amp sat on subwoofer harmful? plus other question

[dazed&confused]

Is having a stereo amplifier (my eighteen year old Mission Cyrus) sat directly on top of my subwoofer (Castle cube) likely to cause either an harm or interfere with the quality of music in any way? I can’t see why it should, but thought I’d check and see. The amp would be ideal, sitting on the sub out of the way, underneath the table the sub sits under (my 5.1 amp and DVD player sit on the table).

I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me to try this before now, but I’ve just hooked up the Cyrus amp to the front right and left speaker “pre-out” sockets on my Yamaha DSP-AX750SE, using a spare pair of Mark Grant phono leads. Wow, what an improvement to stereo sound through my Castle Compact satellites.

What has really surprised me is the improvement in bass management. I was expecting maybe some improvement in stereo sound, hopefully in the detail and mid range, but thought by running the fronts from a separate amp I might loose some integration with the subwoofer. This was quite important, because the sub sits out of sight by the side of the sofa, on the opposite wall to the front speakers. Up until now, this position has, on some music, annoyingly made the sound coming out of the sub obviously localised and detached. Somehow, pre-outing the fronts into the Cyrus has also improved integration and brought everything together bass wise.

I’d be very interested to hear any explanations for this.

 

[clarky78]

The 750 has had remarks about poor bass in pure direct mode, so maybe just the fact that the Cyrus has a fuller bass and overall sound your integration is better?

I soooo wish i had not sold my Marantz stereo amp to my mate for 40quid now...

 

[dazed&confused]

I've always found pure direct mode pretty useless really, as it cuts out the sub, so use straight mode instead. I'm surprised that the Yamaha doing all the work in this mode doesn't integrate the sub better than handing over partc of the work to the cyrus. But as you say, it does seem to be that the overall range of the cyrus is better and therefore makes the sub seem less detached.

Funnily enough, it does seem to depend on what music is played though. All I playerd earlier sounded better through the cyrus in every way. I'm currently playing the Australian band the Triffids, a highly produced late 80's album and pre-pout through the cyrus it sounds flatter and less dynamic than through the yamaha alone. But the sub is still better integrated.

 

[clarky78]

I couldn't live without Pure Direct, but then i refuse to use my sub to do what my front's are 'supposed' to be doing anyway.

 

[stranger]

As your sub will have a large magnet I would say placing your amp on it would be detrimental.

 

[dazed&confused]

Your KEF IQ7's are a bit bigger tham my Castle Compacts though Clarky

Stranger, could you expand a little? - detrimental to the amp or the sub, and in what way? Thanks.

 

[Knyght_byte]

a normal stereo amp that doesnt rely on processor chips wouldnt really be affected by a subs magnetic fields.........but one with processor/memory chips might possibly be affected depending on shielding in the amp or sub....

its unlikely to do much......altho if the sub is prone to vibration on its cabinet then that might affect the amp too....