Legacy Speaker Owners Assistance Request

Tom, whichever amps you buy, most will be well within tolerances for impedance that you can switch them from Bass duties to M/T duties. Be sure to try them out both ways; you may be very surprised by the results.

Also, do not believe the notion that with a processor you can mimick the precisely same sound as a different amp/brand, i.e. that you can put an el cheapo amp on the bass through the processor and get as good of sound as if you used a premium amp. I have conducted the tests and the quality of the amp shows itself even when a processor is used. If you like the sound quality of an amp, you likely will enjoy it used for the bass. You may get good quality with an active x-over and an inexpensive amp, but you will not get the same quality as with a finer amp.

My experience in cable has consistently been that more total gauge, i.e. 10, and copper conductors yield the best sound for the money. I find that the better sounding cables are superior across the frequency spectrum, not only for bass. Silver conductors have been tricky, potentially excellent in some cases, but overall thinner sounding.

If you are doing longer interconnect runs you will probably want to work with amps having balanced connections. I strongly recommend you use XLR/balanced interconnects for the longer runs, so your amps receiving the longer runs of interconnects will need to have XLR inputs.

More circuitry means more signal degradation. You may wish to consider a dedicated preamp for two channel listening.

Doug!
Thank again my friend!
I have been considering a good dedicated 2 ch pre for sure.
Been looking at ARC 5se and ref 40 used. any recommendations appreciated.
A 5.2 ch pro for mutli-channel and switch the wiring when necessary. No problem doing this at all.

XLR's for the runs to the amps for sure. But boy does it get pricey! LOL.

Also been looking at 10 ga OFC for bass and 12-14 ga OFC for M/T.

Owe you a big piece of smoked salmon!
T

Tom, I'm glad you're enjoying the process of building the rig. It is terrifically gratifying when one hears the result.

You don't have to switch the wiring with the 5.2 processor; just feed the two channels of the stereo pre into the inputs of the 5.2, but make absolutely sure the main L/R inputs are calibrated for the level of the stereo preamp feeding them! It's not hard to do. One way to ensure you never have an accident is to put the volume down entirely every time you use the stereo preamp when finished. Also, check that it is down before starting up any video, surround music, etc. There is slightly more degradation of the L/R when doing video but the benefit by not having to rewire to hear stereo music is important too.

I do that very thing; whatever I have as my stereo preamp for music I feed into the main L/R of the 7.1 Outlaw processor for surround AV. Works great!

I use 10 Ga for all drivers and typically have achieved superior sound across the frequ. spectrum by doing so.

Sounds like you're getting closer to your goal.

Thanks!yes getting closer>
An out of the conversation question for you.
Have you heard the PTE Phoenix and with the statement sub by any chance.
Thinking you are at RMAF
Thanksgiving weekend here
Good luck
Tom

I've used a HT 7.1 pre-proc and 2-channel pre-amp in 2 different configurations; it works best if your HT pre-proc has an analog bypass feature that you can set that skips the DSP processing in the HT Pre-Proc and allows you to enjoy the front two channels for 2-ch listening without the DSP in the middle. Check the docs of whatever proc you intend to live with and ensure you can elect to skip the DSP to make the most out of the pre-amp without swapping cables around, etc....You'll not have any of the the surround modes or bass management (to an LFE subwoofer .1 channel) but you will be able to hear 2-ch straight away and hear the pre-amp you purchased using a pure analog path.

Your 2-ch pre-amp should allow for a 'theater bypass' mode to be set on a given input such that the HT Pre-Proc volume control handles the volume for all units in parallel when you are connecting for HT operations and want what comes out of the DSP together with full 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 complete with bass management for the LFE .1 channel. With this config, the side benefit is as mentioned previously that you get the front 2 channels of your HT playback out through a pre-amp that is presumably much better than what you have in the HT pre-proc...

Questions.....send me email. Enjoy!