Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Selecting the right amp for the LFR1100

Craig. I get your thoughts. The Crown amps are made to a budget and as for how well they will last, only time can tell.

I would believe that the ADA1000 with 4 channels costing about the same as the larger Crown XLS1502, I will give up loudness potential of the crown for better life and maybe a cleaner sound matching as Andrew has made both the speakers, DSP and Amp so they better sound good together.

The word from Deb was that the ADA1000 cannot drive the LFR1100s to their full potential. I don't know what this is based on. I right now don't have a Pre-Amp as I sold the one that I bought last year as i was having more difficulty getting it to work, and to be honest, if you ignored the humm at no output, the sound to me didn't come across any better than the Pioneer AV receiver. Now it did have far better crossover support and with some percerviance it may have been better that I could get. But my thought was that I may be far better off waiting and saving for 2-3 years and buy something more newer with better support when Atmos and DTSX gets more firmly finalized in the market. Home by then that the CAD will bounce back we can afford something nice.

I don't know what having more volume will do for me. I listen in a 2100cu' room and to be honest don't get above -20db that often, and have never gone over -10fb on the receiver ever. I do have the two EP500's so I don't know if there is any way with my Pioneer to set a 40hz cross over.

So as I would want to get going on this... Do you think that the ADA1250 at over double the cost will give me anything substantially more than the ADA1000.

Your help is very much appreciated.

Matt especially if you don't go loud the extra wattage would help your LFE from the speaker. It wouldn't go to the loudness it would be directed to the 40hz crossover.

brendo. i fail to understand what you are saying.

I understand how an amp works and understand that the wattage goes into driving the magnets on the speaker coils that produce sound. Different sounds require different amounts of power.

A louder sound needs more wattage as it needs to displace the speaker cone more.

A complex sound also can need more wattage as every time you change the direction of travel of the speaker cone, you need to use that power to overcome velocity and momentum.

I also get that the octive of the sound also plays a roll in wattage as you are moving air to generate that sound wave.


I guess what you need to figure out is what would be the maximum power required by this speaker to play any and all my music at 90db at 3m? Then from that I could then figure out what is the maximum volume you could get from these LFR's with this amp.

What Deb has indicated is that to play everything and get to maximum potential volume (total cone travel), that the ADA1000 doesn't have enough power inside of it to achieve that but the extra 65 watts the ADA1250 has (or is it more current inside the amp too) would have the ability to achieve this.

Matt ... The difference between the two amps is this: The 1250 can deliver one more dB in SPL than can the 1000.

Based on the 93 dB in room Sensitivity rating of the LFR-1100's, here is a comparison in max output from a single LFR-1100:

LFR-1100 plus ADA-1000-4: 117 dB
LFR-1100 plus ADA-1250-4: 118 dB
LFR-1100 plus ADA-1500-4: 118.75 dB

If you didn't have the EP500's, we would be having a conversation about woofer control and greater current capability of the ADA-1250/1500, but with your system, the ADA-1000-4 and a pair of LFR-1100's will actually hit peaks of 120 dB at 1 meter.

That's front row rock concert loud. That's "I am going to need a hearing aid" loud.

The aspect of the ADA-1000 that I really like is it has this NAD like ability to never distort. Dynamic headroom is outstanding.

If money was no object, I would never hesitate to pull the trigger on an ADA-1500. But for the money, the ADA-1000 is an incredible value.

It's one of those products that has great specs while playing far above its specs and its price.

Mines been flawless, never once gave me issues.
Trigger is instantaneous.
I like having it during movie playback, no clipping when not using subs.

Hey Matt, if it would help, would you like to make the drive over to Vaughan to listen to my LFRs driven by the ADA1500? Or would that just make things worse?

I'm still having trouble rubbing two coins together to get the cash outlay for an ADA1000.

but if you are inviting me over as you just won a Powerball draw and happen to have any extra 3k laying around fun money that you'd like to give me ;-)

I will keep your offer in mind for march or april when the weather is not so frigid and driving up to the great white north of Vaughn is a bit easier for me. I'd love to hear someone else's LFR setup so I can gage if I have screwed up my setup or am on track.

Sorry Matt, I don't play lotteries nor do I have stacks of extra cash cluttering up my home! Happy to set up a listening session in spring though!

So. I can't listen to my LFRs anymore. I sold my Anthem amp so I am now missing that important piece that makes sound come out of them.

I guess I will have to see if I can get a workable number for the ADA1000 from Deb. Otherwise I guess I am stuck with Crown or something else inside my $1400 budget.

I have been thinking and if I can't get the ADA1000, looking at the impedance vs frequency graph, there are two lines. I am thinking that the second higher line is the rear speakers as they don't have the larger 6.5" drivers and are two way vs three way crossovers.

If that is the case, then the rear speakers will be easily driven by a much smaller or less powerful amp than what is required to drive the fronts. I already have some smaller amps that really don't have the guts to drive the fronts, but might be perfect to drive the rear set. So a $1400 budget for a 2 channel amp is far more easy that trying to spend that amount for 4 channels worth of equal power (if that power is really not needed).