Receiver as preamp.

[Joe Clements]

I purchased a Marantz SR 7008 because I wanted a HDMI unit for my home theater. Problem is that I like the sound of my Rotel RSX 972 much more. Can I go from the pre out of my Marantz to the 5.1 in on my Rotel? If I do that (I know this sounds stupid) my speakers need to be attached to the Rotel, right? If I do this then is everything controlled from my Rotel remote? I would love to use the Rotel as the amp but control everything from my Marantz. Possible?
I think I read another option for the Marantz to amplify the rear speakers and have the Rotel amplify the fronts only. Boy, am I confused. Thanks for your help.
Joe

 

[Swerd]

Can I go from the pre out of my Marantz to the 5.1 in on my Rotel?

Yes. See the owner's manuals for details.

If I do that (I know this sounds stupid) my speakers need to be attached to the Rotel, right?

Yes.

If I do this then is everything controlled from my Rotel remote? I would love to use the Rotel as the amp but control everything from my Marantz. Possible?

No. The Marantz would act as the pre amp, and you would control things with the Marantz remote.

The Rotel amp section is rated at 75 wpc, and the Marantz is rated at 125 wpc. I'm not sure you would hear any audible benefit from using the less powerful Rotel to substitute for the more powerful Marantz amp section. You'll have to try it both ways to satisfy yourself.

 

[MarkTheShark]

I purchased a Marantz SR 7008 because I wanted a HDMI unit for my home theater. Problem is that I like the sound of my Rotel RSX 972 much more. Can I go from the pre out of my Marantz to the 5.1 in on my Rotel? If I do that (I know this sounds stupid) my speakers need to be attached to the Rotel, right? If I do this then is everything controlled from my Rotel remote? I would love to use the Rotel as the amp but control everything from my Marantz. Possible?
I think I read another option for the Marantz to amplify the rear speakers and have the Rotel amplify the fronts only. Boy, am I confused. Thanks for your help.
Joe

Hi Joe, I just had this question here last week. I have my Marantz SR5011 PreOut fed into my Rogue Audio Sphinx integrated amp line-in #1, and my front speakers are coming of the Rogue. My two rear surround speakers, one center channel speaker, NAS, Phono, TV, sonos all are wired into the SR5011. I control everything through the 5011. Listening to Abby Road right now with just the two fronts, sounds good.

 

[PENG]

I'm not sure you would hear any audible benefit from using the less powerful Rotel to substitute for the more powerful Marantz amp section. You'll have to try it both ways to satisfy yourself.

I think we both can guess (educated guess) the reason.

 

[MarkTheShark]

Yes. See the owner's manuals for details.
Yes.
No. The Marantz would act as the pre amp, and you would control things with the Marantz remote.

The Rotel amp section is rated at 75 wpc the Marantz is rated at 125 wpc. I'm not sure you would hear any audible benefit from using the less powerful Rotel to substitute for the more powerful Marantz amp section. You'll have to try it both ways to satisfy yourself.

Hi Swerd, would using Joe's Rotel at 75wpc on just the fronts leave more power for the surrounds connected to his Marantz? Over all his system would have more power?

 

[Swerd]

Hi Swerd, would using Joe's Rotel at 75wpc on just the fronts leave more power for the surrounds connected to his Marantz? Over all his system would have more power?

Using any two amplifiers along with their separate power supply transformers might in theory provide greater power to the speakers compared to using amps sharing a single power supply transformer. It depends on the relative capacities of the power supplies.

I would guess that Joe might benefit more if he drove his front speakers with the more powerful Marantz power amp section, and his surrounds with the Rotel.

It's debatable how much increase in power is needed to hear a benefit. It depends on the speakers involved, the listener's listening preferences, and the acoustic properties of the room.

In my own limited experience, roughly doubling the power (for example from 30 wpc to 70 wpc) provided little if any audible change. When I roughly tripled the power (going from 30 wpc to 105 wpc), I could hear a difference. I've heard similar results going from a 70 wpc AVR to the same AVR used as a pre amp combined with a 200 wpc external amp – roughly triple the power.

Other than the differences due to greater amplifier power, I've never heard a significant difference in sound quality among different stereo receivers, AV receivers, pre amps, or external amps. I've looked for that in the past, but never did hear it.

 

[Joe Clements]

Yes. See the owner's manuals for details.
Yes.
No. The Marantz would act as the pre amp, and you would control things with the Marantz remote.

The Rotel amp section is rated at 75 wpc, and the Marantz is rated at 125 wpc. I'm not sure you would hear any audible benefit from using the less powerful Rotel to substitute for the more powerful Marantz amp section. You'll have to try it both ways to satisfy yourself.

Thanks for your input. The Marantz has so many bell & whistles. Maybe I am not using it to it's fullest capabilities. When I hooked up my Marantz and unhooked my Rotel it seemed that a lot of depth was taken away and that the feeling of having an amp with "muscle" disappeared and that I had to bring up the volume on the Marantz to try to reach the "feeling" of the Rotel. I will play around with this. Thanks again.

 

[Joe Clements]

Is there a Amp that you would recommend to beef up the sound on the Marantz?

 

[Swerd]

Is there a Amp that you would recommend to beef up the sound on the Marantz?

First you should satisfy yourself that what you already own can or cannot do the job.

You already have an idea what the Marantz alone or the Rotel alone can do. Go through the effort of using the Marantz to power the front speakers, and the Rotel to power the surround speakers. And do all that again with the Rotel driving the fronts and the Marantz drive the surrounds.

