Running an AV Amp & Stereo Amp

[nuff]

Good morning all,
I’m just after some advice about my setup.

What I have is a Denon AVC A1D AV amp which I’m using as my multi-channel & stereo set up.

I have now bought a Pioneer SA-9100 (Which should be here Friday) to run a stereo set up. Am I right in thinking I can connect this to my AV amp and run without the need of an amp switch?

I've been reading and to me it looks as if I can connect via the multi-out on my Denon to the power in on the pioneer. I then connect the front speakers to the pioneer??

Any advice on this would be very much appreciated.

Happy New Year To You All!!

[Firebottle]

As long as the multi out is level controlled, i.e. volume, you shouldn't have a problem.

Just check in the Denon instructions that it is OK to have no speakers connected to the L+R outputs.

Alan

[surayne]

I don't think this will work for entirely separate stereo and multichannel use, you will be dependent on the AV amp for volume control even for stereo use if you disconnect the preamp section of the stereo amp.

If you want to be able to have the AV amp active as a preamp for movies and use only the stereo amp for music, you need a stereo amp with a unity gain (home theatre bypass) input rather than simply a power amp input.

[DarrenHW]

I've been reading and to me it looks as if I can connect via the multi-out on my Denon to the power in on the pioneer. I then connect the front speakers to the pioneer??

It looks that way to me too, although this may not be the best way IMHO. Running this way the front speakers will be powered by the Pioneer and the satellites powered by the Denon, in my experience mixing amps in a home cinema setup results in poor speaker integration. Both the amps will sound different so sounds that travel from the front to surround or centre speaker will change with the sound of the amp and there's sound levels to consider too.

Then there's the question of which is the better (or more musical) pre amp? I would imagine that the Pioneer will sound better for music and speculate that a large part of that sound will be due to it's pre amp? The only way to know for sure is to try all the options to have available.

I ran a similar setup with an AV receiver and a stereo amp, for me the best results were achieved when using the AV amp for Home Cinema and the stereo amp for music and simply changing the speaker cable to the front speakers depending on what I was listening to.

[nuff]

Hmm thanks for the answers chaps. I think I have a bit of fiddling to do.
I suppose it would be a big deal swapping the speakers from 1 amp to the other. The stereo amp will be used more than the AV amp, it's not often I watch movies much anymore.

Thanks again to all.

[Oldpinkman]

I run a similar setup with a Yamaha AV amp using the Pip / Quad 405/2 ESL63's as AV front left and right. It's piss easy. The only problem is I have to paint a bit of white tippex on the pip volume control so I know which position I left it in when I set up the AV. So set a sensible gain on the 2 channel amp, then leave the AV amps processor to set up the levels with a mike in the normal way. Then when you want to listen to movies select the appropriate input on the 2 channel, and in my case align the tippex marks. Simples

[nuff]

I run a similar setup with a Yamaha AV amp using the Pip / Quad 405/2 ESL63's as AV front left and right. It's piss easy. The only problem is I have to paint a bit of white tippex on the pip volume control so I know which position I left it in when I set up the AV. So set a sensible gain on the 2 channel amp, then leave the AV amps processor to set up the levels with a mike in the normal way. Then when you want to listen to movies select the appropriate input on the 2 channel, and in my case align the tippex marks. Simples

Excellent thanks Richard!

[windhoek]

I use a Teddy Pardo i80a as my main stereo amp which is connected to my Marantz NR1504 via the AVR's Preout. This means the AVR can use the i80a as a poweramp to drive the front channels for AV content and I can continue to use the i80a for stereo duties without needing two pairs of front speakers or faffing about with cables; fwiw, the i80a has AV Bypass (sometimes called Unity Gain) and if your amp has this and your AVR, Preouts, you can do it too. Click on the link below to watch a very good video tutorial on how to do this - it even shows you how to do it if your amp doesn't have AV Bypass, but your AVR still needs to have front channel Preouts no matter what for it to work.

http://www.whathifi.com/news/how-to-...-cinema-system

[nuff]

I use a Teddy Pardo i80a as my main stereo amp which is connected to my Marantz NR1504 via the AVR's Preout. This means the AVR can use the i80a as a poweramp to drive the front channels for AV content and I can continue to use the i80a for stereo duties without needing two pairs of front speakers or faffing about with cables; fwiw, the i80a has AV Bypass (sometimes called Unity Gain) and if your amp has this and your AVR, Preouts, you can do it too. Click on the link below to watch a very good video tutorial on how to do this - it even shows you how to do it if your amp doesn't have AV Bypass, but your AVR still needs to have front channel Preouts no matter what for it to work.

http://www.whathifi.com/news/how-to-...-cinema-system

Thanks Derek! That's worked perfectly.
1 question. What position do you put your Bass & treble. It seems I can use both on the AV amp and stereo amp.

Thanks again mate, I'm well pleased.

[windhoek]

Thanks Derek! That's worked perfectly.
1 question. What position do you put your Bass & treble. It seems I can use both on the AV amp and stereo amp.

Thanks again mate, I'm well pleased.

No probs Nathan

My Teddy Pardo stereo amp doesn't have tone controls, so I just let the Marantz apply EQ settings based on what Audyssey auto setup suggests. If your stereo amp has tone controls, I'd reset them to zero when being used with the AVR and put them back to your preferred settings when listening to plain stereo.