First let me start of by saying that I have read a good bit about the advantages of using seperate amps, but what I am more curious is about what M80 owners think as far as the decision to use an seperate amp.
Here's my situation. I have a HK avr630 powering M80 fronts, QS4 rears, and a VP150 center as well as a hsu vtf-2. The HK is rated at 90 wpc in stereo and 75x7.
Lately, I have been thinking it would be very nice to get a nice 2 channel amp such as a rotel 1070 or similiar parasound amp, but I am not quite sure if it would be worth it. I mainly use the system for 2 channel music while studying (with or without a sub depending on the type of music), but also an occasional movie on the weekends. Here are some questions I have:
1. Do the facts that M80's are full range speakers and also a 4ohm speaker make them more likely to benefit from a high quality amplifier? I have read that a lot of HK owners run there fronts as "small" speakers to relieve stress on the amps, but I would much rather not do this.
2. Say I were to go the amp route...right now I'm looking at the Rotel 1070 which is rated at 130x2 wpc into 8 ohm speakers. They do not offer a 4ohm measurement on their site unfortunately. Do you think this would be too little of a power increase to justify the purchase. The next step up is the 1080 which is 200x2 wpc, which is probably around 300x2 at 4ohm.
3. Would using my HK 630 as a pre/pro for the mains affect the sound of surround sound movies. More specifically, I'm wondering if the mains connected to the amp would over power the center speaker still hooked to the internal receiver amp.
Just to put down some specs, here are the power output specs of the avr-630 vs the rotel 1070:
HK 630: 90 Watts per channel, 20Hz – 20kHz, @ <0.07% THD, both channels driven into 8 ohms
Rotel RB-1070: 130 watts per channel (20 Hz to 20 kHz @ 0.03% THD into 8 ohms)
First thing that jumps out is the lower distortion of the Rotel amp and that is definitely something that I feel I could appreciate.
Just finished up work study and off to class. Thanks for all your help guys. Everyone's willingness to help really makes this forum amazing.
