Well, this morning my parents exited the building for an hour and I cranked things up to see what the Theta Dreadnaught
(side note: I believe this is the best name for an amp I've ever heard) was capable of.
As someone who not so secretly harbors the desire to add dedicated amplification to my own setup, this was an interesting test for me to see what the additional power was capable of. Even though in the rational side of my mind I know that there are few situations when the extra power will make a difference, I still want it.
This was a chance to see just how rational or irrational my desires are.
As it turns out, they're pretty irrational. The Theta (290+ wpc x 3 channels) is unquestionably capable of driving exceptional volumes out of this system, but I could come nowhere close to fully taxing it. My ears gave up long before the Theta did, which I guess this means I can't apply to the Iron Ear club!
I used two tests, first the Dave Matthews Blu-Ray and second the "Mr. Price" scene from the Hitman Blu-Ray. I realize I should have listened to some classical music to test the dynamic range, but since I really haven't developed a taste for classical and I only had so much time, I opted not to go down that path.
On the DMB Blu-Ray, at about -5 on the receiver, it was so painfully loud that I just couldn't bring myself to push it further. I backed out into the next room and pushed it to +1 (still far from the max) and even from 40' away, it was painful to listen to. At that point, having had my fun, I turned it down.
I next popped in the Hitman scene I've mentioned several times before here. Great gunfire, explosions, etc. and a soundtrack overlaid that further enhances the scene (IMHO, it is awesome). Here I noticed something different than I did at home. As I slowly bumped the volume, the speakers had no problem keeping pace, but the subwoofers did. At a certain point (over 100 dB by my estimation), the subwoofer volume wasn't comparatively as loud as the speakers. While this has nothing to do with the Theta's amplification, it was an interesting test of these $5k subs (each) to see where they gave up in terms of SPL. As I slowly dropped the volume back down from the maximum, I could hear where the sub level and the speaker volume again came into synch. This was something I hadn't experienced before, so if nothing else it was interesting to hear that effect.
What did I conclude from these tests?
1) Most importantly, it was fun.
2) These Aerial subs sound absolutely fantastic at normal and even moderately high listening volumes, but gave up earlier than my EP-600 does at home (but in a much smaller room).
3) I don't need more amplification (at least not until I get a lot bigger room)
Does #3 mean I won't do it anyway? Never say Never I guess, but what I experienced here definitely has me thinking twice about it.
Jason
