Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Possible AMP addition for the VP-180 and M80's

By this time tomorrow I will have received my new VP-180 which will complete my LCR upgrade. I picked up a pair of 11 month old M80'S earlier this week. My old setup was a pair of M60's and a VP-150, so I am really excited to get everything hooked up and configured.

As I was driving home today from work, I started to think about what my next upgrade should/would be. That got me starting to think about if I will have the right amount of power to really drive these new speakers. My receiver is a Denon 4810 and I am using it fo 5.1 + 2 height channels.
Should I or would I benefit from adding an AMP to drive the front channels? If so, what brand is recommended by Axiom or what brand do other members like?
Thank you in advance.

::grabs popcorn::

Yes.

No.

Well, it depends.

yes, and i like Krell..

Emotiva seems popular though.

http://emotiva.com/xpa3.shtm

they are having their 4th of july sale until the 18th, for 500$ for a 300W at 4ohm 3 channel that might be a good idea.

or
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampsmult&1282675373&/Krell-250a/3-

more, but its 500W at 4ohms.

you will NOT get better sound quality, but it will enable you to play louder and when watching a movie the extra power will help with the sudden loud parts of the movie.

i have m60's and use to have a 135w per channel amp, and during movies that amp would be driven into clipping from time to time, with more powerful amps i don't have that problem anymore.

While we are waiting for the no and maybe people to weigh in, here are a couple of links on power and calculating power needed.

about power

calculator

Mel, pass the popcorn.



HTGeek, if that's the itch you want to scratch, I sincerely hope you have a great time. My opinion is that unless you are listening at fairly high volumes and are dissatisfied with the results, you're not going to get good "value" for that upgrade.

Krell makes great (and disproportionately expensive) amps. Getting a good used amp from Audiogon can be a good strategy; with no moving parts and no processing to speak of, amps are a pretty safe used purchase.

Lots of people have had success with pro style amps (Crown, QSC, etc.).

For the money and esp. now that they are on sale the XPA-3 is a good deal .

I am currently waiting for my M80's but it drives my VP180 with no issues with lots of head room.

I wouldn't go down this road till you hear the system with the Denon, it has more than enough power, although I did like my system when I ran onn's A1400-8 on it awhile ago. The bass from the M80s was outstanding and the highs were cleaned up considerably at high volume levels, it also sounded much more open and less compressed but that was with a $4000 amp. I like the idea of used amps from audiogon etc. or pro amps but you have to be wary of the fans they run for cooling, that extra bit of noise could bother some people.

Like I said I wouldn't go down this road till you try it with the Denon. I am in no hurry to get an amp inspite of the benefits I heard with the big A1400, my 3808 runs everything just fine and sounds great, for that extra little benefit is hard to justify the costs.