Greetings. This is my first post here. Delivery is on the way for a new Samsung LN52A650 television. Now I am directing my attention to the audio side of the experience.
I currently have a pair of home made speakers, home brew preamplifier and four channels of Marshal Leach's design, "leach amps". My speakers are similar to the NHT 3.3's, except they sound better/more accurate. They have side firing woofers NHT1259's from Madisound. The woofers are driven by separate Leach amps using active crossovers. The mid/tweeters are Scan Speak 17W kevlar and 9900 relevator tweaters in an MTM configuration. The speakers are carefully tweaked using CAD for the crossover networks and verified with the "IMP" FFT amplitude/phase application ten years ago. I'll add a photo or two later on. In any case, there is nothing off the shelf I could buy to replace these, even in the $5000 + range.
I have two more speakers that have lesser Scan Speak mid and tweeter. These are installed in old bookshelf boxes. They have less testing. They are not MTM. I never found woofers that aligned correctly in these boxes. They should be fine for the rear channels.
I don't have anything for front/center channel. I could build a new speaker for that. I would probably duplicate the MTM design I spent so much time on. For the moment, I would need to get by without the center speaker.
As I upgrade to home theater use, I want to use these speakers and amplifiers. I have been looking for an A/V preamplifier and a/v switcher to round out the system. Mostly I have found complete systems from a box. I don't think that will produce the results I want. My speakers run as low as 4 ohms, maybe lower in the mid range. I don't recall exactly now and the leach amplifier doesn't care about low z.
I'm looking for advice concerning lower priced equipment that accepts optical 5.1 input and produces outputs for the home theater system. Maybe someone can explain why I should look for 7.1 systems.
I have two more amplifiers for the rear channels... an Heathkit AR1500. I could build two or three more channels of "Leach" amplifiers. That would give me five channels of awesome clean audio.
I'm finding specifications of new gear concerning, mostly because of the "peak power" specs industry published years ago. Gear at the $300-$400 price point doesn't seem to offer preamplifier outputs that I require. Peeking through the vent slots of a 5.1 integrated AV receiver at BB shows me there is not enough heat sink for one stout channel much less six, regardless of the 5.1 "120 watts/channel rating". I suppose the speaker outputs could be scaled down for input to my amplifiers, but the specifications don't say if these outputs are single ended. If they are "H" structure or "bridge amp" connection, that is a problem for my planned application. I really only need RCA analog outputs.
I'm hoping some guys here can help focus my search on high quality a/v preamplifier/switchers with 5.1 or 7.1.