I myself would choose to use the more powerful Marantz to drive the front two or three speakers. But you should decide for yourself after listening. It may take more than a few minutes to decide. Give yourself a week or two with each set up.

 

[MarkTheShark]

Thanks for your input. The Marantz has so many bell & whistles. Maybe I am not using it to it's fullest capabilities. When I hooked up my Marantz and unhooked my Rotel it seemed that a lot of depth was taken away and that the feeling of having an amp with "muscle" disappeared and that I had to bring up the volume on the Marantz to try to reach the "feeling" of the Rotel. I will play around with this. Thanks again.

This was my experience as well.

 

[PENG]

This was my experience as well.

Don't go by the volume, just because you have to turn one higher does not mean it is not as powerful because there are other factors involved. In all probability the power output of both are about the same, the Marantz can output almost 200W at 0.1% distortion, even if you discount it for full 20-20Khz it should still be capable of around 180W into 4 ohms. To compare the two properly, one has to at least level match and then try to do a simple blind test, to minimize bias.

 

[PENG]

Is there a Amp that you would recommend to beef up the sound on the Marantz?

You may in fact benefit from an amp but we can help a little more if you can provide us with the specifications of your speakers, make, model number, with subwoofer or without, how many of them, room dimensions and how far do you sit from the speakers.

 

[lovinthehd]

Don't go by the volume, just because you have to turn one higher does not mean it is not as powerful because there are other factors involved. In all probability the power output of both are about the same, the Marantz can output almost 200W at 0.1% distortion, even if you discount it for full 20-20Khz it should still be capable of around 180W into 4 ohms. To compare the two properly, one has to at least level match and then try to do a simple blind test, to minimize bias.

Yep, and could just be dissimilar volume controls/scales.

 

[Joe Clements]

You guys are great! Right now I have GLE 470.2 for front speakers, a AS25 sub, another smaller GLS 50 sub and the Plus XXL.s Cantons coming off the sub for surrounds and a GLE 455 center. Everything is Canton. Room is small about 13X16 and I sit about 9 feet from the front speakers. The dining room is right next to the stereo room so there is really no wall on the right of me. So I guess the room is 16X24 but I am stuck like that.

 

[PENG]

You guys are great! Right now I have GLE 470.2 for front speakers, a AS25 sub, another smaller GLS 50 sub and the Plus XXL.s Cantons coming off the sub for surrounds and a GLE 455 center. Everything is Canton. Room is small about 13X16 and I sit about 9 feet from the front speakers. The dining room is right next to the stereo room so there is really no wall on the right of me. So I guess the room is 16X24 but I am stuck like that.

Thanks for the information. I am going to have to offer a seemingly common response on this forum lately, that is, you can do better by replacing the Canton AS25 sub with a better one.

The Canton GLE 470.2 should not be that hard to drive as the manufacturer suggest 110/170W "music" power handling. It's sensitivity is 89.5 dB/1W/1M and I guess it probably should be rated 4 ohms nominal. Adding an amp with 300WPC will give you better dynamic peak performance if you sit say 12 ft or more from them. At 9 ft, you should be able to listen at reference level (that will be very loud) and can still provide 20 dB of dynamic peaks that don't happen very often.

It never hurts to have more power than you would ever need, but given a budget, you have more to gain by getting a good subwoofer and take advantage of the highly capable Audyssey XT32/SubEQHT that the SR7008 does have.

 

[Joe Clements]

Should I stick with Canton line and upgrade to the AS 105 SC as suggested in the link below or do you have a different choice? I heard that the Martin Logan Dynamo 500 was a good choice.The link also recommends the GLE 430's for the surrounds.
Not to confuse my friends that are helping me and I don't want to be all over the place but I did want to get your thoughts on the the Elac UB 5's. They are getting fantastic reviews. Thanks so much for helping me learn. P.S. I love all types of music but I don't "blast" the volume. a little loud sometimes but never crazy loud.
Thanks

http://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/speaker/surround-sound-speaker-systems-reviews/canton-gle-4x0-speakers/

 

[mtrycrafts]

You, Joe, need to understand that the volume control position is not really an indication of power.
Since you are using the same speakers to test the two amps what you may want to do is use a test CD with maybe a 1 kHz tone, measure the AC voltage at the speaker terminals as both L/R speakers should be the same, that feel comfortable, check the volume control position or one amp, do the same with the other amp set the voltage to the same voltage and see how they compare volume control vise. This way you are inputting the same power to the speakers from each amp section.
All this is predicated on having a test CD/DVD and an AC voltmeter.

 

[lovinthehd]

Should I stick with Canton line and upgrade to the AS 105 SC as suggested in the link below or do you have a different choice? I heard that the Martin Logan Dynamo 500 was a good choice.The link also recommends the GLE 430's for the surrounds.
Not to confuse my friends that are helping me and I don't want to be all over the place but I did want to get your thoughts on the the Elac UB 5's. They are getting fantastic reviews. Thanks so much for helping me learn. P.S. I love all types of music but I don't "blast" the volume. a little loud sometimes but never crazy loud.
Thanks

http://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/speaker/surround-sound-speaker-systems-reviews/canton-gle-4x0-speakers/

Before getting into sub recommendations, where are you? The Dynamo 500 isn't a very good sub either.

 

[Joe Clements]

Before getting into sub recommendations, where are you? The Dynamo 500 isn't a very good sub either.

Brooklyn, NY

 

[lovinthehd]

Thought you might be in Europe with all the Canton stuff I'd go to the usual sub guys...SVS, Hsu, Power Sound Audio, Rythmik....