Denon receivers as pre/pro's question (1 Viewer)

[Troy TN]

I notice Denon is known for having TWO pair of surround sound speakers. Surround speaker A and surround speaker B. Not including the surround back speakers. How would one utilize both surround speakers A and B using an external amp to power the surrounds? It looks like the receivers only have preouts for one set of surround speakers. Many Denonn owners have one pair of surrond speakers on the side wall using dipole design for movies and another pair of direct radiating speakers in the rear corners or rear walls for 5.1 music. I assume the preouts using an external amp would only be good for one set. there is no way to power both surround speakers A & B using an external amp? Am I correct with this? How are you current Denon users powering your surround channels when using external amps? Secondly can you really justify the expense of an external amp and any sound improvement over Denon's internal amps?

Thanks

 

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

A lot of people who use external amps with their denons only use the externals for the front speakers. That takes the heaviest load off the internal amp and lets it better service the other channels, perhaps giving them a better sound quality than they would get if the mains where also on the internal amp.

So, that kind of answers your question, hook up your B surrounds to the denon internal amp and leave your A surrounds on the external amp. The denon "should" turn off the pre-outs for the A surrounds if you switch it to use the B surrounds. Note the quotes on should, because I haven't tried it and haven't read anything to say that is the expected behaviour. It just makes sense that that is the way it ought to work.

 

[Troy TN]

I was not sure if when I hooked up the surround preouts it would shut off the B surround speakers completely? Anyone running the surround channel A on their Denon receiver with an external amp and verify if the B surround speakers still work? I do agree I really want to upgrade the front three channels only. It just seems the price for all 3 channel Anthem, Parasound, etc cost the same "used" as a new sealed 5 channel version. Those 3 channel amps are spendy. I guess I could use just the front three channels on a 5 channel amp.

I just read a review on the Anthem PVA-7 (seven channel amp) which can be had for $1,000 on the net and it compared it to the Denon 5800 internal amps and the reviewer could not hardly tell a sonic improvement except at extreme levels. So an Anthem 125 per channel 7 channel external amp sounded the same as the Denon avr 5800 170 watt per channel 7 channel internal amp. Maybe an upgrade to external amps would not have such an improvement if I'm already using the Denon.

 

[Troy TN]

bump...

 

[Tony Meconiates]

I think it depends on what kind of speakers you have... what do you have?

 

[Troy TN]

Klipsch RF-7's for the main speakers

and Klipsch matching reference all around