[silvermesa]

My 5.1 songtower system is scheduled to arrive soon. I was hoping to try the AVA amps in my system but after contemplating the space constraints in my AV cabinet I decided for only one box instead of two.
I think I will try the Integra DHC 40.1 pre Pro and want to combine a quality amplifier with it for Ht and two channel music. After I get this initial set up made I will need to explore how to get digital audio from my mac computer to listen in two channel.

The question at present is, can you recommend a quality amplifier either 5 or 7 channels that will work well with HT and 2 channel music?

I have seen one member suggest an ATI 1506 and he felt good about it. There is an ATI 1807 on Audiogon now for $1400.

Thank You!

[taoggniklat]

There is an Acurus 5 x 125w on Audiogon for $575.

[jd3]

I use an Outlaw 7500 (200 wpc @8 ohms and 300wpc @4 ohms, made by ATI here in the USA) that I think does a good job powering my ST's.  It also has balanced inputs (I believe you can use balanced cables with the Integra) if that's important.  Someday I will likely upgrade to AVA gear but that will have to wait for a while.  If you buy before 9 pm today you can get a b-stock from Outlaw for $1379 (if they haven't sold out.)

John

[coke]

I had that preamp combined with an anthem MCA-50 amp. 

The preamp is basically a receiver with no amp in it.  The build quality was very disappointing for the price.  I also wasn't pleased with the sound of this combination.  It does have lots of features though, and since it seems like you're 50/50 with home theater and 2 channel, it could still be a decent option. Personally though after owning AVA equipment, I don't think i could go back to something like the integra.


What's your budget for preamp and amps?

[Big Red Machine]

There is an Acurus 5 x 125w on Audiogon for $575.

There was one locally to me for $300ish recently but I would go ATI before some of these others due to high reliability and ballsy performance reputation.  I have a 1506 and a 602 coming for my 7 speakers.  I can bridge the center to 450 watts.

The 1500 series are bridgeable and no longer made btw.  The 1600 and 1800 series are not bridgeable from my research.

The negatives on the giant 7 channel amps, IME, is that they weigh a ton and need support and expensive shipping, and can sometimes have trouble with the inner channels cooking as the all 7 channels start to heat up.  Just something to watch for.

[silvermesa]

Coke,

My budget for a pre pro is no more than $1500 at most for a reliable product. I decided since pre/pro and receivers are so finicky and laden with problems at all price ranges, I would like to keep it a little less, so that is why I was looking at the Integra DHC 40.1 for $980.00 It also is network capable for firmware upgrades and internet radio which appealed to me. Sorry to hear your experience was poor with it.

My budget for a amplifier is $2000.00 but would prefer to spend a little less if I could get it preowned.

I am hoping to order these items tommorrow. I have studied this till I blue in the face!

[K Shep]

The question at present is, can you recommend a quality amplifier either 5 or 7 channels that will work well with HT and 2 channel music?

I would take a look at the Parasound 5250 here :

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampsmult&1269185948&/Parasound-5250-5-channel-amp-2

Fits your price point.

[targa02]

My experience with NAD has been good.  Refurbished w warranty within your budget:  http://www.spearitsound.com/nad/T975.asp

[divisionbell77]

Coke,

My budget for a pre pro is no more than $1500 at most for a reliable product. I decided since pre/pro and receivers are so finicky and laden with problems at all price ranges, I would like to keep it a little less, so that is why I was looking at the Integra DHC 40.1 for $980.00 It also is network capable for firmware upgrades and internet radio which appealed to me. Sorry to hear your experience was poor with it.

My budget for a amplifier is $2000.00 but would prefer to spend a little less if I could get it preowned.

I am hoping to order these items tommorrow. I have studied this till I blue in the face!

Someone pointed out that Parasound on audiogon.  Very nice unit, and measurements shows that they are very conservative in their published specs.

The DCH-9.9 can be had for under $1300, and would be a better unit than the 40.1, IMO.  Do not forget to look at older higher end units that have 7.1 ins if you have a good bluray player to decode the high res audio formats(even skipping a processor all together to a 7.1 preamp, which many here will recommend).  Some procs in your price range would be a used Arcam, Krell and\or Anthem unit.

[John Casler]

Coke,

My budget for a pre pro is no more than $1500 at most for a reliable product. I decided since pre/pro and receivers are so finicky and laden with problems at all price ranges, I would like to keep it a little less, so that is why I was looking at the Integra DHC 40.1 for $980.00 It also is network capable for firmware upgrades and internet radio which appealed to me. Sorry to hear your experience was poor with it.

My budget for a amplifier is $2000.00 but would prefer to spend a little less if I could get it preowned.

I am hoping to order these items tommorrow. I have studied this till I blue in the face!

My clients have been very happy with the ONKYO Pro 5507 and W4S amps in that price category (just below)  You certainly want to be net capable if you want to stream off your computer.

