Should I ditch my stereo set-up for AV or combine?

[bam-bam]

Hi

Just been reading another post where a member is looking to add (or has added) an integrated stereo amp to his Yamaha Z7 av set-up.

My set-up is the reverse of this in that I have a stereo set-up and am looking for the 'best' way to add more a/v functionality/performance.

As ever, here's what I have now:

• Rotel RA-02 stereo integrated amp (acting as a pre-amp)
• Rotel RMB 1070 power amp (connected to RA-02 pre-outs)
• TV/DVD plays out using above on Aux 1
• Speakers - MA Silver 8i's for fronts (L&R)
• Rears - MA Radius 90
• Sub - RSW-12
• No centre
• Yamaha DSP E-800 connected to Aux 2 on RA-02
• TV/DVD plays out in surround when using DSP E-800 and RA-02 at 12 o'clock on volume

So that's the set-up. Straight stereo music sounds great - I like the way the Rotel set-up behaves with the MAs.
Movies or TV in surround sound ok, but never having had anything else I don't know if I'm missing anything.

So - am now thinking about getting a better av amp and I suppose the question is, what sort will give me better 2 channel than I already have and how much would I need to pay?

I like the look of the Yamaha RXV-2065 (my brother has a Yamaha connected to his MAs). But would it cut the mustard in the 2 channel area?

Related question is - should I combine the existing set-up with an av amp or is the Rotel not really good enough to warrant that?

Oh, budget - if av amp only then about £600.

Very confused at the moment so would appreciate thoughts/opinions. Apologies for the long post!

 

[Don Dadda]

Hi Bam Bam

To check whether you would be missing out on anything before you look at buying an av, would it possible to borrow your bro's av and hook that up to the Rotel RMB 1080 and see for yourself?

How many rca inputs does the power amp have? if only 1 pair then a switch of some kind will be needed to have both the RA-02 and an av connected to it if you like what you hear.

The 2065 is good av and should fair well in your setup but since you have a 200wpc poweramp, which i presumme the av will be connected to, maybe such a powerful av as the 2065 is not required. Maybe something cheaper will do as all you will need is av that is able to decode True hd, DTS, etc which most do nowadays for alot less.

Just a thought.

 

[bam-bam]

Hi Bam Bam

To check whether you would be missing out on anything before you look at buying an av, would it possible to borrow your bro's av and hook that up to the Rotel RMB 1080 and see for yourself?

How many rca inputs does the power amp have? if only 1 pair then a switch of some kind will be needed to have both the RA-02 and an av connected to it if you like what you hear.

The 2065 is good av and should fair well in your setup but since you have a 200wpc poweramp, which i presumme the av will be connected to, maybe such a powerful av as the 2065 is not required. Maybe something cheaper will do as all you will need is av that is able to decode True hd, DTS, etc which most do nowadays for alot less.

Just a thought.

Hi
Thanks. I made a mistake with the power amp - its a 1070 not a 1080. Only has 1 pair of RCA inputs. Good idea re borrowing my brother's amp - I'll ask but knowing how he has it sety up I think its unlikely!

Does the 1070 sway your view?

Cheers

 

[Don Dadda]

Nope!

Its still a good power amp and 2 x 130wpc is still a lot in my view, which stays the same.

If your brother throws a fit about borrowing his av, then take your power amp to his and maybe your speakers as well. Surely he must be ok with that as his av will not leave the house

 

[bam-bam]

Quick update - now thinking about Pioneer LX-72 for av duties.

Question still stands - will this give me decent stereo compared to what I have or am I just being too picky and won't notice the difference in reality?

Ideal set-up would be one box to run both av and music.

Cheers

 

[tvdavid]

Pioneer are one of the better AV AMPs for music.
I notice the power is 330 watts so you will probley get around 90 real watts RMS in stereo mode or 70 watts in surround sound.

My VSX 817 is 360 watts and this is loud and music is good on this but I wanted more power so got a NAD amp.

Edit I now see you also have a power amp so I would say no.

But the amp will be great with 7.1.

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

Although a single box solution has operational and aesthetic advantages, your £600 budget means you'll need to compromise on the stereo performance.

I'd suggest keeping the stereo and adding an A/V amp with pre-outs. Connect the A/V amp's front left and right preouts to the RMB1070 through a mechanical or automatic line-level switch (Sonance, Russound), using the A/V to drive the centre and surround speakers.

That said, I did ditch my stereo amplification, multichannel SACD replay being a requirement.

 

[bam-bam]

Although a single box solution has operational and aesthetic advantages, your £600 budget means you'll need to compromise on the stereo performance.

