That's what I did. CrownXLI2500 from my Onkyo txrz820. The Crown has an input sensitivity select of .755v or 1.4v, so it can match with the consumer equipment. I'm not sure what my Onkyo's output is but I have tried it in both positions and it works either way. I keep it at .755v because that is the recommended level and I get all the power I could ever want. I agree on big amps. Definitely the best sounding most real sounding instrument in my system are drums, very real. Really everything sounds better than straight out the receiver. Edit: I've mentioned my amp multiple times on this channel so I'm sure Barry is sick of hearing about it, but I think it is good info for some people. Thanks for another great video.

Thank you so very much for posting this. That was an exceptional video and I learned more from watching that that I have in the last 6 months of watching KZread videos on the subject. Thank you once again.

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

Barry, I learn something every time you post a new video. Now I know why when I connect consumer stuff to my pro gear I have to crank up the gain. Thanks and I really hope this channel grows.

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

That is awesome!

I love this channel, I am a semi truck driver , easy way to understand different scenarios

@Barry-Watson

5 ай бұрын

Great to hear!

You talk about power! I love power!!

Excellent explanation, thank you!

@Barry-Watson

9 ай бұрын

You're very welcome!

I bought an onkyo m501 from 1997. It’s 150 watts per channel. It is a beast. Not pretty but lots of power. For me the key is no heat. I have this in a cabinet and not having to worry is nice. Best of both worlds. Thanks for a great video.

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

Very nice!

Outstanding explanation & entertaining too.

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for the information, very good!

@Barry-Watson

Ай бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

Great info. Thanks for sharing it.

@Barry-Watson

7 ай бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

I got a Denon X6500 AVR and I'm using a QSC 1450a pro amp to power my front two Arendal 1723s which are 4 ohms speakers. I used RCA coaxial to 1/4 cables and had no problems with the sound, even at lower volume.

@Barry-Watson

3 ай бұрын

Sometimes that works ok, glad it's working for you. Some amplifiers do not like having their balanced inputs driven from an unbalanced source, and they just don't sound right. Sometimes you can pick up electrical interference in the signal if you're not using a balanced connection. Oftentimes hi-fi preamps do not have enough signal drive to push a pro power amp to full output power. The conversion box addresses these issues. But some pro power amps do include unbalanced inputs, and some are tolerant of less than ideal connections and still work okay. I think QSC makes great stuff and I'm happy to hear that it's working well for you.

@ms19631964

2 ай бұрын

@@Barry-Watson I pickup the converter box from Amazon. Haven't hook it up yet. But ready any day now.

@Barry-Watson

2 ай бұрын

Hope that works well for you. It should allow you to more easily drive the power amp up to its maximum potential. Because you are boosting the gain, you may raise the noise floor a little bit, and if that's a problem just back down the gain controls at the amplifier.

@ms19631964

2 ай бұрын

@@Barry-Watson Yes I did get that extra noise. It's a humming noise. But when you turn up the sound, you can't hear any. Will take your advice and turndown the amp or can I turndown the volume on the Clean Box.

@Barry-Watson

2 ай бұрын

Yeah, when you boost the level it can also lift the noise floor a bit. You should be able to adjust gain either at the amplifier, or at the interface box. I'm surprised you're getting hum, if you disconnect the input cables from the interface box does the hum go away?

Great video

@Barry-Watson

4 ай бұрын

Thanks!

Thank you for this! I was going to buy a rca line driver but decided to get balanced cables and the Clean Box Pro. I have a home theater thats powered by a Yamaha RX A800 reciever and its rca sub outs are not stong enough for the Crown XLS 1502 I got to power some passive subwoofers. I also bought the Dayton DSP 408 for added control.

@Barry-Watson

5 ай бұрын

Glad I could help! I bet that will work well for you.

I used a rca to xlr . And it works fine

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

It may appear to work ok, results vary, depending on the equipment. There are good reasons why pro-audio gear uses balanced connections at line-level, proper interconnects assure the best and most reliable noise-free performance.

I have. 102 DB sensitivity 1994 pa speakers set and yes , there are great 👍

More power

Thank you, question what gain do I set on the power amp. Do you put it at 100 percent and let the avr control to volume

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

It really doesn't matter as long as you get the output you need, but I almost always keep my gains turned all the way up. It's just an input attenuator These controls may be useful to balance levels if this amplifier is part of a system with other amplifiers, or you need to trim the left/right balance. The control position should have no impact on sound quality.

