I right now have an Anthem MCA5 amp that gives me 5 channels. I had thought that this would be a perfect solution for my HT and music listening. But when I upgraded my speakers to a newer Omnidirectional LFR1100 speaker that bumps the front amp requirement from 2 channels to 4 channels. So the 5 channel amp now can only power my front and center speakers.

I don't mind the sound of the MCA, but if I could get a more sweeter sound from upgrading to a better class of amp then I would consider it. I would be happy to move the MCA to power the center and the rear channels giving me a better 7.1 up from the 5.1 I had been using. The conundrum is that I need 4 more channels with this solution.

Now I could get a multi channel amp as there are multiple options out there, both in the pre-owned or going new. I could also get two - dual channel amps and have a stand alone amp to power each front speaker (like running a regular speaker off it's own monoblock). Going used is a bit harder as finding two identical 2 channel amps might be a bit more to find.

I would like to spend around $3000 for the solution, but if a bit more money would make me smile from ear to ear then I would consider it. What suggestions are out there?

I've been using a Rotel RB-1080 for about ten years. That thing has worked flawlessly. Never one hiccup and it's used just about every single day..... I don't know if they even make them anymore, but I'd think about buying a couple of them.

Having done an instantaneous A/B test of a few amps and receivers in my past, including Parasound Halo, Onkyo AVR, a Robertson tube and a Coda (about $4k retail new), this concept of massive sound differences let alone 'improvement' between amps is seriously overstated. If you ever have the chance to do such a matched, blind comparison, it is unlikely you would ever hear a sound difference between two quality amps with all other variables the same (e.g. SPL matching as amp output to signal ratio may vary).

If you like to turn up the sound more than what the MCA can offer, then a beefier amp may be necessary, certainly. In the $3k range you will find TONS of possibilities and no, mono amps are not required unless you are going for a feng shui look in the room and want to balance left and right visually without placing a single unit/amp in the centre.
Anthem also sells their Statement line which are far more beefy than the MCA series.
http://www.anthemav.com/products-current/collection=statement/model=p2/page=specs

you want beefy! (Watts plus solid build)
at a surprising price!
with sensitivity controls! (for flexibility in calibration)
with clipping indicators!

take a look at pro amps like QSC, Crown Audio and other reputable makers.

And Blue LEDs!

blue LEDs;
i toned them down by applying some cd marker ink on them;
now all's fine.

it even made the sound better! ;-)

Well, my thought pattern went on for a bit beyond when I posted.

Right now I have a Pioneer SC1227 receiver. it has it's class D amps built in, and I can personally hear the difference between the receiver and the sound that I get from my Anthem.

I understand that the anthem is about 100 watts more power, and probably much better built considering it's got a bigger power supply, capacitors and power delivery circuitry..

So effectively, I have paid for a receiver that say 60% of the cost went into putting in a Class D amp that I am not using at all.

So why not just sell the reciever as it's new and I could probably get back what I paid for it (I got a sweet deal on it) and put that towards getting a REAL pre-amp like say, the Merantz AV8801. Match that up with say an Outlaw 7700 to cover the front speakers and the MCA for the rear.

Ignore if you've already done this....

If possible, can you post a pic of your mains position. It might pay dividends to look at changing their position slightly. Speaker setup is king.

An error of even a couple of degrees when toeing in speakers can make a huge difference in timing, coherence, spatial imaging and percieved treble smoothness (sweetness).

Buy a line laser and set up your mains pefectly matching in distance and angle to your mlp. Best upgrade you can do for about $100. Period. A measuring tape, line laser, level and masking tape will get you there.

Then, pour more money into finer components. (If need be of course. )

I'm very happy with my ADA-1000.
If I was (I am) purchasing another 4 channel amp I'd go with the ADA 1500, maybe even from the outlet for $2,907.00, a $300.00 savings.

At hand is not that the speakers sound bad.. it's just they sound much better when I run them through the powered amp. And with the LFR's hooked up, my 5 channel amp doesn't have enough channels to do 5.1 or more as 4 of those channels are taken up by the front left and right.

The amp on my Pioneer SC1227 receiver is pretty good, but it just doesn't sound as open and good on the surround as when I run it through the power amp that I have. I know it really shouldn't have that big of a difference, but for some reason I hear one. (psychosomatic??)

