Is it going to be a problem using 2 amps with different power ratings for HT? (1 Viewer)

[Joe Bauman]

For my home theater setup, if I use a 200 watts per channel amp to power the front left and right speakers and then a 100 watts per channel amp to power the center and rear channels, amp I going to have problems balancing the volume levels? I have no gain controls on the 200 watts per channel amp.

 

[Jason Watson]

No. I run 750 ea. to the mains, 375 to the center and about 450 ea. to the surrounds. Matching levels with an spl meter has never been a problem. I use a single amp for the front 3 and a different amp for the surrounds. Even though the two amps have a different character, the front to back pans blend just fine.

Jason

 

[Kyle_Y]

Jason,

Are you using the same brand of amp all around. I am thinking of adding an extra amp to power the fronts(Parasound or Rotel) and use my Onkyo to power the rears, will this distort front to rear pans?

 

[Jason Watson]

Kyle,

No, I am using an EAD Powermaster 1000 for the front three channels. I bi-amp the mains with four of the five channels and the remaining channel powers the center. Magnepans present a 4ohm load and the Powermaster does 375 per into 4 ohms. The surrounds(also Maggies) are powered by an Acurus A250. I would try to keep the front three speakers driven by an amplifier with the same overall character. This just seems correct to me but I have not tried mixing amps up front to know how much difference it would make. I have(and do) mixed amps front to back and have had no problems. In fact, my first move to seperates was adding an Acurus 200X3 to a Sony 30es for the front three and let the Sony continue to drive the surrounds. That was 200WPC to the front and only 85WPC to the surrounds and it sounded great.

Jason