I currently have a pair of ascend cbm170's, a denon AVD-2000 surround decoder/preamp, and an adcom gfa-535 60wpc power amp with 12ga wire, and a hsu vtf-2. I like the sound, though my room acoustics are pretty bad (concrete with a little carpet on the room and walls). My cd spinner is pretty bad (some koss dvd player) but that can be fixed later and I'm running digital coax to the denon anyway for the DAC.
Next year I'm moving in with my buddy who has a sony 30" HDTV and an xbox360, and I'll be combining forces with him. This entails buying surrounds and a center channel, as well as the appropriate amplification. I'll be either buying three more cbm170's and the stands i need or I'll upgrade my current pair of 170's to SE (signature edition) and buy three new SE 170's.
For amplification I'm kind of split. I was thinking that I'd just buy two more gfa-535's on ebay and keep separates for the sound quality (I care most about music). That would run me about $250-$300 for amplification. The living area will be small and I'm certain that 5/2 more power would be MORE than sufficient for my music.
Or I could get a panasonic xr digital receiver new for about the same money. It's rated higher in wattage, but it probably doesn't produce clean sound at a much higher level than my current adcom amp, if at all.
I have a few questions, though. Since I would be biamping the center channel (i think you can do it with the 535, i'll have to check), that channel would have more power available. Does that mean that at any given volume on the denon preamp, the center channel will overpower the other channels?
Also, has anyone heard both adcom amps from this period and
the new panasonic digital receivers? I will of course listen myself before buying the panasonic, but I was curious if anyone had any subjective evaluations.
Lastly, does anyone recommend any other amplification options?
EDIT: i just realized that my dad has an adcom gfa-7000 amp. I haven't really considered getting a multi-channel power amp. How do you all think that would fare against 3 separate stereo amplifiers?
Next year I'm moving in with my buddy who has a sony 30" HDTV and an xbox360, and I'll be combining forces with him. This entails buying surrounds and a center channel, as well as the appropriate amplification. I'll be either buying three more cbm170's and the stands i need or I'll upgrade my current pair of 170's to SE (signature edition) and buy three new SE 170's.
For amplification I'm kind of split. I was thinking that I'd just buy two more gfa-535's on ebay and keep separates for the sound quality (I care most about music). That would run me about $250-$300 for amplification. The living area will be small and I'm certain that 5/2 more power would be MORE than sufficient for my music.
Or I could get a panasonic xr digital receiver new for about the same money. It's rated higher in wattage, but it probably doesn't produce clean sound at a much higher level than my current adcom amp, if at all.
I have a few questions, though. Since I would be biamping the center channel (i think you can do it with the 535, i'll have to check), that channel would have more power available. Does that mean that at any given volume on the denon preamp, the center channel will overpower the other channels?
Also, has anyone heard both adcom amps from this period and
the new panasonic digital receivers? I will of course listen myself before buying the panasonic, but I was curious if anyone had any subjective evaluations.
Lastly, does anyone recommend any other amplification options?
EDIT: i just realized that my dad has an adcom gfa-7000 amp. I haven't really considered getting a multi-channel power amp. How do you all think that would fare against 3 separate stereo amplifiers?
