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Do I need a subwoofer for my audio physic sparks?

Hi all, I recently got a rogue audio tempest magnum to go with my audio physic sparks. The setup has a great sound, but starts to break up a bit if i turn the volume way up. The integrated amp only has 60 watts. Do I need something else with more power? A separate preamp? Get a different integrated with more power? Or is the problem with the speakers? Do i need a subwoofer? (I didnt have this problem on my old cheapo yamaha solid state when i turned the volume way up. It didnt sound as nice, obviously, but it also didnt break up at these volumes.)

Any advice would be much appreciated. (I did a similar posting in the amps/preamps group.)
rhharris
seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
How big's the room ? What's the speakers' efficiency. 60w should be enough for small/medium rooms. A quality amp shouldn't be breaking up unless you're playing very bass heavy music very loud. Something may be broken.

A subwoofer won't help in your situation because there's no way to prevent the amp from trying to drive the low frequencies into the speakers (you'd need separate pre-power for this).
rhharris OP
5 posts
 
the room is about 20x10 ft, so not huge. the speakers are at 4 ohms.

when you say separate pre-power, does that mean a sep amp or preamp? if so, cld i make use of the yamaha in some way? (its 120 watts.)
karls
332 posts
 
Does the Rogue have a preamp output/input? Some integrateds have this, where you can run the signal through an outboard processor (in this case, you would run it through the sub's crossover), and then back into the integrated's amplifier stage. If so, then look into a Vandersteen 2Wq sub, should work very well for you at a good price. I would normally recommend REL subs over the Vandys, but in your case, where you would like to take some load off the tube amp, you want a sub that has a high-pass filter built in.

If the Rogue doesn't have a preamp out/in loop, then you're pretty much stuck replacing either it or your speakers.
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