integrating music and HT systems.. ideas?

[mike_p]

My current system is basically geared towards music:

Quad 99 Preamp
Parasound A23 Amp
Dynaudio Audience 70 speakers
Denon DVD-2200
misc cables/power conditioning
Sony KV-32HS510 TV

What I'd like to do is somehow introduce home theater into the mix. I'm considering getting a Yamaha RX-V650/750 reciever and matching Dynaudio center and surrounds.. the mission is to preserve the above system and somehow phase in HT when it movie watching time.

The dilema is how to share the front speakers and/or amp. I can either do speaker cable swapping or interconnect swapping to the amp (using the Yamaha preouts). Anyone know of a high quality switch box I could use? Would the Parasound powered fronts sound too different from a Yamaha powered center? Would the levels match regardless of the gain?

Ugh.. there are several different avenues to this approach, I'd like to get some feedback before I take the HT plunge.

thanks!!
mike p

 

[av_phile]

Would you have a problem getting a separate HT room instead? It may be a lot simpler that way.

 

[mike_p]

nope, I'm stuck using one room. I think what I may try is running the Yamaha preouts to my preamp, then setting the preamp level at a center gain. Obviously I'll need to tweak the speaker levels on the AV receiver to achieve balance across all speakers.

mike p

 

[av_phile]

You mean you want to run the Yamaha preouts to your power amps, not to another preamp.

Most integration I've seen involves the use of an AV digital processor/preamp that are used to drive additional power amps for the center and rear. There are 3-channel amps for this purpose. The front L & R are left to be handled by the stereo preamp and power amps that they had for pure stereo listening. But that assumes that the DVD output uses analog interconnectin. The front to the old stereo preamp, and the center/rears to the new AV processor/preamp. Otherwise, if you use the digital route, you may have to effectively discard the stereo preamp.

 

[Unregistered]

You can take the route of people like me which have two separate systems in one room with the only thing they have in common being the use of the main front L/R speakers (and the respective outputs of the DVD-V/SACD/CD player) for both HT and 2-channel audio.

I have a separate pre-amp, amp (and sub) for each system, which are housed in two different racks. I simply terminated the speaker leads with banana plugs to make change over easier from one to the other. My reason for this choice was that I could not find a receiver or processor that could meet my 2-channel needs which is (primarily) vinyl based.

 

[mike_p]

You mean you want to run the Yamaha preouts to your power amps, not to another preamp.

no, the front (L/R) pre-outs of the Marantz (changed my mind about the yammy) go to inputs on my 2-channel quad preamp... i then turn up the quad level to the calibrated level at which the sound levels are balanced with the other channels powered by the marantz. I've heard that there are 2-channel preamps on the market that have an HT bypass specifically for this reason.. basically, the marantz ends up controlling the final levels of all the channels, but like I mentioned the preamp needs to be set to the appropriate level first. pretty easy to do since the quad has a numeric gain display.

I'll let you know the results of my crazy experiment. My biggest concern is that tonally the front L/R will sound too different from all the other channels.

mike

 

[Mudcat]

Try the JAMO JSS4-HP (www.bigaudioenterprises.com/jamo.htm) speaker switch. One set of speakers can have two amps providing the power - not simultaneously of course. The switch can also drive up to four pairs of speakers at the same time and show only an 8 ohm load on the amp. I use it to have multiroom speakers. Plus it has 5-way binding posts, not the spring loaded clips like the Monster et al. speaker switch.

Hope I was useful