I know there have various posts on this topic, but I didn't want to rebirth an old thread or hijack a current one.

Currently I have:
a pair of M-80's
Athena AS-B2 surrounds
Athena AS-C1 Center
Pioneer VSX 1015 Amp,

The Pioneer although a good amp, does not play very well with the M80s. I was playing a concert bluray today and the amp shut down. oops. So I have been reading the many threads here on the topic.

My dilemma comes down to separates or integrated?

So far I kind of prefer the Onkyo 806 with it's 5 HDMI inputs or the 906. On the other hand I could use the 806 as a pre pro and pick up a couple of amps with the money I would save over the 906. As far as amps go I was thinking Emotiva XPA3 or XPA5, or a vintage Yamaha's M-80 plus M-60.

So what do you guys think?

I don't want to restart the Emotiva thread here. I have read that thread on here as well as the Axiom thread on the Emotiva site. It seems there is alot of he said this back and forth with no clear answer.

Will the newer line of Emotiva amps drive the M-80's or not?

I vote for the denon 3808. there is a good deal on it in Canada somewhere according to the m60/ep500 or m80/ep350 thread.
Link: http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=235231&fpart=2

Basically it all comes down to what the dynamic range of the material is, the listening distance/room size, and how loud you like to listen.

And budget, of course. How much do you have to spend to power everything? I tend to recommend the best Denon or Onkyo you can afford if you want an integrated solution. The A1400-8 is plenty powerful too if you want to go nuts on separates. Also might want to keep an eye out for Outlaw's upcoming preamp: http://outlawaudio.com/products/997.html Looks like quite a package. Supposed to launch at $1399 by next month.

It's hard not to restart the Emotiva/Axiom discussion when answering your question... Bottom line, it works for some, not for others. There seems to be a greater chance of it not working with Emotiva than with others, even if the overall chance of it not working is still small. Given what I've read here on the topic, it would not be my first choice, but I have no first hand experience, just that of reading numerous accounts of "my Emotiva works, mine doesn't."

Re: 806 versus 906, it's up to you to decide whether the additional features justify the extra cost. Just focus on features and not on power as the small difference won't have any noticeable effect on sound. If you don't mind the features you give up going to the 806, that seems to be the better option between those two choices.

The last question I would ask is do you need separates... Like David said, it comes down to listening room size and how loud you listen. If you have a big room and like to absolutely jam (~100 dB, plus more for peaks), you're probably an ideal customer for separates. If you listen at moderate levels and want an amp that will just handle the peaks from there and do not have a huge room, the onboard amps of any of the receivers mentioned should be adequate.

A long post with no direct answers, sorry I can't be more definitive!

Jason

My listening is probably 80/20 movies/music. The room is 20x25 and I like to listen to movies on the loud side. I don't know spl levels.
As far as budget goes I haven't won the lottery lately...So the Axiom isn't going to happen.

Of course finding the Yamaha's is more difficult since they are no longer made.
I will check out the Outlaw amps.

The Denon is nice too. I see there are a few posters here who use these. Will it run the M-80s with the rest of a surround system?

I don't think I've heard of anyone having trouble with a 3808, other than software difficulties.

The Denon will run the system easily.

my xpa5 has run the 80's just fine for the last year running an average of 2 hours every day......And I love it!!!

cant tell you about the xpa2 because i have never used it. But from what I have read it is very "self protecting" which makes me think alot of the problems were user faults such as bad cables.... also we always hear the "problems" 1 or 2....we never hear the hundreds of others that worked fine.
I think emotiva should audition a pair of 80's to figure out if there is a problem. or axiom should do the same with the xpa2 Heck maybe I will get one just to see

My MPS1 would run my 80's for about 20 seconds before shutting down at only 95dB's from 13ft away.

I was told by Lonnie at Emotiva (as I've mentioned many times when this subject comes up) that the cause of my RPA-1 shutting down was that M80s dropped below 4 ohms in the tests that they have done with them.

Oh yeah, also that my M80's were getting hot causing the amp to shut down I believe for protection reasons, not positive though