Presumably that could "unbalance" the sound with movies as the main fronts will be driven by the music amp.
Not really: either the AV receiver's automatic set-up will take care of this, or you can adjust levels manually in the receiver's set-up menus. And some stereo amps are desined with a 'unity gain' or 'AV bypass' input for just this purpose.
Could the spare (bi-amping) terminals on the speakers be utilised (without removing the jumpers)?
No – that'll connect the receiver and the amp together, and runs a serious risk of blowing the output section on one or both of them.
Is there a such a thing as a speaker switch box or splitter?
There's one made by US company Niles, but it seems hard to come by, and Beresford makes one. but I haven't tried it.
Not too difficult to throw together a basic two-way speaker switcher which only connects one amp at a time to your speakers, You can even cobble one together from a two-gang two-way light switch from B&Q/ebay etc. You only need to switch the +ves, the returns can stay connected. Or if you feel you really must disconnect the -ves too, buy a four-gang two-way switch.
AEX > AVI DM10 + BK Gemini II sub; Visual: Samsung BD-C5500 > Panasonic TX-L47ET5B.
Head-fi: various, but most often Sennheiser HD-580 or Audio Technica ATH-M50X
Andrew Everard wrote:
Not really: either the AV receiver's automatic set-up will take care of this, or you can adjust levels manually in the receiver's set-up menus. And some stereo amps are desined with a 'unity gain' or 'AV bypass' input for just this purpose.
Perhaps "unbalanced" was a poor choice of adjectives - I was thinking more in terms of tonal quality. Something to trial I think.
Andrew Everard wrote:
No – that'll connect the receiver and the amp together, and runs a serious risk of blowing the output section on one or both of them.
Good point Andrew - well received.
Andrew Everard wrote:
There's one made by US company Niles, but it seems hard to come by, and Beresford makes one. but I haven't tried it.
The Niles product wouldn't win any beauty contests! The Beresford has a couple of good reviews linked to the site, it seems well priced and is (a little) prettier. Worth considering.
Does anyone have one of these units?
Andrew Everard wrote:
Not really: either the AV receiver's automatic set-up will take care of this, or you can adjust levels manually in the receiver's set-up menus. And some stereo amps are desined with a 'unity gain' or 'AV bypass' input for just this purpose.
Perhaps "unbalanced" was a poor choice of adjectives - I was thinking more in terms of tonal quality. Something to trial I think.
Andrew Everard wrote:
No – that'll connect the receiver and the amp together, and runs a serious risk of blowing the output section on one or both of them.
Good point Andrew - well received.
Andrew Everard wrote:
There's one made by US company Niles, but it seems hard to come by, and Beresford makes one. but I haven't tried it.
The Niles product wouldn't win any beauty contests! The Beresford has a couple of good reviews linked to the site, it seems well priced and is (a little) prettier. Worth considering.
Does anyone have one of these units?
Andrew Everard wrote:
Indeed, but provided you're using a receiver with automatic set-up and equalisation, that should take account of any difference in tonality between the amp and the receiver, and adjust the receiver's front-channel EQ accordingly.
There are a number of people running this kind of setup on here, none of them have an issues around tonal matching.
Andrew Everard wrote:
Including me: Onkyo TX-SR875 (at the moment) into the Naim SuperNait's unity gain AV input, and it works splendidly for movies, while taking the elderly Onkyo out of the equation when streaming music.
It’s not that I don’t believe you (I do!) but I find this somewhat counter-intuitive. Amps can have such different and distinct voices that I find it hard to accept that auto-equalisation can turn a humble device into an electronic mynah bird. Is mimicry just careful equalisation?
It’s not that I don’t believe you (I do!) but I find this somewhat counter-intuitive. Amps can have such different and distinct voices that I find it hard to accept that auto-equalisation can turn a humble device into an electronic mynah bird. Is mimicry just careful equalisation?
The equalisation will endeavour to achieve a flat frequency response, so if the stereo amp in use has a distinctive character, the EQ will adjust the frequency response of the affected channels to flatten things out again as well as it can.
It does this just as it will boost the gain of the front channel outputs should the stereo amp not deliver as much gain as the amps inside the receiver used for all the other channels, and compensate should the amp introduce some delay into the chain (which the receiver will 'see' as the front speakers being further away, invert phase, and so on.
Of course this will only affect the operation of the system when in home cinema mode, and will have no effect on how the stereo amp sounds when playing music.
And before anyone else asks – what's your receiver, stereo amp and speakers?