Power Amplifier for a Denon-Klipsch set up...

[_foo]

All, I am new to this game. So be gentle. I have a Denon X4400H, driving a 5.2.2 set up. Klipsch RP280F, RP450C, RP250S, HK overheads, 115SW and HK 12”SW. The room size is not very big. I have been happy for 3 years. Now, I have the itch to push up the music quality (video is awesome). Which amp would be best for this? Read a lot of forums—pretty confused. I am in India, but have access to pretty much any brand... I must mention; the AVR gets really HOT

 

[rpmahale]

 

[Love4sound]

All, I am new to this game. So be gentle. I have a Denon X4400H, driving a 5.2.2 set up. Klipsch RP280F, RP450C, RP250S, HK overheads, 115SW and HK 12”SW. The room size is not very big. I have been happy for 3 years. Now, I have the itch to push up the music quality (video is awesome). Which amp would be best for this? Read a lot of forums—pretty confused. I am in India, but have access to pretty much any brand... I must mention; the AVR gets really HOT

I use the avr 4500 and it does get very hot. It’s ok as long as it gets enough ventilation. Having a cooling pad on top helps. I have mine placed open and facing the ac so the cool air blows directly at the AVR. Since you mentioned that you have access to any brands of you can mention the budget the FM’s can easily give you a list of the best models available at ur budget

 

[_foo]

I use the avr 4500 and it does get very hot. It’s ok as long as it gets enough ventilation. Having a cooling pad on top helps. I have mine placed open and facing the ac so the cool air blows directly at the AVR. Since you mentioned that you have access to any brands of you can mention the budget the FM’s can easily give you a list of the best models available at ur budget

Thank you! I don’t have a particular limit set to the budget, but would like to keep it under INR 300,000.

 

[Love4sound]

Thank you! I don’t have a particular limit set to the budget, but would like to keep it under INR 300,000.

3L you can get excellent power amps. How many channels required ?

 

[_foo]

I was thinking I will only drive the F-C-R with the amp. The rest can stay on the AVR. So, 3 channels...

 

[RajithKumar]

All, I am new to this game. So be gentle. I have a Denon X4400H, driving a 5.2.2 set up. Klipsch RP280F, RP450C, RP250S, HK overheads, 115SW and HK 12”SW. The room size is not very big. I have been happy for 3 years. Now, I have the itch to push up the music quality (video is awesome). Which amp would be best for this? Read a lot of forums—pretty confused. I am in India, but have access to pretty much any brand... I must mention; the AVR gets really HOT

Try Adcom GFA 5000 series or Parasound Halo A52+ power amps... Possible try to audition ( but I guess it will be rare to find demo)

 

[ONEMANARMY]

Do give Anthem MCA30 a thought.
For a three channel amp, it's great value for money.
Bryston, Rotel & Parasound will also provide you musicality with a solid grip on the speakers.
If class D is ok, then wyred4sound or schiit are both excellent in my experience.

 

[Love4sound]

I was thinking I will only drive the F-C-R with the amp. The rest can stay on the AVR. So, 3 channels...

If 3 channels is al you need for starters you can check the emotiva xpa-3 Gen 3. Other food quality brands are Rotel, Parasound, Qsc, krell, Anthem and many more in ur Budget of 3 lakhs. You can go for a 7 channel PA in any of the brands I mentioned. This will very much improve your experience

 

[argentum246]

Budget of three lakhs is very high . You can infact change ur avr to denon x6500 or even speakers. If you still wanna splurge . You can go with light weight crown xls 2501 series that you can buy for all ur channels. As they are class d they shall not sweat or get heated. Emotiva Peachtree and parasound are good options so is krell Bryston and anthem. But before u splurge keep the position of speakers, calibration and room acoustics correct as despite getting new amp u might not get much benefits if these three are not in order( unless u plan to play at reference level and make even birds and bats in ur area deaf and family crazy)

 

[raghupb]

All, I am new to this game. So be gentle. I have a Denon X4400H, driving a 5.2.2 set up. Klipsch RP280F, RP450C, RP250S, HK overheads, 115SW and HK 12”SW. The room size is not very big. I have been happy for 3 years. Now, I have the itch to push up the music quality (video is awesome). Which amp would be best for this? Read a lot of forums—pretty confused. I am in India, but have access to pretty much any brand... I must mention; the AVR gets really HOT

Take a look at Parasound ZoneMaster series amps. They are class D, and bridgeable.
Bridge them and you have a small footprint, single box solution.
For L/C/R ZoneMaster 650 may do the needful.
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Vivek Batra]

All, I am new to this game. So be gentle. I have a Denon X4400H, driving a 5.2.2 set up. Klipsch RP280F, RP450C, RP250S, HK overheads, 115SW and HK 12”SW. The room size is not very big. I have been happy for 3 years. Now, I have the itch to push up the music quality (video is awesome). Which amp would be best for this? Read a lot of forums—pretty confused. I am in India, but have access to pretty much any brand... I must mention; the AVR gets really HOT

I had the same combo Denon with Klipsch but for 2 channel only. What are you trying to improve or in other words what you feel is not to your satisfaction. I am asking this is to verify if I had the same issue with this combo?