I'd suggest keeping the stereo and adding an A/V amp with pre-outs. Connect the A/V amp's front left and right preouts to the RMB1070 through a mechanical or automatic line-level switch (Sonance, Russound), using the A/V to drive the centre and surround speakers.

That said, I did ditch my stereo amplification, multichannel SACD replay being a requirement.

Thanks for that. Budget could be up to around £1k now - hence looking at the LX-72/Yamaha 3900.
How does/would the switch work and are they reliable - in terms of the speakers not seeing two amp loads at once?

I guess the question is now coming down to - is the Rotel stereo good enough to warrant keeping. I know its not high-end but it does sound good.

Thanks

 

[BlueWizard]

There are two ways of accomplishing this integration of a stereo and an AV system.

1.) Use the Rotel to replace the front channels of your AV amp. Connect the Rotel to the AV Amp's Pre-amp outputs. In this case, the AV amp's front channels go unused.

2.) Get a switch box, Beresford makes one for about £50, with this, one and only one source (AV amp or Stereo amp) can access one and only one pair of two potential sets of speakers. This way, the full stereo system, and the AV amps can share the same front speakers. You simply have to select which amp you want.

By 'one and only one' I mean that the switch is an OR switch; AV amp OR stereo amp, but not both, and Speaker-A or Speaker-B, but not both. Selecting one option, automatically de-selects the other.

Next, though you budget is a little too lean for that. There are some AV amps that do better for music playback. A current review of the Cambridge Audio 650R AV amp indicates these are stellar amps for music, but they don't have a lot of fancy features found on low cost amps. They do what needs to be done with great power and weight. But they are not cheap (£1000) -

Cambridge Audio 650R Black | AV Receiver With HDMI Interface | Richer Sounds

Quoting a recent article from Home Theater -

"The Cambridge is one of the finest sounding AVRs I've heard.

"This thing's a beauty when it comes to sheer audio performance..."

"If you're not a fan of bells and whistles and you want to spend your money on Audio Performance, this is your AVR."

Again, I'm not necessarily selling Cambridge amps, simply pointing out that there are AV amps that can supply solid quality power to musical performance, but the cost a fair chunk of cash.

In the same magazine, they have their 'Top Picks' which they base on their own in-house testing and reviews. Among them are the more modestly priced Marantz SR6004 (£799), which they describe as "Performance is musically trustworthy", implying that this amps does a better than average job at musical reproduction.

Here is the full review of the Marantz SR6004 -

Home Theater: Marantz SR6004 A/V Receiver

Still if I were you, I would be hard pressed to give up such a nice Rotel Stereo system. Likely you have a lot of money sunk into it, and I think it would be worth more to have than to sell.

If you are content to simply share your front speakers between the AV amp and the Stereo, then a simple Beresford, or equivalent, switch box gives you the best of both worlds.

However, if you want the Rotel to replace the AV amp's front power channels, and for the Rotel to be in the circuit all the time, that can be done too. In this case, the AV amp becomes the pre-amp for the Rotel Power Amp, and all signal sources will be fed into the AV amp. This gives you a slightly less direct path for the music, but this is how most people do it, and they seem very satisfied.

Steve/bluewizard

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

Thanks for that. Budget could be up to around £1k now - hence looking at the LX-72/Yamaha 3900.

My comments apply to £1000 as well - to get 8 channels (7.1) you need to pay ca 4 times as much as for stereo, and your stereo was not £250.

How does/would the switch work and are they reliable - in terms of the speakers not seeing two amp loads at once?

Actually, I suggested a line-level switch, with the speakers attached to the Rotel, rather than a speaker-level switch.

Both types of automatic switches exist, and are specifically designed to ensure complete isolation of the sources. Here are links to the Sonance Automatic Speaker Level Switch and Automatic Line Level Switch. Russound and Speakercraft also make such switches.

Here's a popular mechanical speaker level switch. Needless to say, running an A/B speaker selection switch in reverse - as is sometimes suggested here - is not a good idea.

 

[bam-bam]

Thank you very much for the advice and opinions.
I spoke with Cyberselect today and they recommended using a Russound AB-3.2 which is a speaker-level switch.

My thinking now is to keep the stereo and av completely separate with just the front l&R speakers in common.

That way, I can connect the av amp to the tv; dvd; games console etc. and use that most of the time and then listen to cd/vinyl via the Rotel.

It will also allow me to utilise all the channels in the av amp and only switch on what is needed and cuts down on the complexity of use (especially with the Mrs and kids).

So now back to considering the Yamaha 2065 but also the Marantz 6004 for av duties.

Good approach? Any drawbacks/potential pitfalls?

