Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Receiver vs Separates

The 805/875 has a whole new power supply design (what is truly important) and also new dual push-pull allowing them to support 3Ohms.

I think I would opt for the seperates given the chance. You can always update the pre/pro and the amps will always be useful.

The A1400-8 is in my plans... somewhere in 08 or 09... could actually be Jan 08!

Nice

A1400: talk about headroom!
I'm leaning ever so slightly towards the Emos, as I like the flexibility and easy upgradability. And the Audessy feature has gotten mixed reviews (that I've read anyway). But the rest of the 805 looks mightly tempting.

Webbs, welcome. The standard shouldn't be "perceived quality", but rather the reality of actual audible performance; perceptions(especially on some audio discussion boards)sometimes bear little resemblance to the reality of a situation. Engineers have learned how to design receivers which have audibly flat frequency response together with inaudibly low noise and distortion. This is available to us these days at quite modest cost and in the vast majority of cases a receiver is the sensible cost-effective option. Using two or three boxes instead of one doesn't carry any magic with it.

Any amplifier can drive any speaker, including one rated at 4 ohms, and doesn't know what the impedance is. It has to supply the necessary voltage and current, as determined by Ohm's Law, for a certain amount of power required for a given loudness level. When it does that the impedance of the speaker doesn't matter, so the question is how loud and how long a certain amp/speaker combination can operate.

It's highly likely that the Onkyo 805(or even the 705)which you're considering will fully meet your needs. Possibly the best buy at this time would be the factory refurb offered by Accessories4less , an authorized dealer, for about $700 with free shipping.

Thanks John. I was hoping you would chime in here. Could you expand on a couple points for me?

Axiom recommends certain receivers that are 'capable' of driving 4ohms (Denon, Sherwood, etc). A receiver not 'capable' of driving 4ohms at the loudness level I like could either damage the receiver and/or the speakers, yes? (not saying the 805 is in that camp, as its clearly not, just asking for askings sake)

Alan has recommended going with a powerful amp for the m80s, especially if you have a big room and like it loud, mostly to avoid clipping, which will cause distortion at the least, and speaker damage at the most. Thus their A1400 monster. Where do you fall on this issue? If headroom is important, then perhaps a more 'robust' amp would be of value, as suggested by a previous poster?

Thanks

What Emotiva are you looking at, and to what SPL levels do you listen? Also, how big is your room and how far back would you be listening.

The reason I ask is I owned the MPS-1 for 3 months and it kept shutting down when driving my 80's at levels I would not call insane. Granted, I have a very very large room to fill. My Denon 2805 alone never shut down at higher levels (however did show signs of distress/clipping).

My current Odyssey Khartago Extremes mono's don't even break a sweat at louder levels.

Another thing that I have found is that like the Axiom amp, louder levels with no distress or clipping do not bring fatigue to your ears like a receiver or seperates with minimal headroom.

jm2c

goodness. If 200 watts won't do it for you...wow.
I was looking at the LPA-1. 125 watts
never measured SPL levels. Won't listen at 'insane' levels very often due to baby and wife in the house. But there are those infrequent bachelor moments...
The room is a great room that includes kitchen, dining, living, entry way. I'd say the main space is about 500 sq ft, with a 15ft vaulted ceiling. Maybe not quite that big, but close.
Official listening position has yet to be established (remodel project going on), but figure around 12 feet.

That is why I sent it back, there is no reason that 2 of those MPS-1 mono amps driving efficient 80's should have been shutting down when they did. The sound was outstanding up until the point that they would shut off. The problem was a built in circuitry limiter which would shut off prematurely, in my opinion.

There were times when we were just watching movies and during explosion scenes one of the amps would occasionlly shut off during those dynamic peaks. And we don't watch movies at insane volumes, maybe -15dB on the Denon dial.

I don't want to stir up an old debate as I think Emotiva products are great, and it is possible that they have resolved those issues. I was not the only one having the issues, others on AV123 with 4ohm Rocket bookshelves were having the same problem.

Of course they said I was playing it to loud, which I wasn't. That is ok, my Odyssey's keep a smile on my face, true solid state monoblocks based on German Symphony engineering.