Calling Out The Gurus of The Forum........... (1 Viewer)

[RJ's325ITS]

Hey guys and gals. I'm the noob of this week w/the question of the week too... No j/k lets GO TO THE POINT.

I will be building my dream home theater system for this cristmas

, So I made a screw up drawing of my plans. I wil love you to look at it. Let me know what do you think and if it will work. All info will be apreciated..

the units:

I have a pioner DVD that has analog 5.1 outputs. These will feed my main receiver.

The main receiver will have 5.1 analog inputs and it will be rated at no less that 500 watts.

Then each of the 5 channels will go via stereo in to a receiver rated at 200watts. these 5 receivers will work as a amp. and they will feed my fr, center, fl, rr, and rl speakers.

If everything works as plan I will get around 150 watts rms to each of the 5 channels.

The sub woofer:

I have a 10" 350 rms sub that is good in a small room, but I just closed the garage and built a theater room there. So I doble the space. I was thinking of buying 1 extra sub and placing them on the sides. Also, I will have another 200 watts receiver send a pre amp signal to these two powered subs.

Here is the drawing I was talking about.


THANKS A LOT.

 

[Alon Goldberg]

A few questions for you:

- what are the dimensions of the room?
- what speakers will these amps be driving?
- are these speakers primarily for music or DVD?
- what type of music do you listen to?
- what DVD player and TV do you own?
- what is your budget?

My suggestion would be to keep it simple and purchase seperates:

- Rotel RSP-1098 or RSP-1068 pre/pro
- Rotel RMB-1095 poweramp (200wpc all 5 channels driven) or RMB-1075 (120wpc all 5 channels driven)

Alternative:

- Rotel RSX-1067, Rotel RSX-1057 or Denon AVR-4306 receiver
- Rotel RMB-1095 poweramp (200wpc all 5 channels driven) or RMB-1075 (120wpc all 5 channels driven)

 

[RJ's325ITS]

- what are the dimensions of the room? it used to be a 2 oversize car garage
- what speakers will these amps be driving? still looking I like some from hi-fi buys but I might make my own
- are these speakers primarily for music or DVD? Movies only.
- what type of music do you listen to? reaggeton, salsa, merenge, country
- what DVD player and TV do you own? DVD is a pioner w/ comp. outputs and a projector with comp. inputs
- what is your budget?less than 2k


My system w/the speakers will run about $1500 to $2000

I did a search and got prices on those units from the $1400 to the $2200

 

[Brent_S]

I'm sorry...you lost me at using a single 5 channel receiver to then feed 5 separate 1? channel receivers. How does that work?

-Brent

 

[RJ's325ITS]

Well that one will be the head, the one that will do all the pro logic, THX, etc. I will spend some money in a good receiver that will send a good quality signal to the others.

Also I will set the volumen of the others at no more that 12 o'clock, You know.... Everything after 12 o'clock is distortion.

So by having all the others set at a "x" volumen I can control the head receiver and I will control all the other at the same time.

Also by having the control on the volumen per channel, it will allow me to turn up or down any speaker to my taste. not that matters due that the room is square.

 

[Alon Goldberg]

You will get far more performance from purchasing one multichannel poweramp than purchasing 5 cheap stereo receivers.

--

Here's what I would purchase on your budget:

Rotel RMB-1075 poweramp ($800-$1000)
Denon AVR-3806 receiver ($800-$900)

Keep in mind that the Rotel poweramp will deliver a full 120 watts per channel, all five channels driven. You'll have a tough time finding any manufacturer who makes a surround receiver under $1,000 that can deliver an honest 120 watts per channel. And you certainly won't find one good surround receiver, and five well built stereo receivers (at 200 watts per channel nonetheless!) in this budget, though it wouldn't make any logical sense to proceed down this path!

Keep it simple: purchase a surround receiver and a multichannel poweramp, this will deliver the most performance for your budget.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

I strongly recommend listening to Alan and not buying stereo receivers to power the speakers. If you think you need the extra power buy a decent receiver or pre amp for the AV processing and then buy a real multichannel power amp to power the speakers.

 

[RJ's325ITS]

Thank you all of you for all your inputs on the subject....

It makes sense what you said, It will be just keeping it simple. The reason I wanted to do it like this is b/c:

1. I met a guy a while ago that had his system set-up like this. I really like the layout and the sound. He explain me about the quality of the sound.

2. The price of using receivers out of a pawshop or out of eBay will put me down $700 and leave me w/ $1300 to spend in the speakers.



