got b&w 800D but cant afford anything else

[tuk]

hi all:

i just brought my self a pair of 2nd hand b&w 800D paid 10k for it. these babe are very nice , looks great next to my tv and they are only 8 month old

i think i got a very good deal but the down side is i used all my savings and cant afford anything else, now they are sitting there gathering dust

what is a good cheap setup to run them? its just a temporary solution right now.

thanks

 

[chris357]

i'd check out the emotiva amps and some decent pre/pro

or find on audiogon a classe ca300 amp its a good deal at 1200-1600 bucks but its 300 watts and 8 ohm BAD A$$ and pretty moderate in price

i dont know if an AV receiver would be enough for those bad boys.

 

[j_garcia]

I wouldn't run them off a receiver either. A pre and either monoblocks or a good 2ch amp would probably do great with them and you could probably find some good used stuff if you shop around.

 

[skers_54]

Pro amps would work great for those speakers and are much cheaper than similarly powerful consumer amps. The Behringer EP1500 or 2500 would work great and can be found for around $250. If you need a pre-amp, one of the mods posted positive impressions of a simple one he got for $75 in this thread

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59486

That pre-amp would work well with the Behringer amps, as it has balanced outputs

 

[WmAx]

Good news is that superb electronics need not be expensive. That's just audio bullsh_t. A high grade pro amp like Yamaha P3500S (a pro amp with no fan noise) would be perfect to drive the 800D. I HIGHLY recommend running a DSP EQ like a Behringer DCX2496 before the pro amp and feeding your pre-amp tothe DSP EQ. That is a largely linear speaker with very low colorations; this means a powerful DSP EQ can manipulate the tone to your personal preferences.

Note: Even though this is a far better speaker than people normally use, you still can not ignore room acoustics.

-Chris

 

[WmAx]

or find on audiogon a classe ca300 amp its a good deal at 1200-1600 bucks but its 300 watts and 8 ohm BAD A$$ and pretty moderate in price

Too little performance for too much money. Yamaha P3500S, NEW, is far cheaper, and better performance.

-Chris

 

[timmay8612]

Not to hijack or anything, but by "pro amp" are we talking about live sound oriented stuff? Just curious since there is tons of that kind of stuff on the used market.

 

[chris357]

the only problem I see with the pro stuff is asthetics.. they are ugly. but cheap they are..

 

[Seth=L]

the only problem I see with the pro stuff is asthetics.. they are ugly. but cheap they are..

cheap, they are

durable, they are

powerful, they are

low noise floor, they have

low impedance drive capabilities, they have

uniform output from 20hz-20,000hz, they have

balanced and unbalanced connections, they have

Rack mountable, they are

hidden, they could be, if necessary

Yamaha pro amps for the win.

There is absolutely no reason not to purchase a pro amplifier excluding three reasons

1.) you can't stand the appearance (no big deal here if all you care about is the sound quality)

2.) some of them have fans, the Yamaha's rely mostly on convection cooling with fans as a backup (and you have to be pushing them extremely hard for extremely long periods of time to get them to turn on, it's likely they never will)

3.) you have a mental block about the mystical world of audiophiledom, and get hung up on all that non-sense those weirdos with ERS paper and musical, enthusiastical, danceable, several thousand dollar cables that there cryogenically frozen and sent into space for 10 years, later retrieved, and sold to the unsuspecting audiophile that thought it would give him the dead cold accurate, yet open, sound they where looking for.

If you ask me the last reason usually doesn't affect people here, we like to keep sane.

 

[chris357]

cheap, they are

durable, they are

powerful, they are

low noise floor, they have

balanced and unbalanced connections, they have

Rack mountable, they are

hidden, they could be, if necessary

Yamaha pro amps for the win.

yeah but my krell stuff cost alot more and says KRELL on it and its pretty

 

[chris357]

the op should check this out.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59587

 

[Seth=L]

yeah but my krell stuff cost alot more and says KRELL on it and its pretty

re-read the post, I have improved the message.

 

[WmAx]

the only problem I see with the pro stuff is asthetics.. they are ugly. but cheap they are..

The Yamaha amps are not ugly. A but utilitarian in appearance, but not at all ugly like most pro amps. Also, the rack mount wings are removable for use in standard domestic audio racks.

 

[chris357]

re-read the post, I have improved the message.

but is says KRELL and looks pretty

 

[chris357]

The Yamaha amps are not ugly. A but utilitarian in appearance, but not at all ugly like most pro amps. Also, the rack mount wings are removable for use in standard domestic audio racks.

actually being able to take the rack mount wings off is a huge help.. would that amp be good on the kappa sub? I'm really not digging the look of the EP2500

and I agree, the yamaha is ok looking compared to the rest of them.

 

[davidtwotrees]

Pioneer A35R

The Pioneer A-35R is a great little integrated amp. Will it do "justice" to the 800D's? Gosh, I don't know. But for $200 new, and $100 used it's tough to beat. 4 ohm stable. I own one and it's a nice little unit running at my girlfriend's house. Remote controlled. Here is the audioholic reader review thread.
It is for sale on ebay brand new for less than $200 shipped HERE.

 

[Seth=L]

The Pioneer A-35R is a great little integrated amp. Will it do "justice" to the 800D's? Gosh, I don't know. But for $200 new, and $100 used it's tough to beat. 4 ohm stable. I own one and it's a nice little unit running at my girlfriend's house. Remote controlled. Here is the audioholic reader review thread.
It is for sale on ebay brand new for less than $200 shipped HERE.

The Pioneer is a nice unit, but it doesn't have nearly enough power to drive the B&W correctly. It's sad though, because it's such a nice little unit. If that Pioneer was adequate I would have suggested he buy my Adcom GFA-5400 which is 125 wpc @ 8 ohms, 200 wpc @ 4 ohms. I don't think the Adcom is really enough either.

It's unfortunate that the Pioneer Elite A-35R lacks preouts to act as a preamplifier, or else I might buy one.

 

[WmAx]

actually being able to take the rack mount wings off is a huge help.. would that amp be good on the kappa sub? I'm really not digging the look of the EP2500

and I agree, the yamaha is ok looking compared to the rest of them.

The Yamaha is 4 Ohm (and even 3 Ohm) stable in stereo. But it's not 4 Ohm stable bridged mono. If you were going to run stereo Kappa subs, the P5000S has 700 x 2 at 4 Ohms, 20Hz-20,000Hz, or you could run the P7000S, which has almost 1kW per channel x 2 at 4 Ohms, 20Hz-20,000Hz.

Here are the Yamaha amps in my main system (which btw is a SQ system that will easily exceed just about any audiophile system regardless of cost with fancy audiophile amplifiers and hardware ). If I had ANY reason, ANY reason at all to suspect even a small level of SQ degradation, I would not use the amplifiers. I don't do half measures where SQ is concerned.

-Chris

 

[tuk]

thanks alot guys! looks like i should have enough in a week. the yamaha looks ok, would look better if its in black. i will try my luck on ebay next week

ill post again after i found something

 

[jamie2112]

yeah but my krell stuff cost alot more and says KRELL on it and its pretty

Sorry pure hype nothing else.