So do I add another 4 channels to my current amp collection? Or my thinking is getting another 7 channels and getting ready for 11.1

I could get two of those Crown XLS1000's for about $800

I was looking at the deal on Outlaw's web site for the AVR8801+7700 amp for $4900
I could get the Yamaha CXA5000 for $2600 + used cheep 6 channel amp @ 450-500

oh, how money can slip through your fingers like water to get closer to that perfection.

if you want Crowns XLS, get the 1500, not the 1000.

the latter has a residual noise level a bit too high;
the other one will be very quiet.

Pump the brakes!

We have witnessed you buy, return, buy, sell, buy, cancel.... It is obvious you are excited to get your system up to top snuff, but you gotta focus on synergy of setup first. You already own a silly good system! Really!

If you really want to get your rig up to your expectations you have to learn how your room interacts with the speakers and tailor accordingly. This is not something that is solved with spending money. Time is your answer. Slow down is my advice. Just trying to prevent buyers remorse.

If you are itching to keep building and growing your system, you may need a pitstop with some research to let your wallet heal. The buy stuff itch doesnt go away until you understand the limitations of your listening environment. Otherwise its a slippery slope to upgraditis land. Where few survive to tell the tale..... or are ever satisfied.

Your key to audio nirvana is in this book:

http://www.amazon.ca/Handbook-Sound-Stud...of+sound+studio

Is there any chance the Anthem amp has slightly higher gain than the amp in your receiver and part of the difference in sound between them is that the levels are just a bit higher going through the Anthem ?

I wouldn't expect a noticeable difference in sound between the two amps when running surround content through them at normal levels, although (a) if the levels aren't exactly matched then all bets are off, and (b) if you are listening only to the surround channels and cranking the levels up you may be playing loudly enough to be crowding the limits on the receiver's amp... but I don't think you would hear the same difference when playing normal content.

I guess I'm arguing for "use the Anthem front & center, use the receiver's amp for surrounds, make sure the levels are right, and enjoy".

But 11.1 sounds interesting too

You are somewhat correct.

I bought a set of M80 speakers. I listened to them and they did sound good. But I thought that the lower frequencies didn't sound as good as I would have liked.

So yes, I did return the M80 speakers back to Axiom. Isn't that what their return policy is all about.. they don't happen to have a store near by, and Brent couldn't find anyone with a set of M80.v4 speakers near me, so i said I'd give them a try and see if I liked. Funny how Axiom seems to have made the HP series of speakers to address this to add a bit more omph into the lower frequencies.

So I looked at the cost of buying the M80HP, and I looked at buying the M100, and then a pair of LFR1100 came up on B-Stock that were a good $1000 off new, and I decided that it was a great deal and not to pass it up. So yea, I bought them.

I also bought was I thought was a great deal on an Integra pre-amp, but it turned out that the main processor board was fried and would cost another $4-500 to fix when it was worked out, so I said 'to heck with that' and sold it to someone else who didn't care that the surround speakers would never work.

I did see a pair of the EP800 on refurb. I hummed and ahhed about them for a week then phoned up Brend and purchased them. But after a bit more consideration and before the weekend was out, realized that the shear size of them was more than I really wanted as I mocked up some cardboard boxes to represent how they would look, and felt it wouldn't fit in my room. So I phoned him back up and said lets cancel that order as exlabdriver had tried to purchase the same referb speakers at the same time. It's not that I could not have used them.. they were probably too large for the room I felt and as someone else had wanted to buy, I thought it was being a really nice guy. You on the other hand seem to have chastised me for it.


Perhaps I should point out:

A - it is my money and if I'd like to spend it then why shouldn't I.

B - they are my ears that are telling me that it sounds different, and that I like it better when I play the surround speakers through the anthem amp (but the fronts don't sound as good as I loose the omni). Perhaps there is another reason why it sounds wrong to me.

C - I don't remember you coming around to my place to see the room and decide that it hasn't been built to the correct standards to get the most sound possible out of it. It might be a great book but so are some of the other books that I have read too. Why buy anther boot to tell me that my room is not perfect.

Right now I am just looking at my options to figure out what will be right for me.

I've tried Emotiva (won't go there), Odyssey Extreme Khartagas monos(loved them, but only drove my LR), and now have the Outlaw and just love it, but boy it is a back breaker.

You are probably very right with this. The anthem is a more powerful amp @ 250w but some say it's very conservative. the receiver is rated at 120w. The problem is that when I do the pioneer sound setup with the mic, the end results make the front speakers sound just as wrong as the rear speakers, rather than the other way of making the rears sound better.

I will freely admit that I don't know why I think it sounds better when I hook up the anthem. If I had a second powered amp, I could so some better testing. See if it's just me making it up in my head because I've already concluded that i should sound better so therefor I am making it.

