Two channel stereo amplifiers

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#1259803 15-Mar-2015 18:31

I had a look at your setup. The pioneer avr you have doesn't have pre/outs, but it should sound reasonably good with your speakers.

What I'd suggest is, elevate your 10.1 speakers so the tweeters sit at ear level, and adjust toe in to about 10 degrees. Set your AVR to "pure direct" mode (This will bypass your mccac calibration). Make sure you use the ASIO or WASAPI on exclusive mode on your mediaplayer. Then play some music 320k mp3 or flac on your PC connected via HDMI. If there is not enough bass move them closer to the wall (or vice versa). player. (eg. you could use foobar or winamp which I assume both support ASIO exclusive playback). Finally , if your not happy with that try running mccac calibration and set it to either music mode or direct mode). After doing this re-evaluate your need to upgrade to a stereo amp.

Using the onboard dac will be superior to your portable player connected via RCA.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

tripper1000

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#1259902 15-Mar-2015 22:02

joker97: with those speakers you can use whatever amp you want that outputs with THD <0.05%
ignore the watts

audiophiles will kill me but audiophile won't be listening to wharfedale 10.1s

+1 the above post. Ignor anything over 0.05% THD. When comparing the power of Sony, Pioneer and other main stream brands, ensure that you care comparing wattages at the same THD %. This is where RMS power output is usually embellished. I believe that distortion is music is discernible at approx 0.1% (open to correction on this) so power ratings above this distortion level are useless/meaningless.
For example my present 40 WRMS 0.05% Denon sounds so much cleaner and is much louder and much much less distorted when cranking it, than my old Sony rated at 135 WRMS 5% THD.

richms

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#1259907 15-Mar-2015 22:05

Distortions ability to be detected is heavily dependant on the music you are playing. If its all distorted guitars mixed into clipping over everything else, then you could have a pretty crap amp and not notice. If its a flute solo then any changes should be immediatly apparant.

Unless _all_ the other stats are the same then comparing wattage is meaningless. And one amp might be at its 10% distortion at 100 watts but be really good at 80 watts, and another might be 5% at 100 watts, but be terrible down to 10 watts. Have to audition them on your gear, with your source material, at your prefered volume to tell. Or just get something with a crapload more power than you need so you are never getting near the nasty end of its limits.

Richard rich.ms

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#1259916 15-Mar-2015 22:14

thing is ... he's using a wharfedale 10.1 ... waste of time with finding an amazing amp ... the speakers are not balanced to deliver ... a clean amp has THD <0.05% at the rated output ... so in a way THD <0.05% at 1khz at 2 channels driven at 90W is inferior to THD <0.05% at 1khz at 2 channels driven at 200W. that will give you a 4dB headroom (doubling of W will increase the dB by 3) of course there are other factors in play for clean audiophile sounds in an audiophile grade speaker ... but the 10.1 is no such

Gambit

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#1259986 16-Mar-2015 08:20

i still think I'll get a integrated amplifier for music anyway.
pure direct seems to take away most of the bass and it sounds thin.
connecting the x5 to the avr I'd be using coaxial.
For connecting it to the integrated I guess I'd use the rcas.
Isn't coax superior to rcas?
Cd players use it though so maybe I'm wrong?

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#1259990 16-Mar-2015 08:30

sounds good. just make sure of the low THD number

ilovemusic

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#1260080 16-Mar-2015 10:48

Gambit;

In digital audio Coax vs RCA is shorthand for feeding a digital bitstream to an outborad Digital Analog Convertor (coax) or using your playback device's built-in DAC and feeding a post-processed analogue signal to your amplifier.

Confusion can arise as most coax connections are made with RCA plugs/sockets.

They can also be made using BNC or XLR cables.
Wired digital connections usually sound better than optical unless you have equipment fitted with a bespoke glass optical i/o, regular Toslink optical uses crappy pplastic tube cables that impede quality.
Ultimately, performance depends on the quality of the transmitter/receiver/cable.

The Nuforce is a pretty decent little amp BUT it only handles digital inputs.

Similar amplifiers with greater versatility, albeit at greater cost, are avaialble such as;

Cambridge Audio Minx
http://www.pqimports.co.nz/products/category/GMGROLSB%20network-players/MINXXi%2FB

NAD D3020
http://www.listeningpost.co.nz/Products/Amplifiers-Stereos-Home-Theatre/Amplifiers-Stereos-Home-Theatre/NAD-D3020-Hybrid-Digital-Amplifier-Amp-__I.63185__N.27756__C.27254

Quad Vena
http://soundline.co.nz/products/quad-vena

Of the three, the Quad is my favourite for music.

I wouldn't be too anal over THD numbers, anything under 1% is OK.
Some of the best amplifiers ever made have THD well above that.

