Separates worth the price?
Thought I’d throw my two cents in here… sorry in advance for the long post.
My first home theater system was based upon a Marantz SR-4200 receiver (70 watts per channel). At the time I had two pairs of speakers in the house, and decided that I’d build a surround system around one of the two.
They were a pair of Klipsch Forte’s and a pair of KEF Q75’s. Both of these speakers are efficient, and neither is seemingly a difficult load. The Forte is a 99dB (1 watt/1 meter) speaker with a nominal 8 ohm rating. The Q75 is a 91 dB (1 watt/1 meter) 6 ohm nominal speaker.
With 99 dB sensitivity and an 8 ohm rating one would think you could use pretty much any amplifier with the Klipsch Forte’s. This, however, is not the case. Apparently, in order to match the output levels of the midrange and tweeter drivers (those horns, you know) to the 12” woofer, Klipsch used a type of transformer in the crossover circuit. Transformers are inductive by nature; which means that while the amplifier doesn’t have to have a high power output, it does need to be able to deal with a very difficult load caused by the inductor’s presence. Using an inexpensive receiver with these speakers is entirely the wrong approach. What’s needed is a high-current amplifier that can deal with difficult loads without any problems. Not high power… high current… or “grunt” as I call it.
Therefore, my Marantz receiver/Klipsch experiment failed miserably; muddy, tubby, and generally unappealing sound was the result. Luckily, the KEF’s sounded very nice with the Marantz, which allowed me to begin building my home theater anyway. My first point is that impedance and sensitivity are not the only parameters in the speaker/amp interface to be concerned with. Phase angle and inductance must also be taken into account, at a minimum.
Now, here’s where it gets even more interesting. After several months of enjoyment with my new system I wondered how it would sound with more oomph behind it. Not that it wasn’t loud enough… just that I wanted a more dynamically realistic presentation for both music and movies. Therefore, I grabbed my battleship amp (a Harman-Kardon Citation 22) which is rated at 200 watts per channel into 4 or 8 ohms. It has a “high current” setting for 4 ohm (and under) loads. I tried it with both sets of speakers
The difference was obvious. Not as great as the difference between the Klipsch and KEF speakers, but significant none-the-less. Even with the relatively mild-mannered KEFs there was greater dynamics and impact, greater detail and clarity, greater growl in the bass, better low bass extension, and overall, a much more lifelike and exhilarating presentation. And where the Marantz wouldn’t play nice with the Klipsch Forte’s, the Citation amp made them sing!
So, with this experience under my belt a dedicated 5-channel amp was the obvious solution... which then eventually lead me to a better quality DVD player and a dedicated pre-pro. Each was a nice addition to the system, adding additional touches of detail, smoothness, and refinement. However, I will admit that these last two were more incremental increases, not radical improvements. Although I must say that the clarity and positioning of surround effects on movies did improve noticably with the computing horsepower on tap with the dedicated pre-pro, as compared to the receiver… though I’m sure many of today’s receivers have as much ability as my five year old pre-pro did when new… so that’s not as much of an issue… unless, of course, today’s processors are even farther ahead. Who knows?
Now understand, I’m not putting down anyone who owns and uses a receiver… different strokes for different folks – not everyone wants to spend the money, not everyone wants those extra boxes hanging around, not everyone seems able to hear the difference, or the difference isn’t great enough to warrant the expenditure for others – but there is a difference; and in my opinion, for the better, with separates. For me, it was indeed enough to warrant the cost.
