12 PM, gigantic said:

I currently have a Denon AVR that sounds great and does everything I need it to, but I've been seeinga lot of mention about having a dedicated two channel receiver. What's the benefit? also, is there an advantage to vintage 70's gear, which is all the rage these days, vs amps and receivers from the 80's and even now? 

You could go back and see post on my Denons I made 20 years ago, right here. I did all I could for them, amped them with crazy power from Rotel ,Adcom, Parasound etc...I always considered Denon polite ,non offensive, rather boring but not at all bad, just not real musical.

 

Unfortunately I waited a little too long to get back to my roots of old Radios. They were stupid cheap compared to now stupid expensive. I used to tell my friends, that price is crazy. Then next year it's twice higher. 50 then 100 then 200 then 1k, then 2k and still going.

 

The good part is, now I remember why I love music so much. The old radios have that classic sound, each with different character making matching speakers fun again. I have lowly old Sherwoods from the 70's bring more pleasure than 5k worth of high tech modern gadgetry. A Sansui 9090 can bring a feeling never attained with prepro's and mega power ,fantastic specs amps. It may be just me, and thousands of others buying up these old radios that love that sound so YMMV....

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I feel that way about the Marantz that replaced the Denon AVR. There was really nothing wrong with it, but compared to the Marantz, which has a somewhat sweeter tonality, the Denon was dull and lifeless. The Marantz will stay for avr duty and should pair well with a tube power amp to drive my Klipschs 

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On 10/2/2022 at 5:57 PM, Zen Traveler said:

You have a really nice setup. :)

As do you! 

 

What RSWs do you have?  I have one RSW 15, and didn't like it much at first -- it sounded a bit "muddy" [compared to the  Khorns/Belle/ Heresy IIs, above the crossovers set for each of them] and a REW sweep did not register below 30 Hz, well short of the advertised 19 Hz.  I started fantasizing about a DIY 11 foot tall horn loaded sub in a rear corner and also changed the Xovers from 80 Hz to 60 Hz on all but the Heresy IIs, and it sounded cleaner and better, but I didn't rerun REW ... then ... when I finally did run a sweep, from the center seat on the couch, 16 Hz read - 2 dB, and from the far right seat (seat #5) it read -10 dB, but moving the frequency up to 20 Hz produced + 6 dB.  Sometime I'll rerun. 

 

Someone else got these results:

Yellow/Brown line RSW15,  Blue/Green Line SVS PB13

image.png.0ee8c5ec1a13d196c20acfb29dfa2980.png

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I’ve been enjoying the Alesis power amp, bit a naked rack amp looks pretty janky

sitting on the credenza, so Itook some mahogany I had leftover from a deck project and made a case for it. I still need to get some grill material for the top, but it looks better than before. (The center channel speaker is well aft of the vent area)

 

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8 hours ago, billybob said:

Yes that wood color breaks it up some. Is that an Energy center? And looks like you are using an external phono amp.

yes, it came with the Marantz AVR, along with 2 Energy Bookshelf speakers and a Velodyne VX-10 B sub, all for a crisp C-note. The AVR didn't have a phono stage, so I picked up this tube filtered one; it does the job well enough.

 

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post-4218-13819255704728_thumb.jpgpost-4218-13819266762246_thumb.jpg

15 hours ago, garyrc said:

What RSWs do you have?

Because of placement issues I have a rear corner-loaded RSW-15 (8 ft from MLP/7" from rear wall/4" side wall) and a Rsw-12 on front side wall (5 ft from MLP) so they are facing 90 degrees from each other. {Note: I don't have a current pic but the side surrounds are no longer raised RF-3s (for multichannel music) with RS-7s on top (for movies) but RB-75s (now for both) and the Front RSW-12 is on that same wall in front facing towards the table and the rear is in front of an unused fireplace with dampening pad blocking the opening to it. It's a 9.2 HT with Audyssey calibration and Dolby PLIIz using heights from a Den9n AVR-4311ci. {Edited}

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10 minutes ago, Zen Traveler said:

post-4218-13819255704728_thumb.jpgpost-4218-13819266762246_thumb.jpg

Because of placement issues I have a rear corner-loaded RSW-15 (8 ft from MLP/7" from rear wall/4" side wall) and a Rsw-12 on front side wall (5 ft from MLP) so they are facing 90 degrees from each other. {Note: I don't have a current pic but the side surrounds are no longer raised RF-3s but RB-75s and the Front RSW-12 is on that same wall in front facing towards the table and the rear is in front of an unused fireplace with dampening pad blocking the opening to it. 

