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Using Professional Amps On Home Theater Speakers

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Are there any drawbacks other than fan noise to use pro amplifiers on hard to drive home theater speakers? I have several pair of the amp-killing 4 ohm Infinity Kappa 9 speakers that dip down to 1 ohm. To use six or eight of these speakers in a home theater would take a tremendous amount of money to power them sufficiently. There are certainly lots of speakers out there that are waay more efficient, but I already own these and would like to find a solution to power them sufficiently for my home theater. The Kappa 9 are about 85db efficient and suggest an amp of 60-340 wpc.

On the web I've seen a professional amp made by QVC, their MX2450 model is rated at 650 wpc @ 4 ohms and 1200 wpc @ 2 ohms for $750.

The amps will be 40 feet away from the seating area, so fan noise will not be a problem. Black background, liquid mids @ highs, wide and deep soundstage, "air", extended decays and all of the rest of the adjectives to describe a desirable two-channel amp is not important. I just want it loud and powerful. My home theater will be totally separate from my two-channel system.

Please weigh in with your opinions on this.

..thanks, Mitch
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128x128mitch4t
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Should be fine. If its just for movies and TV, I can't imagine that this would be a problem; in fact its a good solution, IMO. For the use you describe, I think that "audiophile" characteristics are largely irrelevant. We are visual creatures and for me, I've put my $ into the display for my HT. Just commenting on the concept, no knowledge of the actual amps.
mitch4t's avatar
mitch4t OP
1,603 posts
 
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The manufacturers list the Kappa 9 as 4 ohm speakers.

My budget is around $10k total for amps to power nine of these speakers for my home theater.
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ckoffend
684 posts
 
If your budget for the amps is $10K, why not get two Krell TAS amps and have $3-4K left over?

Also, there was a used Theta Dreadnaught at 5 X 200 watts for sale earlier this week. These aren't that great for 2-channel (which you don't care about anyway), but getting two of those dreadnaughts should put you out about $5,000 total for 10 channels at 200 watts into 8 ohms each.

Having a son who is into DJing I have a little (tiny) bit of experience with the types of amps you are referring to. They do fine for their intended purpose, but they are usually "loud" - not just from the fans. They seem to have a greater tendency toward buzzing, humming, etc. . . But those could all be grounding issues. But that would be one of my concerns.

But you could certainly get a stack rack for a bunch of those amps and have them all take up just a few square feet of space. I think most of the current "professional" amps of today are class D and have gotten surprising cheap (which tells us all alot about the "real" value of most class D amps and what it really costs to build them!).

One thing you will need to address with these amps is the types of speaker connectors offered. Many professional amps only offer 1/4" or neutric speaker connections and many also just accept balanced inputs. Both do have real work-arounds, but something to keep in mind. Go to your local Guitar Center and talk to some of the guys there for more experienced input on this.
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