Power Amplifier Help

anirudhchandrashekar

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Hello all. I just got my hands on a nice pair of PSB Synchrony Ones. Unfortunately my Onkyo NR818 has only very little headroom to power these massive 4ohm speakers which need about 250-300wpc to sing. I have begun my hunt for a good power amp though.

In the time being, can anyone in Bengaluru help me audition your power amp (which is capable to drive this) at my place with the speakers? I am trying with various dealers but, nothing positive yet.

It would be nice to associate with any FMs who are willing to help me out here.
 
Hello all. I just got my hands on a nice pair of PSB Synchrony Ones. Unfortunately my Onkyo NR818 has only very little headroom to power these massive 4ohm speakers which need about 250-300wpc to sing. I have begun my hunt for a good power amp though.

In the time being, can anyone in Bengaluru help me audition your power amp (which is capable to drive this) at my place with the speakers? I am trying with various dealers but, nothing positive yet.

It would be nice to associate with any FMs who are willing to help me out here.
I have a couple of mono-blocks, if you want to try pairing.
PM if interested.
Cheers,
Raghu
 
Hello all. I just got my hands on a nice pair of PSB Synchrony Ones. Unfortunately my Onkyo NR818 has only very little headroom to power these massive 4ohm speakers which need about 250-300wpc to sing. I have begun my hunt for a good power amp though.

In the time being, can anyone in Bengaluru help me audition your power amp (which is capable to drive this) at my place with the speakers? I am trying with various dealers but, nothing positive yet.

It would be nice to associate with any FMs who are willing to help me out here.

These speakers are rated at 88dB /2.83V . That's reasonably sensitive. A 50 watt per channel amp would go pretty loud. However this 4 ohm rated speaker has a much lower impedance between 30Hz and about 1 Khz. Dropping to 2.6 ohms at couple of frequencies. Not many 50 watt per channel amps can handle such low impedances. The 250-300 watt ratings are not continuous power ratings. That would probably burn the voice coils ! They would be music peaks . Look for an amp that can handle low impedances and can do so at their full power rating . 50 watts should do for typical listening levels. I doubt it's easy to find. But a 250 watt amp can handle higher currents than a 50 watt amp and at lower power levels it could possibly manage a 2.6 ohm load. You wouldn't be able to get 250 watts into very low impedances without possible damage to the amp itself.
 
These speakers are rated at 88dB /2.83V . That's reasonably sensitive. A 50 watt per channel amp would go pretty loud. However this 4 ohm rated speaker has a much lower impedance between 30Hz and about 1 Khz. Dropping to 2.6 ohms at couple of frequencies. Not many 50 watt per channel amps can handle such low impedances. The 250-300 watt ratings are not continuous power ratings. That would probably burn the voice coils ! They would be music peaks . Look for an amp that can handle low impedances and can do so at their full power rating . 50 watts should do for typical listening levels. I doubt it's easy to find. But a 250 watt amp can handle higher currents than a 50 watt amp and at lower power levels it could possibly manage a 2.6 ohm load. You wouldn't be able to get 250 watts into very low impedances without possible damage to the amp itself.
That makes a lot of sense. True, me and FM raghupb actually tried hooking up his DAC, Marantz PM7001 and Outlaw Audio Power amps to the Synch Ones.
 
First and foremost, FM raghupb is an amazing gentleman who helped me by bringing over his setup home so we could hook it up and try. Second, I am very much impressed that a Marantz pre and an Outlaw Power amp produces sweet music. Didn't find anything lacking even though Synch Ones are very revealing. The only problem we had was realizing that we could sense between base source audio (FLAC rips) and actual lossless audio.

I am open to trying out many combos before settling down for a while. Right now, my plan is to try a couple of preamps with a Crown XLS series power amp to see how it goes. Even maybe, throw in a tube pre-amp there in the chain to check that out as well too.

Also, I would love to hear from someone who uses Outlaws or Crowns in their chain for stereo. The intense reading I am doing for the past 2 days have a little mixed review for using pro amps as power amps in a hifi setup. But then if Crowns are extremely transparent amps which provide just the headroom, I was thinking of maybe adding the sweet coloration I need by integrating a good warm sounding pre in the mix.

Fellow FMS, what are your opinion on the same?
 
First and foremost, FM raghupb is an amazing gentleman who helped me by bringing over his setup home so we could hook it up and try. Second, I am very much impressed that a Marantz pre and an Outlaw Power amp produces sweet music. Didn't find anything lacking even though Synch Ones are very revealing. The only problem we had was realizing that we could sense between base source audio (FLAC rips) and actual lossless audio.