I found a nice but broken pioneer AV surround sound receiver/amp at the second hand store for 15 bucks. I went to KZread and found an easy resolder fix video. No parts needed help. This has a million settings and a sub out. Added 4, 400watt, $30 sub woofers and put them into 2 $60 dual vented boxes and bought the cheapest 500watt eBay amp for $ 250. The punch is insane. So it can be done on the cheap.

Great video! Very informative. I have a Bose® Model 1800-VI professional stereo power amplifier but its fan is quite noisy. Is it advisable to replace it with a newer and less noisy fan? Many thanks!

@Barry-Watson

8 ай бұрын

Those were interesting amps, pretty good power. If the fan is noisy my first step might be to disassemble, and try cleaning and lubrication. If it's working as designed, but you're not too keen on the design and it's too noisy for you then I would pursue a new fan that runs more quietly, and hopefully moves as much air as the original. I'm no expert on these amps, and I haven't worked on them, but I do see that a thread that addresses this issue that might have some good information for you, and he recommends a few fan models that might be compatible. Best wishes! audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/bose-1800-the-saga-goes-on.776885/

@masher1042

8 ай бұрын

@@Barry-Watson Noted. Thanks for the feedback.

A lot of good amps will play the headphones jack while playing the speakers. For years I ran a 4 way crossover that had high , mid, woofer, and subs ,outputs. Then I could add as much power as I wanted. I used the regular surround sound receiver and used the crossover to ad amps and speakers for low end earthquake sound when I want . While in the low low Budget life. ,

Do you know of a "warm" 2 channel amp I could add to my RZ50 receiver for bright Klipsch towers? Researching amps is not coming easy. Especially one that is affordable.

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

There are a lot of good amps. One of them that has worked well for me is the Yamaha P-series, I think they are very clean, quiet sounding and have silent fans (at typical home hifi power levels). The P2500S, P5000S etc. I'd probably look for a "lower-powered" pro-sound amp (500w/ch or less) because they usually have quieter fans. I've liked lots of Crown and QSC amps. The Crest V/VS series were mosfet based amps, so they should be very good sounding too.

@designsinorbit

Жыл бұрын

@@Barry-Watson Crown works for me... just found the XLI2500 used on Amazon in like new condition for $378. 500w x2 @8. Thanks for the help!

What about routing through a preamp? My preamp has a passive stage and an active stage that will convert a single ended connection to balanced. Currently I have basically 2 systems separated by a switch. DAC/preamp/amp balanced and AVR to amp with a passive switch so I can go back and forth. For serious 2 channel I use my DAC set up, but for everyday TV and background we use the AVR. I would love to eliminate the switch but I don't think feeding a pre amp out of a pre out is a good idea. My space is limited to the living room so sharing the speakers on each system works best for me for now. The switch actually works great, no audible noise that I can detect. I just hate having to manually make the switch, which I will forget sometimes and the wife calls saying the stereo don't work.

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, if your preamp offers balanced outputs, that sounds ideal! I like Crown amplifiers, I have a PS-200 on my "office/den" system. My issue with most of the more modern Crown amplifiers is that they are fan cooled, and I prefer a silent amplifier for home hifi. Sometimes I use a Yamaha P5000s, which is fan cooled, but those fans are off or silent unless you push it hard. Cheers!

@ericnortan9012

Жыл бұрын

@@Barry-Watson right on. I have never heard my fan, but probably never push the amp hard enough to need to cool off. Even at "high" volume, in the living room it doesn't take much to get plenty loud. For the price the XLIs are hard to beat for doing what your talking about. I'm sure there are plenty of good options out there though.

HI Great video. I am trying to set up a system on the cheap to power some large Cerwin Vegas. I purchased a used Yamaha P1600 and traded for Harmon Kardon Home audio pre-amp. I have been unsuccessful, minimal or no sound to the speakers. So it looks like I need the Clean Box and the proper cables.

@Barry-Watson

5 ай бұрын

If you put an audio input signal into the power amp, turn the amp gains up, you should get some output to the speakers. So, I hope you're hearing something. Check the amp controls to be in typical "stereo mode", so you are not in bridge mode, or have any crossover filtering enabled etc. If you're using most "consumer" gear, you might not have enough input signal to really drive the amp to high levels of output - and that's when you need a interface box like the Clean-Box. Best wishes!

