Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Amps

I'm helping a friend try to increase the wattage to his current system. He currently has the M80's and a Denon AVR2807. He has a large room and wants to play everything louder than the Denon will allow without the automatic overload protection kicking in. I suggested that the only way to play louder is to use separate amps to power the M80's.

Would this be correct? Will powering the M80's with separate amps with more wattage play louder? The Denon is currently rated at 110 per channel. If separate amps is the solution, does anyone have any good recommendations?

yes you are correct.

There are alot of different amp companies, I will let some others take over from here...

That's really a loaded question.

Conventional wisdom says get a bigger amp. A bigger amp(s) will definitely sound louder but will it sound "clean" given the room acoustics?

The room acoustics contribute greatly to the perception of spaciousness, image broadening and echo. If the room is critically damped (walls and ceiling that are highly sound absorbant), then adding amplification will increase the sound pressure and preserve sound "cleanliness". If on the other hand the room surfaces are highly reflective, adding more power could lead to echos and utter destruction of sound quality.

These characteristics are also a function of direct and reflected sound path distances in the room. An acoustic path study would definitely reveal all of the influences.

I have a very live room and I achieve nominal levels of 85dB with less than a half watt nominal into each M80. The sound is clean and spacious. But if I turn it up too much, it starts to sound garbled particularly with rock music due to lengthy reflection delays. I find that by using DPLII and turning down my M80s and VP150 by 5dB, I can get it loud and simulate a deep sound stage without muddying up the sound.

Secrets of Amplifier and Speaker Power Requirements Revealed

Shag if I remember correctly aren't you over in the Tampa Bay area? If your friend cares to make a three or so hour trip due east to Vero Beach he can demo our 80s powered by a 300 watt Rotel amp ... we'll connect 'em up to the 75 wpc H/K 635 and maybe we can also hook 'em up to a pos 1/2 watt something or other I can scrape up from around here someplace. He can then be the judge!

I know it's a hike but you guys are more than welcome to use the system.

That would be 330 to be exact

Alan's article makes some excellent points. Your friend needs one A1400 per channel along with a new electrical panel .

Now your talkin

Your friend's Denon is shutting down into protection mode? I have a 2805 which is older and 100 watts and it has never shut down driving my 80's. My room is also probably bigger than your friends at 8,000+ Cubic Ft.

Now, my Denon will go into clipping at some point when pushed real hard, but it has never shut down.

I currently own Odyssey Monoblocks to drive my 80's and the 2805 drives everything else with out a hitch.

I have the 2105 which is rated at 90W into 8 Ohms.

I can drive two M80s, cleanly, at over 118W each. Above this level, the amp starts square-waving. This is an insane amount of power for my 4,000 cubic foot room and I cannot handle it without ear plugs. I normally listen at less than a half watt nominal per side.

I hope your friend's ears don't get damaged.