low end dorm system, power amp suggestion? (1 Viewer)

[ericMM]

Oh my word. Pink Floyd - Animals followed by Radiohead - Hail to the Thief. To recap. Denon AVD-2000, Adcom GFC-535, Ascend CBM-170's, soundking 12ga, cheap stands, cheap dvd player using coax out. All the interconnects from cd to pre to power are pretty nice gold-plated audiograde stuff I jacked from my dad's toybox.

Bad: I got REALLY scared at first because it sounded like a high school gymnasium PA system at first. Then I chnaged from dolby surround on the preamp to stereo. Phew!

I also put up four carpet samples on the wall behind the listening location (the futon). This seemed to help a little bit with the initial problems too, but maybe it's just the plaebo effect.

I don't have a LOT of experience with home theater grade components. I have friends with their sony satellite in-a-box systems, and they're flat out unacceptable for music. Then there is my dad's setup which cost about as much as a japanese sedan, and it's pretty incredible with its dedicated listening room. This is a good compromise. I'll probably upgrade the speakers in a year or two when I get a more substantial place to live, but for I'm definitely enjoying this. The midrange is pretty clear. My definition of clear is thus: I can pick out every instrument that I can hear individually when they are all playing together. A few Radiohead tracks confirmed that these speakers are capable of this even at volume. I think the main thing holding back my setup at this point are the acoustics of the room, and my lack of a sub. I might pick up a book on the subject of acoustics at some point, but right now I'm enjoying the loudest stereo in my dorm. WOOT!

 

[Eric_Bender]

Eric,

Congrats on the system. I purchased my first Adcom amp, GFA-545 right after college. I am still using it. It is rock-solid. The biggest thing that will affect you listening experience will be speakers. The adcom can drive a lot, at 80x2 you will not be unhappy. I have a pair of Boston A-150 3 ways that my Adcom just makes sing. It is a beautiful thing.

Eric

 

[ToddPhipps]

Sounds like you got a really nice setup! I'm a 2-channel stick-in-the-mud, so I dig a great 2-ch rig. You have the chance to turn more students onto the joys of true quality sound, instead of the muddy fakeness of Bose Acoustimess disasters.

BTW, not all paper-cone tweeters are bottom-feeders...Peerless used to make a really nice one that McIntosh used. The old CTS phenolic ring tweets were decent, not great but not as bad as Bose. The JBL LE-8T used in the L-100/4311 is a fine little HF transducer. My vintage Pioneer HPM-100's (basically L-100 clones designed by JBL's former chief engineer) have similar paper-cone tweets and they're quite smooth. Not quite as detailed as the Peerless domes in my DIY bookshelves, but better than I'd expect a cone tweeter to be. But most of those Realistic/Optimus towers used a pretty blah cone tweet usually, though one model had a horn-loaded textile-dome tweet, forgot which one though. Supposed to be a sleeper after a couple mods.

Todd in Beerbratistan

 

[eddieZEN]

eric,

ask your folks for a Hsu STF-2 (STF-1 if they're cheap, heh) for Christmas. Those Ascends were really designed to be used with a sub, and they integrate perfectly with the Hsus.

 

[Robert_Gaither]

eddieZEN, I'm starting to become a believer in them as well, I recently picked up the Sonic Impact amp, a car adapter (it was only one I could find locally that would do 2000mA of current), and pulled the marine life battery out of the garage (my two channel rig used to be DC all the way thru for better sound when I had more free time to enjoy the hobby) and subbed this $30.00 amp in place of the AudioSource amp 3. For low level listening this outperformed the amp 3 in all facets we describe audio but I was limited when turned up at theater reference level (my opinion I think it's similar to a class A amp where it's full wattage is used for the signal at all time so SI amp was pushing it's full 6 watts at 8 ohm). If the panasonic is similar in this respect, then I can see how you came to your opinion and would most likely agree with you.