 

Is that room as small as it appears, or is it just the lens doing something funny?

 

 

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post-4218-13819255702308_thumb.jpg

4 hours ago, Shakeydeal said:

 

Is that room as small as it appears, or is it just the lens doing something funny?

 

 

 It's about 2600 cu ft with an odd shaped configuration. High A-framed ceiling in front with a small squarish room behind with low ceiling slanted upwards to the back of the MLP. This along with it being in a library with books almost top to bottom on the opposing wall really keeps reflections down {Edited. Picture added}

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8 hours ago, Zen Traveler said:

post-4218-13819255702308_thumb.jpg

 It's about 2600 cu ft with an odd shaped configuration. High A-framed ceiling in front with a small squarish room behind with low ceiling slanted upwards to the back of the MLP. This along with it being in a library with books almost top to bottom on the opposing wall really keeps reflections down {Edited. Picture added}

 

Looks cozy.  I once had 2 Khorns in a approx 1,000 cu. foot room.  I'm not counting the very high ceiling, and loft.  That would make the total more like the size of yours.  I put two Heresy IIs in the loft above and behind the listener, fed through  a Lexicon CP-1 ambience creating box (and extra 2 channel amp), but the Khorns did not; they could have been called "pure direct," but this was before the Cambrian Explosion that brought us Audyssey, Dirac, Trinnov, Atmos, etc.  The system sounded great, and the room sounded large, with some ambiance coming from above.  The only drawback was a sweet spot with good imaging that was between one and two seats wide.

 

In our current room, more like 4,300 cu ft., we have a modified Belle Klipsch center, flush mounted in the wall, with a long K401 horn to match those in the updated Khorns, requiring the Belle to have a new "top hat" in a bump out that goes through the wall.  The Belle is sitting on a strong shelf 1" above the RSW 15, with the space between the RSW and the shelf filled with closed cell rubber.  Placement took months of experimentation-- we had the sub all over the room -- now, snug in its chamber, the rear of the sub (the electronically powered driver) is loaded by the rear wall of the bump  out (5/8" sheetrock, screwed and glued to 3/4" ply, screwed and glued to 2x6 studs, rinse and repeat on the other side of the bump out extending beyond the wall).  With ear protection in place, I put my hand between the powered driver and the rear wall of the bump out, and sure enough there is hardly any excursion with the loudest, deepest bass.  For some reason, the deepest bass didn't kick in until we used the system for a while, as described in an earlier post.  The chamber is 8.5 feet tall, and the angled ceiling of the chamber joins the angled ceiling of the room which slopes up to 11' 8" at the opposite end of the room.  My wife calls the chamber the "Garyhorn."  The front wall is covered with grille cloth.

 

Oh, my fur and whiskers!

 

Two HT posts - page 283, somewhere here:

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/42011-lets-see-your-home-theater/page/283/#comments

 

 

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On 9/19/2022 at 2:12 PM, gigantic said:

I currently have a Denon AVR that sounds great and does everything I need it to, but I've been seeinga lot of mention about having a dedicated two channel receiver. What's the benefit? also, is there an advantage to vintage 70's gear, which is all the rage these days, vs amps and receivers from the 80's and even now? 

 

No.

 

However, a good 2-channel amp/receiver will have a power supply with much greater reserve power capacity than your AVR.  The old Tanks of the 70's had to meet the FTC power rating procedure so the bits and parts were sized to handle more heat and the the PS was robust.  The old amps mostly had low Damping Factors and tended to sound soft similar to a tube amp.  I like the sound of modern amps with large DF better (crisper and with tighter bass).  To get both I went with all separates.  My power amps take a long time to go quiet when the power is turned off, demonstrating the depth of the energy reserves.  All that comes at a price, though. 

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