Setup for music and bome theater

[jakebake]

Hey guys!

So I am trying to plan on what I want to do when moving. I am most likely not going to have enough room for a dedicated home theater as well as a dedicated music listening room. I want to combine them. I plan on getting a projector and some new speakers (when I decide on what I want) but my problem is and the reason for this thread is that I like to listen to music with my tube amps that I have. I want the home theater to be 5.1... is there any way to combine the tube amps with the two front speakers and a receiver for the rest or a way to switch the front speakers between the tube amp and the reciever?

 

[3db]

As nooshinjohn points out, get a receiver with pre-outs. Yamaha, Onkyo, and Marantz offer receivers with pre-oust Denon does too but iy only puts them in on their more costly receivers for some unknow reason.

The only catch is you may need to buy a 3rd tube amp to drive your center channel as SS and tube amps are worlds apart in sound. The idea of home theater is to have your main speakers match in timbre with your center channel. I think the automatic room calibrations such as Auddesy in Marantz, Onk, and Denon and YPAO for Yamaha are not equipped to timbre match SS and tube sounds.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Yeah, I see no issues with using the tube amps for both your front L/R and let the AVR power the C & Surrounds.

The important thing is channel level-matching since your tube amp and the AVR's amp may have different gain levels. So just make sure all the channels have the same levels. Then you are all set.

I would not bother with switching back and forth at all between the tube amp and the AVR. Just let the tube amp do both the music and movies.

If it sounds great with music, it will sound great with movies!

 

[3db]

Yeah, I see no issues with using the tube amps for both your front L/R and let the AVR power the C & Surrounds.

Except that the center channel will NOT timbre match the mains because its driven my a SS amp and the mains are driven by tubes. Its anaolgous to having a SS amp driving a pair of mains of brand X and having a brand Y center channel.

 

[GranteedEV]

Except that the center channel will NOT timbre match the mains because its driven my a SS amp and the mains are driven by tubes. Its anaolgous to having a SS amp driving a pair of mains of brand X and having a brand Y center channel.

That and the mid bass in action movies would lose a good deal of impact and precision depending on the nature of the tubes in question. For highs it's usually not so much an issue for movies as they roll them off at the studio anyways.

 

[Jim85IROC]

If it were me, I think I'd rather use the receiver's solid state amp for home theater, and stick to the tube amp for my 2 channel listening. I don't know if there are switch boxes out there to allow for the connection of 2 amps to 1 pair of speakers, but if not, one can be built easily with a couple relays, and if you choose a receiver with a 12 volt trigger, this would be very easy to implement.