Thanks

 

[_foo]

Budget of three lakhs is very high . You can infact change ur avr to denon x6500 or even speakers. If you still wanna splurge . You can go with light weight crown xls 2501 series that you can buy for all ur channels. As they are class d they shall not sweat or get heated. Emotiva Peachtree and parasound are good options so is krell Bryston and anthem. But before u splurge keep the position of speakers, calibration and room acoustics correct as despite getting new amp u might not get much benefits if these three are not in order( unless u plan to play at reference level and make even birds and bats in ur area deaf and family crazy)

Thank you. The Denon X4400H is giving me good quality of sound overall. I am looking for more “clarity” as against loudness. The videos and the accompanying sounds play super good. The music is where I am hoping to improve. Like I said, in the original post, this is just an itch after having used this for some time... perhaps I don’t need anything. My issue with going for just a receiver with higher output is that since it does a lot, it heats up. Was thinking the amp will help the X4400H cool down, and, push up the quality on the towers at least...

 

[_foo]

As f

Thank you. The Denon X4400H is giving me good quality of sound overall. I am looking for more “clarity” as against loudness. The videos and the accompanying sounds play super good. The music is where I am hoping to improve. Like I said, in the original post, this is just an itch after having used this for some time... perhaps I don’t need anything. My issue with going for just a receiver with higher output is that since it does a lot, it heats up. Was thinking the amp will help the X4400H cool down, and, push up the quality on the towers at least...

as for speakers, I am super happy with the Klipsch RP280F. You really can’t go much bigger or better than that in Mumbai homes

 

[_foo]

I had the same combo Denon with Klipsch but for 2 channel only. What are you trying to improve or in other words what you feel is not to your satisfaction. I am asking this is to verify if I had the same issue with this combo?

Thanks

The videos and the sound with videos is absolutely stunning. When I listed to just music on airplay (lossless), I feel the quality can go up... feel like I am not leveraging the true capability of the speakers...

 

[_foo]

Take a look at Parasound ZoneMaster series amps. They are class D, and bridgeable.
Bridge them and you have a small footprint, single box solution.
For L/C/R ZoneMaster 650 may do the needful.
Cheers,
Raghu

Thank you. Will the class D improve on the Denon?

 

[Love4sound]

Thank you. The Denon X4400H is giving me good quality of sound overall. I am looking for more “clarity” as against loudness. The videos and the accompanying sounds play super good. The music is where I am hoping to improve. Like I said, in the original post, this is just an itch after having used this for some time... perhaps I don’t need anything. My issue with going for just a receiver with higher output is that since it does a lot, it heats up. Was thinking the amp will help the X4400H cool down, and, push up the quality on the towers at least...

Adding a power amplifier won’t cool down the AVR. The avr produces the same amount of heat. I also added a PA to my 4500 and can confirm after testing that my avr heats up the same level

 

[raghupb]

If it is a HT setup, your amplification class does not matter to some extent.
There is a lot going on and so many speakers with varied content.
Good amplification brings scale, authority, off-loading, etc.

Now looking at 2-channel also, powered by AVR and then again compared to powered by external amps.
Well, this rabbit hole is deep. It depends on how picky one is about the presentation of music.

Make friends locally, hear out their setups. Try to narrow down on what you are chasing after.
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Vivek Batra]

The videos and the sound with videos is absolutely stunning. When I listed to just music on airplay (lossless), I feel the quality can go up... feel like I am not leveraging the true capability of the speakers...

Hmm I had Denon 4500 paired with RP 8000F i felt the sound was too lean and lacked dynamics at the volume level i prefer. My main reason to part with Denon and Klipsch Reference series. Never tried movies with those. Once I tried to capture how hot my AVR gets, I recorded 45 deg celsius using a digital thermometer just after playing for an hour or so. This is still normal and should not be a concern.

Denon 4500h is speced at 125 wpc while playing 2 channel only. For sure it would dip when playing multi channel. I think 4400 is quite the same. You would definitely see an improvement by adding a 3 channel power amp. It depends on your choice of music, the PA may or may not sound like an improvement.

 

[_foo]

If it is a HT setup, your amplification class does not matter to some extent.
There is a lot going on and so many speakers with varied content.
Good amplification brings scale, authority, off-loading, etc.

Now looking at 2-channel also, powered by AVR and then again compared to powered by external amps.
Well, this rabbit hole is deep. It depends on how picky one is about the presentation of music.

Make friends locally, hear out their setups. Try to narrow down on what you are chasing after.
Cheers,
Raghu

Thx. Thats the thing. Every set up I listen to has something unique. Conversely, my friends find my set up quite good in some aspects.