Questions on next steps with my power amp

So I guess it may have been a bit naive of me to just buy an amp before thinking through the whole audio strategy but I heard a lot about this Outlaw amp and I have good speakers that I know I want a good power amp to drive so I went ahead and bought it. The tape deck and turntable I inherited from my father who recently passed away along with the Onyko receiver. I knew the receiver was not going to cut it. So I thought a pre-amp would be able to bridge everything but I haven’t been up to date on audio equipment in a while so that’s why I’m asking now. I’m a bit confused on DAC vs Audio Processor vs Pre-amp.

I have the resources to spend more than $1000 on the needed equipment. I just thought a music processor or pre-amp may be able to do most of what I’m looking for. In terms of playing digital music it doesn’t necessarily need to be directly from my computer but could be via my Samsung 10+.

Erik, the 5.1amp is a pure Power amp and not integrated.

Also in terms of the turntable and tape deck, I can buy new ones of each if I have to (ie like if i have to buy a turn table with USB connection). The main thing that’s important to me is that I inherited a huge record and tape collection from my father that means very much to me and I would like to play them. Right now I have my father’s 20 year old components that were good for the time (Denon tape deck and Sony turntable).

Appreciate the help all.

Or would it just be easier if I bought a new intergrated amp that would act as pre-amp/DAC? It's just that I'd rather spend more money to get a better sounding system and more complete setup.

Okay would be nice if you could return the amp but if not no use crying over spilled watts.

You keep saying DAC but I'm not seeing anything makes me think you need a DAC. Since you inherited all this from your dad I would assume he had everything you need to - ie, he was playing records so he must have had a phono stage either built into the Onkyo or the record player. Let's go for the simplest first- look on the back of the Onkyo for RCA input that says PHONO. Let me know.

Next there's different things you can do. My advice is you do what you can do now and for free or cheap and not be in a hurry to spend money until you have a much better idea what you're doing. 

What you can do now and for next to nothing: Hook everything up to the Onkyo and enjoy.

While you're listening spend a minute thinking about what you're hearing. What you're hearing is the sound coming from the tape (or record) through a wire (interconnect), into the pre-amp stage of the receiver, then the power amp in the receiver, then through more wire (speaker wire), finally to the speakers. All of it powered by electricity that came from a wall through more wire (power cords). Every single one of these (and more I haven't mentioned) contributes for bad or good to what you hear. Its not just the amp and speakers. Its the interconnects, speaker wire, and power cords. Its everything.

So next step very cheap, you go on-line to some place like partsexpress.com and buy for next to nothing ($6, something like that) this thing called a Line Out Converter or LOC. None of these are very high quality and unlike most things you really don't get more when you pay more and this is probably not something you'll be using for long anyway so one of those rare times when it really is okay to go cheap.

The LOC will allow you to use the Onkyo as a pre-amp. So you will be able to hear exactly the difference between the amp in the Onkyo and the Outlaw amp you bought. Probably you're hoping the Outlaw sounds a lot better but that's not the point. The point is you learn the only way of knowing which is better and by how much is to actually compare by listening side by side. 

First things first though. Does the Onkyo have a phono input?

Thank you Miller. So I ended up running just through the Onkyo and the sound is ok. I was able to find an audio out and ran it through the Outlaw Power Amp. The only problem is that I was not able to control the volume through the Onkyo. It was set a certain volume level. Quite high actually. And I couldn't turn it down. Is this normal?

I think I need to buy a new integrated amp or pre-amp to take the place of the old Onkyo. I'm still not clear on what to get. 

@sftitan,

I am not a fan of using an outboard amp with an integrated amp that has no preouts. Line level outputs are really not designed to hook up to an amp. What Onkyo integrated do you have? What model is the Outlaw Audio?

Bill