Thanks

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Personally I wouldn't give most mainstream AV amps the time of day, certainly not if there is any requirement to deal with music aswell.

You already have a couple of decent power amps.
With £1k to spare, my thoughts would be to buy another rotel power amp for running your centre speaker, then either:
1. A HD audio capable processor like the Audiolab 8000AP, or a Marantz 8000 if you can find a s/h one for the dosh
2. A legacy processor like the Proceed AVP2.
The AVP2 can't handle full HD audio, but would almost certainly be better at music, DD, DTS, Pro Logic (I assume you'll still watch some TV and SD-DVDs).
BD audio will be inline with your E800, i.e. maxbitrate DTS on BDs with DTS-MA. I've never run the test, but wouldn't be surprised if an AVP2 running maxbitrate DTS was on par with a cheapo solution capable of full HD.

As a quick background, I used to have an E800 and remember dem'ing a £1k Onkyo at home. I actually preferred the steering on the E800 on movies, and for music, well the Onk was not in the same league (though being fair, I'm talking about comparing it to some fairly reasonable dedicated stereo kit).

 

[BlueWizard]

My comments apply to £1000 as well - to get 8 channels (7.1) you need to pay ca 4 times as much as for stereo, and your stereo was not £250.

Perhaps you got it already, but what Mark is saying here is this (I think). Take the per amp channel cost of your Rotel amp, then multiply that by 7 to equal the 7 amps found in an AV amp, and you will have the cost of the AV amp you need in order to equal your stereo equipment.

For example, the Cambridge 740A is a stereo amp for £500 with two 100w channels. So, about £250 per amp channel. Now multiply that by 7 and you see that you need to spend £1750 to presumably equal the quality of the Cambridge stereo amps?

Most people don't look at it this way, they look as the £500 stereo amps and a £500 7.1 channel AV amps, and decide which they are going to spend their money on. But of course, those are FAR from equivalent amps.

When you look at the cost per amplifier channel, it takes a LOT of AV amp to equal a stereo amp.

Again, I think Mark made the point, I just wanted to expand on it a bit.

Just a thought.

Steve/bluewizard

 

[bam-bam]

That is a very succint summary and is exactly the type of analysis/opinion I was after. I know the Rotel set-up I have is not exactly high-end (maybe not even mid-end) but I wanted to get some context and I think the per channel cost is a good way to look at it.

Can't remember off-hand but the Rotel integrated was about £450 new and the power amp was about £600 - so on that basis I'm into Arcam territory to get an equivalent! And that ain't gonna get approved!

I'm leaning more and more to the Marantz SR6004 for the av side of things.

Will the set-up I described above (with the Russound speaker switch) work ok? Trying to find somewhere to demo the Marantz is proving tricky...

Really appreciate your input so far.

 

[BlueWizard]

As long as you get the correct switch, it should work fine. Just make sure you get the right switch as there are many types of A/B switches out there.

The suggested Russound AB-3.2 appears to be the right switch. I didn't check the manufacturer's website, but I did a Google search and all indications are that this switch it to connect the speaker output of two separate amps to one set of speakers.

The only thing I would point out, is that the Russound AUTO switch is about double the cost of the manual Beresford. If you are OK with the extra money, then there shouldn't be a problem.

The Auto switch sense which input has voltage on it, and switches to that channel. There is a slim potential for conflict. For example, if one amp has some hum, while the other amp is between songs, it might mistake the hum for a signal and then switch. But the chances of that are very slim, and a switch like this probably takes great precautions to make sure that one amp is out of the circuit before the other amp is switched in.

The Auto switch can also be controlled with an external voltage. Though I don't think it has any manual override provision, other than the external switching voltage.

The Marantz SR6004 according to Home Theater Magazine, is a 'Top Pick' and does a good job with music, and has an easy to use interface. I think the price is about £730 to £800, which is a good price range to be in.

Here are a list of Home Theater Mag 'Top Pick' in the AV amp catagory -

Home Theater: Buyer's Guide: Audio/Video Receivers

These 'Top Picks' are based on in-house testing and evaluation.

Here are all the 'Top Pick' Categories -

Home Theater: Buyer's Guide:

Of course, this is just one source and one group's opinions.

Steve/bluewizard

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

The Sonance and Russound switches have options for configuring time delays and trigger signal levels, and in any case will NEVER simultanously present two amps to the speaker; that's their whole purpose.

I would nevertheless reiterate that the Rotel power amp is likely to be significantly better than the AV amp's power amps and therefore you will be much better off switching between the preamp / AV amp and the power amp using a line level switch, although of course electrically both approaches will work perfectly.

A manual switch costs much less, the question is whether you want the annoyance.