@jeffbassett3174

4 ай бұрын

Thanks, I think the pre-amp is bad. Changed to another consumer pre-amp and I get fain sound with the amps gain all the way up. I placed a Clean-Box in between the newer pre-amp and the P1600 and I get plenty of sound :) Now however I am dealing with nasty hum. If I place my source directly into the Clean-Box the hum disappears. All are plugged into the same power strip. @@Barry-Watson

@Barry-Watson

4 ай бұрын

Sounds like you're not having a good day with hi-fi preamps. Do you get the nasty hum with no inputs plugged into the preamp? Does the volume level of the hum change with the volume control setting on the preamp? If the preamp has a headphone jack, do you hear the hum noise there as well without preamp inputs plugged in, or the preamp connected to the clean-box?

@jeffbassett3174

4 ай бұрын

Ok with both the balance and unbalanced level on the CleanBox all the way up and no input I hear no hum. With he audio cable (1/8 jack to RCA) plugged into the pre-amp (1/8 jack not plugged in) I get a slight hum at high volume, with the 1/8 jack plugged into the audio out on a computer I get pronounced hum

@Barry-Watson

4 ай бұрын

Okay, so the amplifier and clean-box are working properly. With an input lead attached that's not plugged into anything, that's an antenna and I would expect to pick up some noise if you turn up the gains. So the hum is coming from the computer, or your input cable (or computer jack) has a poor ground connection. Maybe you can try a different cable. If the computer is a laptop try unplugging it from the wall and run on batteries for a moment and see if that takes care of the hum. Make sure the computer and all the audio equipment are plugged into the same electrical circuit. Some computers are notoriously noisy which is one of the reasons why people use usb audio interfaces like the focusrite, or the fi-fine that I reviewed a little bit ago. You could try running a wire from the metal part of the computer box, its ground to the ground side of the input connector on the clean box. Maybe you could also try plugging a battery powered device in to the input, like a phone, if your phone has a headphone jack on it and see if you get hum that way. So far, it sounds to me like it's an issue with the computer's audio.

If you pre out from a receiver to a pro audio amp without a signal booster, and lets say it works, mine does, but the sound is thinner and has no apparent increase in power, would that loss of performance be a result of not having a signal booster? I just hooked a qsa 900 to my receiver and am very disappointed with a thin/less powerful sound.

@Barry-Watson

Ай бұрын

Yes, could very well be. Sometimes you can directly drive a power amplifier and everything seems to work ok, but in other cases you have these sorts of issues. There are a number of issues that could potentially be a problem. Some amplifiers do not like being driven with an unbalanced signal and they just don't sound right. Oftentimes the hifi equipment can't drive enough signal as expected by Pro Sound equipment and you can't reach full power. The prosound equipment may also put more load (low impedance amp input vs hi impedance hifi output) , and that loading could affect the fidelity. Also when using unbalanced connections, you are more likely to pick up environmental noise than with a balanced audio connection as expected by the pro sound equipment. For these reasons, I suggest using a unbalanced to balanced converter line driver amplifier which converts the signal to the proper format for the pro sound equipment. That will preserve the fidelity, and allow you to be able to drive the prosound amplifier up to full power with that lower level signal that's coming from the hifi equipment. Here is such a device: amzn.to/3yDdjAo

Mc2 MC1250 would be a much better pro audio amp, for both power output and superior audio quality. Interesting video.

@Barry-Watson

7 күн бұрын

Certainly, but that's at a whole 'nother price point too.

@subculture-records

6 күн бұрын

@@Barry-Watson This is true, but sometimes it's worth it. I don't mind Yamaha gear but their older 4U power amps, circa the late 70's early 80's had a much richer sound than their later 2U range. However, once you've tried an Mc2 amp it's hard to break the habit.

One question hope you can help me with. I have onkyo av receiver with preout out connection at the back of it and i also have a Rotel power amp with 2 rca input, 2 rca out put and only one per of speakers can be connected at the back of Rotel power amp. My question is i have 7.1 sound system, is this the correct way from onkyo preout rca to Rotel input rca ? And should i contact my left and right speakers to my Rotel amp and the rest of speakers to my onkyo av receiver?. Hope you can help me with it. Thanks 🙏

@Barry-Watson

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, assuming the Rotel amplifier can do more than the AV receiver I would probably attach the main left and right speakers to the external power amp then feed it from the preamp outputs for main left and right from the receiver. This might take a little bit of load off the receiver, so it can better drive the remaining surround speakers. Maybe. Sounds like both of your pieces of gear use unbalanced hi-fi style connections, so you should be able to just wire them directly together and have everything work nicely. Good luck!