 

[Bill_Rockefeller]

Count me in on the digital bandwagon too. Picked up a Rotel 1077 ($2500 MSRP) 7 channel digital amp and have been in nirvana ever since. The difference is stunning! (Over a Denon 4806 receiver w/140x7 and THX Ultra 2 certification).

I'll do a full review on it later, but IMHO digital amps are just incredible.

 

[eddieZEN]

Robert,

I've been curious about that Sonic Impact model myself!

The Panny is silky smooth with jaw-dropping detail and best of all, zero distortion no matter how high you turn it up. Gotta try it to believe it. And to think, about 6 months ago I was raving about my NAD separates...lol

However make sure you have speakers that put out decent midrange, all that amazing detail might not sound so great if applied to an overly bright speaker with weak mids.

 

[eddieZEN]

Bill,

wow now that's a HIGH end digital amp you've got there! When you post your review, please also post a copy in that ecoustics.com forum, right now I'm the sole digital fanatic...could use some reinforcements!

Plus some people are considering just that 4806 and some other equally pricey analog amps/receivers, who are a bit too proud to home audition a $230 Panny.

 

[Robert_Gaither]

This would pretty much describe the sonic impact as well, I had a Klipsh wall-wort from their DD decoder I used initially which did well (1000mA output, sounded comparable to my other two channel amps such as AMC 2100, Adcom 535, and audio source amp1a but not as good as the audio source amp 3) but when I switched it to the 2000mA it seemed to be in a different ballpark and images much better with more bass slam with amazing control (don' laugh, it's amazing what 6 watts of clean power will do). I also have the luxury of using many speakers I have between my computer (Nht SuperZeroes both with and without the Northcreek x-over mod), bedroom (Optimus LX5/X77), and main theater (Optimus LX 8 [peerless woofer/lineaum tweeter] and Bic DV62 centers [3 for LCR] duties). I also like the fact it has a gain control on the amp (no pre-amp required) but hate the fact you have to use a rca to mini-jack converter and the speaker clips forces me to use 18g speaker wires (I'm thinking about pulling it out of it's case and seriously modding this). What's also weird about this amp is that you can use 8 AA batteries as well though I haven't tried this yet. I would gauge the sound of this amp somewhere between upper tier mid-fi/lower tier hifi quality class A solid state amps and mid-level tube gear, if this is what future holds then I need to start posting some of my gear in used items section soon.

 

[eddieZEN]

where'd you get the sonic impact, Amazon.com? I'd be curious to experiment with that too...

 

[Robert_Gaither]

I went to Amazon and then did their comparison shopping and it referred me to a business called www.electrogalaxy.com which sold the amp for $27.39 includes shipping. It's funny I'm not able to find the product on their website but it's pretty easy to find on Amazon.

What will shock you is how small (size of a video tape), light (without batteries this will require carefull placement as the speaker cables, power cable, and input cables will make the item slide if there is any tension on any of them), and cheap looking ("it's freaking plastic!") this amp will give you on initial impression but when hooked up and played the clarity, depth of the soundstage, detail, placement of objects/instruments/singers, fullness of sound (it's flat and definitely doesn't sound thin), and loudness (when people hear of how most AVRs and amps play mostly at 1 watt this usually is lost on them until they get this). I would highly recommend to most people, don't waste your money getting your kids a crappy mini-system but one of these and a quality set of bookshelves and maybe a sub with hi-level inputs (for more bass slam). The other beauty of this is if you want to go DC for sound (no conditioners, power shifters, or power surges/sags) this is a cheap and affordable option. I don't like the prices I've seen for their wall-worts (it's only 1300mA) and would like to see if I can find a cheap 12v 2000mA one for those who won't have the luxury (ie being single or SAF to contend with, I have to consider the future) to use a car battery.

 

[eddieZEN]

> The other beauty of this is if you want to go DC for sound (no conditioners, power shifters, or power surges/sags) this is a cheap and affordable option.

Interesting, you think on DC it would actually sound better than unmodified AC? Never thought of that...wonder how quickly it runs down batteries. Guess you'd need to get some rechargeables in that case!