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Combining home theater with two channel

I have a 7 channel home theater system. In my system, I have Marantz 7706pre amp, Emotiva XPA-Differential 3 channel(450 wpc) driving my golden ear R1s and center channel, XPA-4 (275 wpc) driving surround speakers. When I switch to 2 channel to play music, I’m just not impressed with the emotiva.
My dealer suggested that I add an integrated amp to the system to play music.  The krell K-300i. I just have a hard time understanding how can a 150 wpc amp pack more of a punch than a 450watt amp. 
peytoni
jdub39
500 posts
 
@dbphd  The JC5 has John Curl's signature on the front front face plate.
secretguy
1,858 posts
 
I used to have my 2 channel integrated along with the HT stuff. I just switched cables at the speaker. A PITA but it worked well.
dbphd
1,633 posts
 
Thanks for the information, jdub39. The JC5 must be a really nice 5 channel amp. I use five pieces of equipment, an Ayre VX-5 Twenty for stereo, JC 1 for center, and a pair of NAD 268 stereo amps for side and back surround. The preamp, streamer, disc player, and phono stage are Ayre. Before Ayre it was all Parasound, JC 3 phono stage, JC 2 preamp, 3 JC 1s for LCR, and a pair of A 23s for side and rear surround. A Bryston SP3 does surround processing for Ayre as it did for Parasound.
jdub39
500 posts
 
@dbphd 
The JC5 is a stereo amp , its in essence the stereo version of the JC 1 mono blocks . 
holmz's avatar
holmz
2,328 posts
 
I know it sounds like hokum but it is not.  For me, full HT is less important than sound quality.  So I am going the two channel route for TV and movie streaming.   I find that it is more than adequate for HT duties. But now music streaming is so much better.
I am running the TV with a 2.1 stereo set up… and I am wondering why I even ordered a center channel. I might try 4.1 for a while if the surrounds arrive before the center channel (then decide on 5.1).

And also have an AV processor “soon to arrive”, so this is sounding like we are along somewhat similar paths.
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