@jannahrusdi872

7 ай бұрын

@@Barry-Watson thanks for replying my message and I will definitely connect them soon. Thanks again 😁👍

@Barry-Watson

7 ай бұрын

My pleasure, happy to help.

@jannahrusdi872

7 ай бұрын

Hi Barry. is 12V trigger cable connection best option to power up the amplifier from Av receiver? or just a normal power cable? Thanks 🙏

@jannahrusdi872

7 ай бұрын

And also I wanted to know,do I need to do Audyssey setup after I connect my Rotel power amp to my Onkyo Av receiver?

Can I use a mixer to hook up a pro Amp from rca signal?

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

Depends on the mixer. Some mixers have the ability to accept a RCA un-balanced input, and also have balanced (pro-audio level) outputs. If that's the case, yes, you could use the mixer to provide the proper signal to a pro-amplifier.

@littlejln213

Жыл бұрын

Awesome! I have a couple of options that can do that. Is it possible to email you? I would like to ask you a few questions, pick your brain a little bit.

@Barry-Watson

Жыл бұрын

Sure, my e-mail is listed near the bottom of the channel 'about' page. www.youtube.com/@BarryWatsonAudio/about

Although there seems to be a great deal or differing opinions on the matter (I can't find any critical videos or articles about the issue), I'm about to add a Tonewinner AD-8300PA to my Denon X4700H AVR and run the AVR in full pre-out mode. Are you aware of any factual material on where or not there is interference the amp imparts into the processing chips? My brother, a Ph.D. electronics engineering professor is suspect of the issue. The power of the majority of the channels are roughly in par (within 20W) whereas the front three are 2x to nearly 3x the power. I figured I would get better, more accurate sound from them - the amp varies power depending on how many channels are being used at once.

@Barry-Watson

10 ай бұрын

I would suspect that the line level signal outputs from your Denon receiver have a small buffering amplifier stage that drives them. This means that no matter what happens on those output terminals, it should not impact the sound quality or performance of the Denon receiver itself. I think Denon generally makes pretty good stuff. I have not used the Tonewinner amp, my initial impression is that it's Chinese hi-fi stuff. It's probably a decent amp. The specs suggest to me that it's probably built like home hi-fi stuff, and isn't really a monster. The case is pretty. I'd be confidant of brands with a strong reputation like Powersoft, QSC, Crown or Yamaha, that can meet the standards of the pro-sound market. Remember, it takes about 10 times power to boost perceived loudness by two times. So the little bump of power offered here is negligible, it's not going to be a game changer. If you need lots more loud, at some point it becomes more practical to look to more efficient speakers, rather than more watts. Quality power amplifiers are designed to reproduce the signal cleanly,, and the sound quality difference between good amplifiers is usually small. I doubt that you will truly hear any significant difference between the receiver itself, or the receiver with a power amp attached. Sometimes I do hear a bit of difference in transient response with a really seriously powerful amplifier (>500w), that can just kick those speakers into submission. I suspect the tonewinner amp would work OK, but I just don't see that it offers any major advantages here, and it's an expensive product. Is it really much better than the Denon amps? Hey, if you dig it, buy it. One of my best purchases was a motorcycle, and it wasn't a logical decision. I might entertain a serious power amp on your left and right main speakers, if for some reason you feel that your receiver is lacking. A prosound amp would be a step up from the Denon (by itself), if you needed insane power or the ability to drive crazy loads. I would start with just the left and right mains, since I suspect the Denon already has ample power for driving the surround speakers. Good luck and live loud.

@garyausten5939

10 ай бұрын

@@Barry-Watson I' was never looking to double the loudness - my home theater doubles as my bedroom and it's not very big. I was looking more towards soundstage and headroom improvement, particularly when watching movies. The Klipsch speakers that I use for LCR are pretty efficient already (94.5-96 Db) and I'm not sure, as more of a hobbyist I'd need any equipment worthy of a arena band. Even some consumer amps cost about 1/2 of my annual income (or more), and i looked at the brands you mentioned and saw they were just 2-channel amps...I was looking at a regular home theater amp. The 3 high-power modules (depending on how many other speakers I have working at once), should be more than enough power, and If, in the future I can afford to get fully into separates and get a dedicated processor, I'd already have an 11-channel amp to get started with. I'm supposed to get the amp tomorrow afternoon or evening.

@Barry-Watson

10 ай бұрын

Tomorrow sounds like an exciting day! Hope it works great for you.

Home HiFi amps are super expensive and very lacking in power for price vs pro stuff. Not that power is the only factor but to me job 1 of an amp is to power my speakers to my needs.