im in dire need of preamp help

[slipperybidness]

hi thanks for the info- im not too smart when it comes to these things. so im running 2x 8ohm speakers into each main channel. so it becomes a nominal 4ohm load. where im a little lost is the 2 ohm load.

as for stacking speakers - i will do a search. but would you be so kind as to link me to some topics on this as well?

As long as the amp is "4ohm stable", then you should be fine (assuming that those speakers are truly 8 ohm! manufacturers are notorious for fudging those numbers, you need to see some 3rd party measurements).

http://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/comb-filtering

Being "not too smart on these things" is exactly why you came here! You have a great resource here with people that have been into this hobby for decades (some of the guys on here have been into this hobby longer than my lifespan).

So, keep asking questions and take the good advice that you are given.

 

[markw]

What I'm saying is that if you took that $700 that's burning a hole in your pocket and spent it carefully on speakers, you might be surprised at what your current electronics can do.

But, what you're doing is like having a car with bald tires, complaining about it's lousy handling, and putting your money onto trying to fix the suspension instead of replacing the rubber.

 

[slipperybidness]

But, what you're doing is like having a car with bald tires, complaining about it's lousy handling, and putting your money onto trying to fix the suspension instead of replacing the rubber.

+1

Excellent analogy

 

[big O]

What I'm saying is that if you took that $700 that's burning a hole in your pocket and spent it carefully on speakers, you might be surprised at what your current electronics can do.

But, what you're doing is like having a car with bald tires, complaining about it's lousy handling, and putting your money onto trying to fix the suspension instead of replacing the rubber.

Being that I race cars myself, I can definitely appreciate your analogy. The tires are the single most important piece on the race car.
Having said that though you are not winning unless everything else is right .


But after thinking about what you've said what I'm taking away from it is essentially my signal path is a ok. I'm not going to really tell a difference in true hd vs normal and if I want to see a difference I should look at new speakers, but since I'm presently happy with how my speakers sound I should take my money and buy tires for my race car instead

 

[big O]

As long as the amp is "4ohm stable", then you should be fine (assuming that those speakers are truly 8 ohm! manufacturers are notorious for fudging those numbers, you need to see some 3rd party measurements).

btw, i wanted to thank you for bringing this up. i went an looked at the speaker measurements and it definitely dips down to almost 4 ohms actual so i disabled one speaker per side. no difference in sq to my ears except i had to raise the levels a bit.

 

[big O]

Update for posterity

I found a good deal on an emotiva umc 200. I bought it at a price that I could easily sell it back if I didn't like it.

I hooked it up and set it up and put the rotel in the box. The umc 200 is not as rich as the rotel (it has cleaner transients for lack of a better description)
bit it more than made up for it in dd+ decoding and eq. Watching transformers in stereo decode to plii vs discrete 5.1 was a huge difference. Discrete was clearly better sounding and more enveloping. Dolby true hd vs dolby digital there was no difference to my ears.

Biggest reason I kept it was after putting the sub eq from rew into the system,the lfe channel became orders of magnitude more visceral. The low end is much tighter and forceful. That enough justified the price of admission.

I then was able to do a straight up trade of my rotel preamp for a pair of psb image t6 towers. They sound sweet. lots of detail and clarity with no harshness at all. Also I set it to large in my system because for music listening I don't need or even want any help from the subs.

I watched some movies yesterday and was just astonished by the sound quality. Speakers made a big difference bit the eq on the low end made just as big a difference.

Here is my setup for the time being

fronts: psb image t6
center: paragidm cc170 soon to be upgrade to psb
rear: paradigm atom v3
subs setup unchanged

preamp emotiva umc 200 with three band eq applied to lfe
amp sonance sonamp 5150 for 5.0 system
soundcraftsmen pcr 800 on passive sub

 

[slipperybidness]

Glad it worked out for you!

Stick around and contribute to the site, if you want.

Now that you have a good setup, there is probably some more room to tweak, fine-tune, and optimize to get every drop of performance out of your system.

 

[big O]

Thank you. And thanks very much for your help. I plan to stay around for sure. Im sure there is always room for improvement