I am open to trying out many combos before settling down for a while. Right now, my plan is to try a couple of preamps with a Crown XLS series power amp to see how it goes. Even maybe, throw in a tube pre-amp there in the chain to check that out as well too.

Also, I would love to hear from someone who uses Outlaws or Crowns in their chain for stereo. The intense reading I am doing for the past 2 days have a little mixed review for using pro amps as power amps in a hifi setup. But then if Crowns are extremely transparent amps which provide just the headroom, I was thinking of maybe adding the sweet coloration I need by integrating a good warm sounding pre in the mix.

Fellow FMS, what are your opinion on the same?
@dheerajin is using Crown XLS power amps with Monitor audio speaker (IIRC). There are couple of other FMs whom I am unable to recall correctly. There was a write up about his digital chain by a senior FM. Please search for his threads or reach out to him for further inputs.
 
Big thanks to Anirudh and his family for hosting me and my gear over two listening sessions.
OP's dad is a music aficionado who has been in the hobby for many years.
It was nice to hear about their journey into music, music systems, home theater, et al.
While the listening experience is fresh in my mind, let me pen it down.
This one is not a critical review, just my observations.

Coming to the speakers themselves:
  • They are big and stand tall; 3 woofers (6.5" each), a 4" mid, 1" tweeter are quite intimidating to even look at
  • Then come the published physics & electrical specs; 90dB SPL (real world), 4 ohm nominal and 4 ohm minimum (but I guess they dip below 4 ohm)
  • Spec says the can go down to 30-35 Hz; they probably do
  • They are power hungry, but when given a tap, boy they can sing
  • Seems like they are a bit finicky on placement; OP has had it for a few days now
The room (and positioning):
  • It is a squarish untreated room (approx 12' x 14') ; room boom is evident
  • OP will have his work cut out to tame the room or tame the content
  • Thankfully there are multiple port bungs to play with and attempt to tame the troublesome LF range
  • The bungs do mitigate boom to a certain extent
  • We tried a bit of push pull, straight up vs toe-in; a bit of toe-in works well
  • In the listening sessions, we just left it at about 3 feet from back and side walls
  • The distance between them was about 7 feet
Listening session 1 (and my observations):
Source was a PC running foobar or Amazon Music.
First we just played them out of the AVR (Onkyo NR818). Even though spec'd at 135W (FTC method), the AVR clearly struggles.
Next up we connected the monoblocks (Outlaw M2200) to the AVR. The Outlaws are spec'd at 200W at 8 ohm, 300 at 4 ohm.
We assumed, this will provide the necessary headroom, heft, "wazan", whatnot. They did not. This left us really puzzled. The OP said it may be because the AVR pre out is not high enough; very possible as we needed to turn up the volume making it just loud. We decided to eliminate the AVR and bring in a different element; an IA (with pre-amp support). Unfortunately, we had not brought this unit. So we decided to try it out the next day (today).

Listening session 2 (and my observations):
Enter Schiit Modi-2 Uber + Marantz PM7001. Source was the same (PC); USB mode on DAC. We hooked up the speakers to the IA and voila they started singing. The IA is spec'd at 100W at 4 ohms and Marantz claims it can source up to 25A momentary current. Still being cautious we had the volume control between 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock position. I have had the Marantz for 12+ years now; below 9 o'clock it doesn't come alive; quirky box, that's all I can say.

We threw in a variety of tunes; luckily the OP's and my music tastes overlap quite a bit.
A bit of rock, metal, piano, violins, guitars, vocals, the works. Marantz handled them with relative ease. The typical Marantz analog signature was there, except that room-boom was sometimes the nasty goblin. On less demanding tracks, the vocals were smooth, the lows there and the occasional sparkle at HF. All in all, a satisfying show by the speakers and the IA. Is Marantz the right pairing; maybe if you like its presentation; but it can be better.

Listening session 2.5 (and my observations):
We decided to bring in the monoblocks in the chain. I have had this combo for about 9 years now. As I told the OP, this combination loses a bit of finesse but sets the mind at ease with no real worry of low impedance challenges. The Outlaws brought presence to the listening area, kinda like "I'm there. Go about your fidgeting and fiddling".

We threw in some of the tunes from before, and a whole lot of new ones. Genres now expanding to Indian/Western classical, Hindi music (old and new). The speakers were happy at the fact that they could sing at will. In many tracks, close your eyes and the speakers disappeared. Instrumentation was nicely separated, yet cohesive enough. No real dismemberment on most tracks, if any they were probably due to the room.
I was pleasantly surprised when we played a few old Hindi film tracks. Remember these are not "great" recordings, many of them just plain old dual mono.