The reason I want a main receiver reated at no less that 500watts is b/c at 50% performance the receiver should be able to handle 50 watts per channel, and this signal should be a hight quality signal. So if I can get a hight quality 50 watt signal to each secondary receiver this receiver will have to amplified just 100 watts at 50% performance to send out a hight quality signal that should be equals to 150 watts at only 50% performance of all the equipment used.

Now I can get the main receiver out of eBay for $80 shipped and it will be a good brand. like onkio or yamaha or pioner. The secondary receivers will be a name brand too.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

You can obviously do it anyway you want to...its your system. But if you bought a used multichannel amp from Audiogon, eBay or in one of the forum's you'd likely spend about the same as three 2 channel receivers and I guarantee you'd end up with MUCH improved sound quality over the receivers.

As for the power output from the 500 watt receiver to the other amps...you're looking at it incorrectly. A pre amp unit which is what your first receiver would be is going to send out a low voltage signal to the other amps not 50 watts. In other words you would connect the first receiver to an external amp or receiver using RCA cables carrying an unamplified signal. That signal then gets amplified by the amps downstream. If matters not how powerful the first receivers amps are because they are completely ignored.

 

[RJ's325ITS]

uhhmmm...... You got me thinking

 

[RJ's325ITS]

Hey Andrew I see your point and it was a misscalculation on my part.:frowning:

So in order to create more power out of my set-up I will have to:

1. get all my secondary receivers w/higher ratings, Something close to 500watts But these receivers only come only on 5 channels....

2 So in order to be used these 5 cahnnel receivers in my set-up.... I will have to used a "Y" RCA spliter out of the main receiver per channel, and used a stereo input in all of the secondary receivers ( CD, AUX, etc...). Then I will have to use all the secondary receivers in stereo mode, B/c I will be only using the FR & FL channels. Therefore the secondary receiver should auto bridge all the power to only 2 channels. I will run these 2 channels to each location to feed the speakers. Or I can just split the (-, +) wires in 2 and hook them up to the FR & FL channels so I can run a single wire to each speaker location.


How does this sound to you?

 

[Alon Goldberg]

Here are some excellent stereo poweramps, and yes you can certainly purchase a poweramp rated at 200 watts per channel and higher. The RB-1080 retails for around $1,000, though I'm certain you could find her cheaper on Audiogon. You would need three of these for your setup - one for your fronts, one for your surrounds, and one for your center, which will leave one channel free.

http://www.rotel.com/products/stereo...amplifiers.htm

If you're convinced you need 200 watts per channel, I would still recommend a multichannel poweramp. The RMB-1095 is an absolute monster, weighing in at 75lbs. Retail price is closer to $2,000, though I'm sure it can be found cheaper used. I wouldn't hesitate to purchase her if I had the budget, this poweramp is a dream.

http://www.rotel.com/products/multic...amplifiers.htm

As you can see, it is cheaper to purchase a multichannel poweramp than three stereo poweramps.

I think this is the only time anyone on this forum has ever tried to relate the merits of 5 mono or stereo receivers vs one poweramp. It just doesn't make sense.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

My recommendation is forget about buying receivers to power the speakers...you simply will not get what you're looking for. Spend the $500 - $1000 on a real multichannel power amp like this one (link) and then buy some sort of budget receiver that has the processing and video switching you need. So long as it has pre outs for all channels you're good to go. Connect the receiver to the power amp using RCA cables and the speaker leads to the multichannel amp and let it do the job it was designed for. True power amps will hit their rated power output so the one above will give you a clean 125 watts. Virtually all receivers fall short of their rated power...some grossly so and if its clean sound you want go the dedicated power amp route. You will still have control over each channels volume as you balance the individual channels in the setup of the receiver.

As far as power goes I very much doubt you need 200 watts a channel unless you have a HUGE room and very inefficient speakers. That's not to say their aren't benefits of having more power on hand then you need but most people don't understand what power outputs really give you. Most common speakers are rated for their efficiency using 1 watt of power. The average efficiency is typically around 89 dB/1 watt...that means that if you give that speaker 1 measly watt of power it will generate a signal that's 89 dB in volume...that's pretty loud! Where the power comes in is that to get a volume of 92 dB you need 2 watts (double the power for every 3 dB increase)...so if you want 105 dB peaks you need significantly more power...but still not anywhere near 200 watts.

Here's a chart for a speaker with a sensitivity of 93 dB/watt as an example.

Sensitivity: 93db @ 1W/1M
1 watt 93 db
2 watts 96 db
4 watts 99 db
8 watts 102 db
16 watts 105 db
32 watts 108 db
64 watts 111 db
128 watts 114 db
256 watts 117 db
512 watts 120 db