What to buy? An Amp or Receiver? (1 Viewer)

[Matt]

Okay, I am looking for a little advice. My current set up consists of Infinity IL40's for the fronts, IL36C for the center, IL10's for the surrounds, and the IL120 sub. I currently use the Sony STR-DA333ES receiver.

I am debating on if I should just get an amp or a new receiver. I don't plan on expanding to 6.1 or 7.1 anytime soon (but of course, you just never know) so I am leaning toward an amp making a bigger impact to my current system right now.

Any advice/suggestions for an amp or receiver that would go well with my current setup are appreciated. I am looking to keep the price $1,200 or below. Thanks.

Matt

 

[Yogi]

If your receiver has preouts then go with a 125W x 5 amp upgrade since you dont plan to add 6.1 soon. If you go with a receiver now you'll be looking to upgrade to an amp or another receiver in another year or so where as the amp will probably last you a long long time.

 

[Matt]

I should have mentioned this earlier, but in reading comments in this forum, I have seen some people use two and three channel amps for their fronts and center, and keep their surrounds on the receiver. Is this a good option?

Matt

 

[Yogi]

If you are constrained in budget the best choice would be to get a nice two or three channel amp and leave the rest to the receiver. The main draw is on the front three channels mostly so your receiver would do a fair job of running the other three channels which are only used in the scenes with the surround effects.

 

[Craig Woodhall]

Matt,
my buddy has a Denon 1802 with 4 Paradigm studio 20's and a studio-cc.. I just sold him an Acurus 200Wx3 amp for the fronts and center and we kept the 2 rears running off the Denon. The difference is stunning, no comparision.. It might help that the studio 20's are pretty nice speakers to begin with.. He commented, aside from the obvious improvement in the front 3 speakers, that the rears now sounded much better.. With the reciever only powering the rear 2 channels it might even hit it's specs of 80w/channel.

 

[Paul Clarke]

I agree with Yogi. You should troll the audiogon listings and snag a good deal.

And similarly, as in Craig's story:
I noticed quite a bit of improvement simply by adding a Parasound 855A to my H/K 510 and using it to power the front three, R-L bi-amped. Depending on selection, some music now sounds almost holographic. And HT, which was already powerful and clean just got even more dynamic and capable.

Good Luck.

 

[Phil Mays]

Amp, no question.

 

[Matt]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I was leaning in the right direction to get an amp. Now I just have to decide what kind to get. I have been reading the forums and it is hard to decide what kind to get. It seems to me (from reading around here) that the amps under $1,200 are all pretty similar performers. Am I correct in this feeling?

Matt

 

[Michael Mathius]

With $1200 I'd go over to audiogon and snatch up a nice used amp.

I have a 7.1 setup with a 5 channel amp, so my rears are still on my receiver. I was going to get an addtional 2 channel amp but I'm gonna wait.

 

[Matt]

Yes, I browsed briefly over there at audigon. I am just investigating amps. I was looking at some 3 channels, but maybe I will look at the 5 channels. Trying to figure out what brand to go with is not easy as this is my first amp.
Matt

 

[Zbigniew]

with $1200 budget you can snatch a used Parasound 2205, a pair of used 1500; in each case you will have either 4 or 5 200+ watts of very good and massive power. Look also at Acurus, Rotel, ATI amps - all of them can add a lot of punch and articulation to your setup.

Good luck hunting.

_zjt

 

[Greg Haynes]

I second the recommendations for the Parasound 2205AT. Extremely high quality amp with incredible amounts of power. Nothing but positive reviews on the unit. Plus its within your budget.