Question Advice sought - what would you do with the equipment available to me

Rameses

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Hi all,

Making my first serious foray into a proper HT system thanks to a series of coincidences which have left it possible for me to get some pretty decent kit but I’m not sure what the best setup would be.

I have the option of getting:
Marantz SR7011 AVR,
3xDali Rubicon LCR for the fronts/centre
6xMonitor Audio Radius 45 for surrounds/rears/atmos
Rel T5 sub
Emotiva A-800 power amp.

My instinct is to set up a 5.1.4 system. My real question is whether to use the Emotiva. I could power the fronts but it only puts out c75watts into 4ohms three channels driven. Is that enough? Will it make a difference? Alternatively I could power the surrounds / atmos and leave the three Dalis on the AVR. Would that be better? Or should I ignore the A-800 and get, say, a new A-500 instead? Grateful for thoughts...
 
That's quite a happy coincidence to be blessed with. Good kit there to be honest. You could certainly drive the front three with the Emotiva. I doubt you would actually get 75 watts into the front from the Marantz especially with all internal amps being used. Unless you want to play at silly levels the Emotiva will do the job.

You could of course part exchange or sell on the A800 and move on to something more powerful for the front three or a integrated stereo amp with HT bypass if you want a better quality of music.

Others will tell you that the weakest part of the set up is the REL T5 sub. It's not that powerful and is not considered a good choice of HT but it certainly is great for underpinning music.

It really is a rather nice problem to have.
 
Thanks Gibbsy! One friend getting married used the Emotiva and Radius 45s to run different zones throughout his place but his wife-to-be doesn’t want speakers everywhere and another is taking a job in Singapore and is getting rid of the Dalis, the sub and the Marantz.

None of it’s free but for me it’s cheaper than new and for them it’s easier than eBay...

You suggest that I won’t get 75watts from the Marantz driving 9 channels - any guesses what I would get? Googling the specs gives me some info but not enough.

And if I did sell on the Emotiva what should I look for? And what sort of price range am I looking at? I’d been considering getting a ‘starter set up’ so this is a windfall and much better kit than I would have bought until I understood what I was doing but since I can get kit like this I want make sure I use it properly...

And why is Rel the weak link? My (limited) research suggests that they’re not that bad but obviously I’m missing something?

Thanks again for the help!
 
Just to clarify, I don’t mean how much should I look for for the Emotiva but what should I get instead...
 
Just to clarify, I don’t mean how much should I look for for the Emotiva but what should I get instead...
Nothing really. The Emotiva will do the job and will certainly allow funds to recover. If you're happy with it then there certainly may be no need to change, certainly in the short term.

I like my REL T5. It's output for filmatic deep bass is enough for our tastes, neither of us like deep bass on music so it is not used for stereo from my Rega amp. With 5.1 music using both systems integrated together, Denon plus Rega and beautifully underpins the music. If you like the deep wall shaking bass of film soundtracks you may want something that goes deeper.

The REL, just like the Emotiva will do the job expected of them. I wouldn't take any decisions until you have set the whole system up and listened to it for a while. You know the kit's history and it's condition so you're already ahead of the game.
 
Again, thanks!

I’ll let them know I’ll take all of it then but it probably won’t be until late September before I get it and can set it up and give it a listen.

Still curious how much wattage I might get from the Marantz and whether the Emotiva would be a bit better or quite a lot better if anyone knows or is prepared to hazard a guess???
 
The Marantz is rated at 125 watts into 8 ohms. I have a Denon X6200 which is rated at 140 watts into 8 ohms. However D&M are cagey about power per channel with them all being driven. I drive my front stereos with a Rega Elicit amp which is definately rated at 105 watts into 8 ohms both channels driven. The Rega just drives my KEFs so much better. For films and TV the output from the Denon is usually -20 to -15dB, never really need to go any higher.

With the Rega driving the front pair the extra headroom afforded to the remaining speakers has improved the overall sound. With just the Rega powering the KEFs for music directly from my Marantz SACD player the dial has never ventured north of 11 o'clock, there is so much power on tap.

I would suggest the same would be true of the Emotiva as your speakers are quite easy to drive with a sensitivity of 90dB which is certainly higher than my KEFs.
 
The total power output of an AVR is ultimately restrained by how much power it sucks in to begin with.

That Marantz consumes 700 watts from memory, so you're unlikely to get more than 500 to 600 watts out of it. The rest gets lost as heat. Second law of thermodynamics and all that.

BUT if you take the heftiest part of that load off the AVR's power supply by using the Emotiva power amp to drive the front three channels it will really allow the others to sing out loud and proud.
 
Hi Pipeliner,


Thanks for the response. The physics makes perfect sense (!) and thanks for adding some numbers in. Although real life won’t match theory, so what follows is probably an overly simplistic view, a total of 5-600 Watts powering 9 channels indicates on average c55-65 Watts per channel. So running the front three, or the other six, off the Emotiva would help. I take it from your response that you’d choose to run the front three rather than the atmos and/or surrounds?
 
The Marantz SR7011 is rated at 710 watts maximum energy consumption. That is the maximum amount of power it is able to take from the wall socket. But, as has been said, Class A/B amplification isn't very efficient, so a lot of that energy is lost to heat. Also, the pre-amps, DACs and HDMI boards will consume power, so not all of that energy will be available to power your speakers.

The Marantz SR7011 has been bench tested here:

Marantz SR7011 A/V Receiver Review Test Bench

With 7 power amps running simultaneously, on the bench it will start to clip at around 75 watts per channel into 8 ohm loads, no rating for 4 ohm loads.

The specs on the Emotiva A-800:

A-800

Says that it is 30 watts per channel, all channels driven into 8 ohm loads, and 50 watts into 4 ohm loads.

Now, your speakers. The Dali Rubicon LCR are 89db sensitivity and rated at 4 ohms, recommended amplifier power 20 t0 150 watts. The Monitor Audio Radius 45 are rated at 8 ohms and 87db sensitivity, but recommended amplifier power is 15 to 50 watts, with power handling RMS at 25W and system power handling RMS at 50 watts (whatever that means). I think those specifications on the monitor audio speakers are suggesting that the speaker may not cope very well with power input of 50 watts or more, so I think I would run them off of the Emotiva.

Hopefully they wil produce the volumes you want to achieve in your room. Just be aware that if it isn't going loud enough and you turn the volume up to try and get the amp to push out more than it can, it will start to clip / distort. If you then send this distorted audio to the speakers, that could cause damage.
 
Actually, having actually had time to read the specs I'd go along with the above, run the surrounds (which generally use less power anyway) off the Emotiva and run the front three off the AVR. Its really unlikely you'll blow any of the speakers unless you really crank up the volume. And you may find there's a feature built into the firmware to limit the power output in case your little cherubs do too.

I was assuming the Emotiva was a three channel you see.... Should have engaged brain before releasing mouth...
 

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