connecting a stereo amp to av preout help needed?

darkness1

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I'm being gready here by wanting best of both worlds. Good stereo for music and also a nice
av setup. Now atm i'm running Q4's fronts through a Yam A2 av amp. Now i would love
to also improve my music and nothing on the new av amps seem to come up great for this
purpose. Can someone please explain if i can buy a quality stereo amp and connect it
to the A2 preout and thus to my speakers and use the stereo amp for music and av for films?

Any other suggestions also welcome.
 
I asked a similar question on here but got no reply's.

Here's what I have done and it works a treat,

I have a Marantz SR5200 AV Receiver that is connected to all speakers (5.1) and a NAD C350 stereo amp connected to the fronts only. I have put both the cables from the Marantz and NAD into the same speaker connections on the front speakers with no problem. I assume you just have to be careful not to turn on both the AV and stereo amps at the same time to save the fronts from being overloaded.

Another alternative is to use a speaker switch box that the fronts can be connected to so you can switch between them for films or music.
Not tried this myself but some people on here have mentioned sound quality issues with switch boxes so ask further advice on this.

Hope this helps but I am sure more experienced members will put you on the right track if what I have said is correct.

Regards
 
you can connect a power amp straight to the the pre-outs, adjust front left and right line levels accordingly on the A2 and then the A2 will completely control volume. It will also free up power for centre and rears improving AV. Connect CD player and DVD etc as usual.
 
If you connect stereo amp to pre-outs on av amp you have to connect cd player/dvd player etc into the av amp if I am right?

However, does this set-up effect the audio quality for cd play back? Is it not better to have the cd player connected straight into the stereo amp?

Sorry if this is basic but I am trying to get my head around this and I am sure others will appreciate the advice as well.

Regards
 
ashworthacca

You would connect the cd player to the stereo amp.
the pre outs from the AV are to drive the L/R fronts only for the AV side.

So you have normal stereo for CD etc.

Doc
 
I'll have to try this!. From the pre-outs where would you connect to on the stereo amp, Aux? or another free input?

I think I was thinking about connecting to my NAD C350 through the "Main In" connector where you have to remove the jumper. I don't think you can connect the CD Player to the stereo amp this way for some reason.

I hope I am thinking correct, if not I am totally confused.

Anyway Darkness1 sorry for hijacking your thread.

Regards
 
You will not be able to connect your CDP directly to the power amp the outputs will be at line level (Un amplified). The power amp requires a pre amp to drive it controlling volume, amplifying the signal etc. You have this in most stereo systems in what is called an integrated pre/power amp. Your AV amp is basically an integrated amp. A seperate PRE/Power combo is better.

On the back of the power amp you should have the speaker outputs and a L&R input. Most probably RCA connection. I expect that is all the connections you have. Connect the L&R outputs (Should say Pre-Out)to the L&R inputs on the Power AMP.
CD playback will be improved because you are only using the AV amp as a Pre Amp. The power stage now has it's own power supply. This is generally enough for a big improvement.
HTH
 
Thanks for the advice Knightshade.

Time to start playing around with this I think.
 
docb said:
You would connect the cd player to the stereo amp.
the pre outs from the AV are to drive the L/R fronts only for the AV side.
set the AV amp to stereo on CD and only the front left and right channels are used, and are sent out the pre-outs :confused:
 
Chedmaster
If you connect as per my post you avoid running the CD player through the AV amp.
in the original post darkness 1 wanted to use the two amps with the one set of speakers to increase the stereo sound quality. the CD player could be connected to whichever amp you like but would make sense (to me) to connect it direct to the stereo amp, rather than running the signal through 2 amps.

Doc
 
power amps have ONE input, which has to have the volume adjusted by a PRE amp (the AV amp). You are suggesting an integrated amp, which means the AV will go through two pre-amps, which may or may not work well together. Also you end up with 2 volume controls for movies and wonder whether volume should be high on integrated or on AV amp, too many variables!
 
Chedmaster

I was trying to answer the original post, which doesnt mention a power amp, not too sure how we got onto power amps??

from my own perspective i have no problems with matching the volume as the stereo amp i have (Arcam A85) has a function that sets input processor volume which automatically returns when the input is selected.

From a sound quality perspective i would rather have AV going through 2 potentially seperate amps than the stereo side, especially if the two amps are not matched.

Doc
 
docb

i was trying to suggest what everyone does - add a power amp. the AV amp then acts as a pre-amp. why would you need 2 pre-amps?#

btw its my birthday so im slightly intoxicated aplogies for any spelling errors!
 
I was thinking that i have a few options here:
Granted the Yam A2 could do with some help so i could do the following:-
A) buy a power amp and increase performance quality at a min costing.
B) buy something along the lines of an Arcam avr300 which has strong musical background.
C) Why not buy a quality stereo intergrated amp and fix banana plugs to the speaker connection end, same with the av amp.Now this is a little messing around but within 2mins you could whip out the banana plugs from one amp to another and have a pure feed thus get best results?
 
I'd do what docb says and buy something like an Arcam A85/90 or A32 which has a fixed volume through the tape input and connect the CD player to the amp and the front pre-outs from the AV amp to the tape input. You then just press 1 button to switch between AV and CD and if you change the volume for 1 it has no effect on the other. You could then add a power amp if you wanted to for possible further improvement. If you are happy with your AV receiver then the above will work well - it does for me.
 
A) Sensible idea. No point having two pre amps. Quality of the power amp will be much higher.
B) Sorry yet to hear an AV AMP with half decent music playback for less than £4000.
C) But could you live with C? I reckon that would become a little tedious after a while.....
 
Iv'e played about abit now with various connections but find that connecting all the 5.1 speakers to the AV amp and just the front speakers to the stereo amp gives me best of both worlds. (In my case this means two sets of speaker wires go into the same conector on my front speakers). My CD player is connected to stereo amp so the AV Amp does not need to be on when playing music and the AV amp is in no way connected to the stereo amp so only the AV amp needs to be on when watching movies. This way both music and movies sound great.
 

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