Replacing AV Receiver with Stereo Amplifiers

[anis493]

Hello all,

I am planing to build good stereo system at my home.

Currently I am having Yamaha RX-V1800 AV Receiver with a pair of Canton Karat 60 Speakers and I am using it for stereo music only.

I read about AV Receiver and Stereo Amplifier, and I ended up with understanding that Stereo Amps produce better stereo sound then using AV Receiver for stereo sound.

I just want confirmation on same and suggestion for good stereo amp for my canton karat 60 speakers in range of 500$ to 800$.

Regards,
Anis

 

[Vegemite]

Your understanding is correct. The less tasks or 'signals' that the box has to take care of means it does that task better. Hence the pecking order (loosely) :

1. Separate source, pre-amp, power amp
2. source and Integrated amp
3. All in ones
4. AV receivers

This is open to listener opinion but i'm sure many would agree.

Not familiar with those speakers however if you are buying new the Yamaha AS-xxx range get a lot of love around here. My first amplifier around your price range that I loved was the NAD 326BEE.

Whatever you end up with, you will enjoy your new stereo system (and much less hum/noise of the av receiver)

The vintage guys will have some good integrated suggestions if you want vintage

 

[Freddymac2]

AV units are great they, give you good input and output options, that are necessary with today's technologies. Their purity of output is compromised along the way. The problem is that unless you are going to dedicate a room to a very limited listening area, and proper speaker placement and tuning, the benefits will be minimal. Your source material choice also can effect the final output that you can achieve. In the very best systems individual components are selected to tweak the final output to individual tastes. I have found that it is not necessary in my system, with my material, and I am using a receiver, successfully.. .

 

[sqlsavior]

Mod Squad/McCormack Line Drive passive preamplifier - there are two on flea-bay now

plus

Hafler DH-220 power amp, or other high-quality power amp of your choice

 

[KevinJS]

I found a dramatic improvement switching from stereo output of my Yamaha RX-A730 to a Bryston 4B ST, when feeding my Martin Logan Theos electrostats.

The improvement was less noticeable with more conventional speakers (Martin Logan Motion series).

 

[elcoholic]

I'm very happy with my Emotiva amps and their customer service. They have several options within your price range. If you ever want to build a multichannel system around this 2 channel system checkout the XPA Gen 3 modular amp. The chassis holds up to 7 amp modules. For vintage I'll recommend the Mitsubishi DA-A10, DA-A10DC, DA-A15 and DA-A15DC amps. There's also a smaller "7" in the line, but to my taste, the bigger amps have more head room. This series of amps also includes interchangeable pre-amp or big meter front ends.

 

[Erik Tracy]

I also (still) have the RX-V1800 - great for HT, pretty darn good for music, but also agree that external amplification can make it even better.

 

[onplane]

Hello all,

I am planing to build good stereo system at my home.

Currently I am having Yamaha RX-V1800 AV Receiver with a pair of Canton Karat 60 Speakers and I am using it for stereo music only.

I read about AV Receiver and Stereo Amplifier, and I ended up with understanding that Stereo Amps produce better stereo sound then using AV Receiver for stereo sound.

I just want confirmation on same and suggestion for good stereo amp for my canton karat 60 speakers in range of 500$ to 800$.

Regards,
Anis

Your speakers appear to be of the acoustic suspension design made in Germany. This means that the speakers are relatively inefficient which means you want an amp with a minimum of 100 watts rms per channel. Further, that rating must be at 4 ohms! This is very important.

An amplifier not rated to handle 4 ohm loads would be a huge mistake for your speakers. Even with that, these 4 ohm inefficient speakers represent a difficult load for any amp.

I happen to own two such sets. My solution in both cases was to "split the load" and bi-amp. That is, I devote one amp to the power hunger woofers and another amp (can be smaller) to the high frequency drivers. In your case, this would require some "surgery" on your speakers, because they did not come from the factory with split networks.

It's work splitting the networks and most good modern speakers come with the networks already split. Nevertheless, I found it well worth the effort.

Hope this helps...
Jerry

 

[Nightwisher]

AV units are great they, give you good input and output options, that are necessary with today's technologies. Their purity of output is compromised along the way. The problem is that unless you are going to dedicate a room to a very limited listening area, and proper speaker placement and tuning, the benefits will be minimal. Your source material choice also can effect the final output that you can achieve. In the very best systems individual components are selected to tweak the final output to individual tastes. I have found that it is not necessary in my system, with my material, and I am using a receiver, successfully.. .

To counter your viewpoint, I own a Yamaha RX-V671 (also have owned a RX-V663) and all of my dedicated stereo equipment upgrades have been significant and noticeable over the sound of that receiver. Dedicated stereo equipment just sounds better in every way possible. And I didn't even have to spend much to get that upgraded sound (first upgrade was a $57 Nakamichi RE-2 receiver). At the time of that first upgrade, my setup was crammed under a full size bed, so not even close to being anything optimal, but the upgrade was still very significant.

I can't speak to using the receiver as a preamp with a dedicated stereo amp as I never took that route, but the consensus seems to be that that is a significant upgrade.

Just speaking to what I have encountered in my experience. That being said, the RX-V1800 is nicer than the Yamaha AV receivers I own/owned.

 

[musichal]

The challenge, I think, is affording a decent pre-pro.