Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo M80 amp

I was wondering what would be a great amp for pushing a pair of M80s. I was thinking outlaw mono blocks but I want to go a little higher than the 200 watts they supply. Say $2000 limit.

Possibly check out the B&K reference 200.2 or maybe Odyssey Stratos

Really, 200wpc is plenty however i personally would like to get something with a bit more balls than my NADc370 just because i think it might sound a bit more effortless.

There are so many great amps in the 2k pricerange, however not so many of them offer more than 200 wpc.

Heck M80's with a decent AVR running 100-120 watts will play to insane volumes. My Denon 2805 drives my 60's to more than acceptable dB's.

Larry, beware of falling into the big speaker/big amplifier misconception. There's no such correlation; in fact the M80s are a little above average in sensitivity and might use about half the power needed by a typical small speaker. Unused maximum power capacity is simply that: unused, and the M80s will never know it's there.

I was looking at Parasound Halo A21 myself to drive the M80s -- 400 W two channel 4 ohms. Greating looking amp with good reviews!

http://www.parasound.com/halonew/A21front.php

"In my view, you can never have too much power if the speakers can handle it." - Alan Lofft, Axiom

You have to take into consideration that 80s run at 4 ohms. Outlaw's M2200 then become 300 @ 4 ohm.

With the higher WPC amps doesn't your house wiring become an issue?

I have yet to see the whole audio/video system (on a shared circuit) pull more than 7 amps on a 15 amp circuit.

It just doesn't take a lot of amps to drive 80s to insanely loud levels. That is why a true 120 watt receiver works very well.

IMHO the 80s just sound better with the amps.

Hi lleeds,

Remember that the M80s are 4 ohms, so lots of Class A/B power amplifiers will deliver almost twice as much power into 4 ohms. But it's really a matter of room size and your personal taste in loud, clean playback levels. In a really big room, 6,000 cu ft. or larger, it's easy to run out of power even with big amplifiers.

At an Axiom party the other night, one of the revelers cranked up the M80s (plus two EP600s, two VP150s and four QS8s), running in 7.2 (it was already very loud, but clean) and managed to shut down two of the five Denon monoblocs, each delivering 350 watts into 4 ohms. (As that happened, I was shouting "it's too LOUD!") And it was too loud, but two of the amplifiers were clipping and I heard it.

Of course, in a smaller room, an AV receiver with 120 watts per channel will deliver ample clean power and the M80s will respond with sound levels that will satisfy lots of listeners--but not everyone. Until the reveler increased the volume, seven of us were enjoying very loud clean music playback. It was a DVD of Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Steve ? on drums, doing lots of Robert Johnson blues in a studio session.

Besides Parasound, look at Anthem.