[gkinberg]

silvermesa,

What did you end up settling on? I'm interested because I'm in a similar situation of upgrading components to mate with my songtowers for HT & 2-channel.

Garth

[silvermesa]

Hello all!

I really appreciate all of the responses. Due to finances and space in my enclosed av cabinet, I ended up gettting a pre owned Anthem PVA 5 off of craigslist for about $600.00. Reviewers from several years back praised this unit highly. I could tell that there was a definite upgrade over the sound produced by my Onkyo 807 receiver. There seemed to be a fuller sound with more bloom!

The two negatives I have encountered in this process of buying an amplifier are as follows. I did have some shipping damage of a capacitor on the unit and it took 3 different groups and $400 more dollars to get it working properly. The only other negative would be when i go to turn everything off at night and only the amplifier is left on since it has a trigger that turns it off in appx. 15 minutes, i hear a slight hum coming out of the speakers. I'm not sure if this is a grounding issue or if the hum is present all the time even when sound is coming out of the speakers.

I will admit that my other consideration was to purchase the ava insight 240-2 and 240-3 from Frank at Audio by Van Alstine. My initial thought was that I wanted a one box solution for space saving in my av cabinet. After I had troubles with the craigslist amp, I wished I would have purchased from a highly praised reliable source like Frank at AVA! If and when i replace this amp, I will purchase from Frank and just find more space in my cabinet for both amps.

[silvermesa]

One more thought: This was my first amplifier purchase and I was not sure how much power the amp would need to drive the songtowers. The Anthem PVA 5 has around 100 watts per channel into 4 ohms. This is a smaller amp and has no problem driving the songtowers. I hear no clipping and at half volume it's way louder than I want it.

So it would appear a moderately powerful amp works very well with the songtowers.

 

[WGH]

I own both the Anthem and AVA amps. Though I have the Anthem PVA2, it has the same parts as the PVA5 with 3 less channels. The Anthem was used as my main amp for years and I also found it is much better than any receiver and later on my Adcom 5400, the Anthem is a musical amp with good bass. The Anthem amp pairs beautifully with my old JBL L100's and I still use it daily in my wood shop. The tweeter in the L100 is not the smoothest and the Anthems slightly rolled off high end tames it nicely.

The AVA Insight+ amps are in a different league. My 440 was recently upgraded to + status so I used the Anthem for a few weeks. I noticed less bass, rolled off highs, a diffuse center image, a shortened depth of field, and lack of low level detail compared to the 440+, I think results would be the same with the 240+ at equal volumes.

The Anthem PVA5 is a terrific $600 (or even $1000) amp and the AVA amps should be better at over 3 times your original purchase price. It's too bad about the repair cost. Enjoy your new amp and when finances improve try out the AVA 240+.

Wayne

[R Swerdlow]

… The Anthem amp pairs beautifully with my old JBL L100's and I still use it daily in my wood shop. The tweeter in the L100 is not the smoothest and the Anthems slightly rolled off high end tames it nicely…

Wayne

In case you're interested, I have a pair of JBL L-100s that I took to Dennis Murphy a few years ago to see what modifications he could suggest to improve their sound.  Like you, I also wondered about the tweeter, and thought it might be better if it was replaced.

It turns out that the tweeter and woofer were pretty good, and the midrange was the cause of that high frequency shrillness.  The original JBL crossover had only a simple high pass filter for the midrange allowing it to go far higher than it should.

Dennis came up with new crossover that I built and installed in my L-100s.  It greatly improved the sound of these old speakers.  They still have too much bass in the 50-100 Hz range, but that is the fault of the cabinet tuning that JBL deliberately chose for them.  No crossover can fix that.

For more info see this: http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25014

[floresjc]

I have the AVA 240 and 240/3 for my Songtower home theater, which is about a year old now. They sound just marvelous and I have nothing but the highest recommendations for the pairing. Second on my list would be the Parasound A53, which can be had used for very reasonable prices, and has enough power to drive SongTowers. It also has "modern" functions like auto-on trigger and blinky lights, which are important to those concerned with aesthetics. The auto on thing is pretty important to some people, since many like to do hidden installs.

[WGH]

R Swerdlow - thanks for the link, this could easily be another summer project. I knew about the Jantzen crossover at Parts Express but $600 was never in my budget, this one is.

The bass is almost adequate in my 900 sq.ft. shop that has a peaked ceiling. You can see the L100's on the high shelf, they are actually heavily modified L88's that I made into L100's.



Wayne

[Saturn94]

I would take a look at the Parasound 5250 here :

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampsmult&1269185948&/Parasound-5250-5-channel-amp-2

Fits your price point.

I know the OP has already made an amp purchase, but for anyone else reading this, I bought a Parasound 5250 earlier this year and love it!  For the record, I do not own Salks (at least not yet, I have a pair of ADS L1290/2s).  I would hazzard to guess that the 5250 would also sound great with a pair of Salks.