Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater No M80's for me

Not hard, just more money.

It's much better than not getting what one really wants. The what ifs are a killer.

So true - The upside is that when he gets the 500 I suspect he'll be quite happy as well. That is a killer sub!

Greame you won't feel so bad when the EP500 arrives. It will blow your socks off. Literally!!!

The M80s are awesome, I'm sure, but that EP500 is also going to make you smile every time it kicks in.

The issue of handling different impedence and the concerns with some equipment handling it is one reason why I have gradually been directed towards the "separates" route. For the most part, it would seem individual multi-channel power amps give a more accurate presentation of power on "all" channels driven and they seem to be much more flexible in dealing with the impedence issues of a multitude of different speakers. I suppose if someone had the ability to spend the extra money but still had a strong desire for one of the "questionable" brands Alan talks about, perhaps using the AVR as a pre-pro with a separate multi-channel power amp would alleviate any issues?

Can someone give me the quick answer as to why the Denons, et al, are "better" in this regard than the Sonys, et al? I generally like the sound of the Denon group better, but never really knew why. I am not looking to bash any company, but is it a quality of parts issue, or just a set up issue?

Hi Casey01,

Absolutely, and we often recommend that option if a customer has an AV receiver that he wants to keep and use as a preamp-processor. Simply adding a 2-channel power amp to the left and right main channels to drive the 4-ohm M80s works very well, using the receiver's internal amplifiers to drive the other three or five channels.

Of course it costs more going that route but it will also buy you a great deal more power for the main channels than most AV receivers are able to produce when they're running in a 5.1-channel mode.

Regards,
Alan

Hi Zimm,

It's really an amplifier design issue, and an engineer would have to carefully examine the schematics of a particular AV receiver as well as bench testing it under various load conditions to determine why some AV receiver brands like Denon and Sherwood Newcastle seem to have beefier amp sections and less trigger-happy protection circuitry.

At Axiom, our chief R&D electronics engineer, Tom Cumberland, who designed amps for Macintosh, Outlaw, Harman/Kardon, Luxman and others, did indeed do that with the Denons and the Sherwood Newcastles. What we discovered (before taking on the Sherwood line) was that even the least expensive entry-level models of Sherwood and Denon would drive the 4-ohm M80s to very loud levels in our listening room without clipping or going into current limiting. Of course, if you push them past their output limits, they'll get edgy or clip.

Regards,
Alan

Thanks Alan. That is good to know.

That is a superb resume! Wow!