But I don't see anyone jumping up and down when someone says that are looking to upgrade to the M80HP or the M100 speakers and saying to them, that they should check their room to sonically improve it, or they have upgraditis. All I want is to get my room sounding where I'd like it to be. and if it turns out that all I need is another acoustic panel made and put on a wall then great. But with any experiment, you don't know what will work until you try it.

As usual.. I'll just sit and ponder over this for a while and then get sidetracked into doing something else and come to accept that it sounds the way that it does until it bothers me that much that I'll make a change.

Random comments :

1. You're going to get more people jumping up and down about amp upgrades vs speaker upgrades for the simple reason that the "generally accepted range of different experiences" is much wider for speakers than for amps, maybe by 5:1 or 10:1.

2. I haven't had the greatest luck with any receiver's auto-setup, so the first thing I usually do is turn it off and get out a manual SPL meter. This has been more difficult since my SPL meter disappeared into the dark corners of my brother-in-law's basement.

I would suggest that auto-setup introduces a degree of randomness you probably don't need at this point. Subject to being jumped on by others, my guess is that you've done enough listening tests to be able to match speaker levels by ear as well as the auto-setup can do.

3. I've been mucking with audio systems for ~35 years and continue to be astounded by how much difference the room (placement, FRP treatments, other treatments) makes. More than the speakers, but not a lot more.

I guess the important distinction with amps is between (a) getting a sufficiently powerful amp to replace a not-sufficiently-powerful one (where the difference is huge) and (b) replacing a sufficiently powerful amp with a "better" sufficiently powerful amp (where differences seem to exist but are much more subtle, maybe 20:1 or higher).

No offense intended.

The LFR1100 speakers require you to have an external amp to be able to use it. If you had just a receiver that has could have a wonderful sounding amp inside of it, you would still be S.O.L. as you need to run pre-out to the DPS then into 4 channels of amplification.

I just happened to have a 5 channel amp that I was using for 5.1 surround. As my first post indicated, if I just used this amp, I would only have 3.1 because those fronts used up the channels that would have been for the surround.

The receiver I have does have the ability to run the rear speakers using the built in amp. If I was watching a movie, then it probably would be OK. But when I put on some SACD or DVD-A 5.1 music, I find that the sound out of the rear speakers doesn't sound as good as it should or could. Now yea, with futzing around with the amp I might be able to tweak it better. perhaps I will play with it for a bit to see what I can do.

I was just trying to explore the idea of seeing as I got new front speakers, why not buy a new amp (as they do require 4 channels) and asking what other patrons of this board would suggest. this would allow me to use my MCA just for the center and augment the rear to get 7.1

Thanks to J.B. for suggesting if I go Crown XLS to get the 1500.. And to SirQuack for letting me know that Outlaw sounds great. Two options that I now have to consider.

I will also take some time to see what comes up in the used market for multi channel amps.

Axiom does seem to underrate their speakers abilities, you may want to consider an amp which meets or exceeds (double) the 400 w stated.
Sorry if I've missed it, do you have pictures posted?

Matt:

I've never been pleased with the surround mixes that are included SACDs. They are just unrealistic & gimmicky with instrument sounds coming from all corners of the room.

The best way to listen to them IMO is good old 2 CH Stereo where the soundstage is to the front where it should be...

TAM

bridgman:

My Audyssey does more than just level match - it also applies some EQ to each speaker (if required) to try to flatten out the room response.

It works very well for me but not everyone likes the results...

TAM

brwsaw is right when he says "which meets or excedds (double) the 400 w stated.

this is in order to get the maximum available dynamic range that is possible to reproduce with the equipment. Then, there is no weak link, but an optimum match.

"Can we at least get pics?" he said meekly.

Axiom amp?

I'm still liking mine a lot.

pictures of what?

yer setup, of course.

I have been playing with an Intel Atom D2700 HTPC box and finally got it working well. Running a flavor of Ubuntu, I can get a copy of FooBar 2000 running and output though the Optical port while at the same time, have XBMC playing a video and output the sound through the HDMI.

This may sound pointless but I noticed that the better Pre-Amp solutions from Yamaha allows you to output a digital optical connection out to your Zone 2/3/4 ... a feature that I have not found in any of the receivers that for some reason only let you output an analog signal. So this would let me centralize out the audio so that you can listen to any music in any part of the house without limiting the ability to watch a movie in the media room.

The thought of getting a proper pre-amp is getting getting more thought and consideration all the time now.

That would be HUGE for me. I regularly use zone 2 and am often frustrated by the necessity of having an analog signal.