Impressions:
With Synchrony Ones, I would say one could easily:
  • spend a nice relaxing afternoon dozing off listening to soothing Kishore/Rafi/Hemant/Lata/Asha
  • have an engaging evening with a beer (or more) listening to some good old rock/pop
  • analyze the intricacies of western classical music
  • have a date with Mary Jane and float away with blues or psych-rock
These speakers will cooperate and indulge you completely to the point of almost spoiling you to become a couch potato. In conclusion, these speakers, if paired with a warm (yet lively preamp) and a neutral high current capacity power amp will set the scene for many years to come. Depending on where you are in life, they could even be an endgame setup.

Disclosure:
I was happy that my gear could drive speakers a couple notches up in spec/design, finesse and cost to reasonable satisfaction.
My hearing is not really great these days and I am not a discerning listener, more of the right content guy rather than "sound of music" type.

Footnote (and a petite surprise):
The OP is a good guitar player. He played some of his recordings. They sounded really good.
He would be in a better position comment on the rendition as they are his own recordings.
Also his sense of hearing is definitely better than mine.

Cheers,
Raghu
 
Have to say, it really was a nice productive session yesterday. Reading a lot about people using pre-pro setup and they are absolutely happy with it. It would be fun to A/B a Class D Pro amp like Crown with a good Class A/B like Parasound or so and check to see if there is any noticeable change in the dynamic range.

To be honest, my room is the biggest culprit and spending huge money on a power amp with a bad room won't make sense. So, I could try the pro route for a while and spend the rest to treat the room.

Again, thanks a lot to FM @raghupb. Really nice gentleman, glad we connected.

Cheers!
 
Hello all. I just got my hands on a nice pair of PSB Synchrony Ones. Unfortunately my Onkyo NR818 has only very little headroom to power these massive 4ohm speakers which need about 250-300wpc to sing. I have begun my hunt for a good power amp though.

In the time being, can anyone in Bengaluru help me audition your power amp (which is capable to drive this) at my place with the speakers? I am trying with various dealers but, nothing positive yet.

It would be nice to associate with any FMs who are willing to help me out here.

There are 2ch power amps available in Olx. You can find used ones but they would be good.
 
Also, I've read that there is a nice dealer in Bengaluru for Creek Audio. Want to try out how the Creek matches up with PSBs as well. Anyway, I'm trying to hunt any good power amp to audition at my place with these speakers.

If anyone is willing to collaborate and help me out, please do reach out to me. Cheers!
 
Try Crown XLS 1502 if you can. It has a feature to amplify low sensitivity inputs from sources and capable of driving 4 ohms speakers. Am reading only positive reviews for this amp. It's also available in Amazon for you to take a look at.
 
Still on the lookout for a home audition for a warm sounding SS/Tube preamp, Tube power amp and NAD amps.

I could really use some help with listening to these amps with my PSBs. And I am sure that will help my decision for either bi-amping or getting a warm sounding Preamp.

Regards
 
On of my friends recently tried my speakers with the exact same crown and was happy with the results. Then he tried my tubed dac cum preamp with the same crown, and he felt it smoothened out the rough edges of the crown. So please don't let crown' s pro pedigree put you off. If you can find a good tubed pre amp. Then the crown will provide all the drive and power you seek...all the best and happy listening :)
 
Still on the lookout for a home audition for a warm sounding SS/Tube preamp, Tube power amp and NAD amps.

I could really use some help with listening to these amps with my PSBs. And I am sure that will help my decision for either bi-amping or getting a warm sounding Preamp.

Regards

By the way...thought id butt in since you mentioned biamping..And that is another steep rabbit hole..

You'd need some way to level the gains of the tubes power amps and SS amps. Each driving mids+treble and bass respectively. It is actually a long drawn project requiring lots more cables and amps to achieve the same. Not to mention external active crossover to come between the oreamp and power amp. I will be trying to accomplish the same , this vacation. But does look easy...So all the best :)
 
On of my friends recently tried my speakers with the exact same crown and was happy with the results. Then he tried my tubed dac cum preamp with the same crown, and he felt it smoothened out the rough edges of the crown. So please don't let crown' s pro pedigree put you off. If you can find a good tubed pre amp. Then the crown will provide all the drive and power you seek...all the best and happy listening :)
Wow, that's nice to know! To be honest, I don't think I can complain about the Crown at all. For the price and the muscle it provides, I am sure nothing will beat it. Nothing. Period.

For the preamp, I am a bit confused about which route to take. Maybe Marantz, NAD or a Tube Pre from Schiit.

(Might be looking at a Khadas Tone Board with the ESS DAC or an R-R NOS DAC)
 
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