I am going to be buying a home theater system shortly after the holidays. I got recommended to Axiom by a friend. I was curious what the benefits, if any, using an amplifier with a reciever?
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The main reason to use a separate power amplifier with either an AV receiver or an AV preamp/processor is to get much higher power output--200 watts per channel or more-- to drive floorstanding speakers to very loud, clean levels without distortion in very large rooms.
Most AV receivers are limited to about 110 watts or a bit more per channel due to problems of cooling the unit. Also, some AV receivers will not drive low-impedance (4-ohm) speakers such as our Axiom M80 tower speakers, so you'd need to use a separate power amp for the front two channels if you had a receiver from Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, or Yamaha, which typically won't drive 4-ohm speakers.
Your room is of average size (about 2000 cu. ft), so you could certainly find an AV receiver with enough power for that room size. Sherwood Newcastle (we sell those online), Denon, Rotel, Harman/Kardon and B&K are all excellent brands to consider and all those would drive the 4-ohm M80s without problems.
Kind regards,
Alan Lofft