Get a good enough amplifier behind them and even Wharfedale 10.1's can sound good !

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#1260083 16-Mar-2015 10:52

ilovemusic:

I wouldn't be too anal over THD numbers, anything under 1% is OK.
Some of the best amplifiers ever made have THD well above that.

that could well be true for dedicated stereo amps. i must have been referring to trick processing 10 channel receivers.

i know that tube amps have THD over 1 ... but that they also colour the sound a lot. solid state however ... shouldn't colour and shouldn't have a high THD ... but that's my limits of claimed knowledge

ilovemusic

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#1260097 16-Mar-2015 11:01

Fair enough.

A good amp is a magical confluence of several factors, of which THD is just a part.

Gambit

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#1260135 16-Mar-2015 11:48

I've seen great reviews for the nad d 3020 but aren't sure if it would power my floorstanders well.
Thanks for the links to the amps they are all appreciated.
Quite exciting looking around the net at all the reviews and people's opinions :-)

ilovemusic

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#1260160 16-Mar-2015 12:30

50-ish watts will be plenty.

:)

Item

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#1260292 16-Mar-2015 14:26

I love my Cambridge 651a - http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/products/hifi-and-home-cinema/azur-651a

Drives my floorstanding Mission Silver RX6 beautifully...plenty of grunt and great sound and build quality. (75W into 8ohms...speakers are 6 from memory)

http://www.whathifi.com/monitor-audio/silver-rx6/review

Has built DAC with Dig Op and USB in as needed, though I use the DACMagic Plus hooked up to my Macbook Pro for the source.

Got a good deal at Turned on Audio in Onehunga - a really sweet little system.

kiwijunglist

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#1260434 16-Mar-2015 17:01

Wired digital connections usually sound better than optical unless you have equipment fitted with a bespoke glass optical i/o, regular Toslink optical uses crappy pplastic tube cables that impede quality.
Ultimately, performance depends on the quality of the transmitter/receiver/cable.

Just to correct a mistake here, optical audio cable, is a digital signal set optically. There material used makes no difference as long as the cable is 100% working ("cheap plastic" doesn't infer lower fidelity sound), it's the same argument with HDMI cables they are all the same, the only difference comes over a long run, in which case in some cables the signal will be too weak and will drop out. My sound system costs over 15,000 RRP and yet I use a monoprice $2.50 HDMI cable and my speaker wire costs <$100 for 50 feet.

At your price point, cables will make negligible difference. I'd have a look at the pioneer and yamaha 2 channel receivers, they review quite well, and because they are sold at chain stores who make a lower margin you don't have the horrendous mark up costs that you have to pay with the niche brands in NZ. The other advantage is these stores should stock wharfedale 10.1 and 10.6 so you can listen on your own speakers.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

richms

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#1260445 16-Mar-2015 17:06

Also the jitter will be fixed in the reclocking of the signal in the DAC, something that any DAC made since the mid 80's has done so that it can do oversampling to make it cheaper to do the analog side of it.

Richard rich.ms

ilovemusic

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#1260504 16-Mar-2015 18:59

kiwijunglist:
Wired digital connections usually sound better than optical unless you have equipment fitted with a bespoke glass optical i/o, regular Toslink optical uses crappy pplastic tube cables that impede quality.
Ultimately, performance depends on the quality of the transmitter/receiver/cable.

Just to correct a mistake here, optical audio cable, is a digital signal set optically. There material used makes no difference as long as the cable is 100% working ("cheap plastic" doesn't infer lower fidelity sound), it's the same argument with HDMI cables they are all the same, the only difference comes over a long run, in which case in some cables the signal will be too weak and will drop out. My sound system costs over 15,000 RRP and yet I use a monoprice $2.50 HDMI cable and my speaker wire costs <$100 for 50 feet.

What mistake ?
The discussion is around digital audio transmission.

There was a huge difference between AT&T glass optical and Toslink on a Wadia 861 (which was equipped with a variety of digital connections) of my acquaintance many years ago.
This was easily the 2nd best CDP in my experience and properly equipped to discern the differences between various connection methodologies.

From the 861 user manual;

While the Wadia 861 supports all currently accepted transmission formats
for digital audio, we recommend using a high quality glass-fiber cable such as
the one available from Wadia. Wadia Digital was the first company to
use glass fiber-optic data transmission in digital audio. We have continually
improved this format and believe that it offers the best, most consistent
performance of all the available options.

Based on our experience, here is a list of digital interface methods in
descending order of performance:
1. Glass optical (as implemented by Wadia)
2. AES/EBU using XLR connector
3. Coaxial cable using BNC connector
4. Coaxial cable using RCA connector
5. TOSLINK plastic-optical cable

:)

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