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Is it possible to get a 160W or so (real watts, not make-believe X-BASS MAXIMUM PEAK BURST INTO FLAMES) stereo amplifier, that I can connect to my computer, various video game systems, and two passable 80W 8-ohm speakers that I already have? Is it possible to get it for under $200? Is it possible to get it without that godawful faint hissing noise that I get now? (I hear it even with an open circuit on input, so it's definitely the amplifier.) Is it possible to shop for a stereo as a non-wealthy non-expert, and not feel like you're coated with a thin layer of slime afterward? If this hypothetical stereo has a ~100W 4-ohm sub amp built into it, that's cool. A nice alternative would be a preamp subwoofer output. (Low-pass filter is not necessary; just mix the input to mono and output it.) $200 isn't a hard limit; that's just what I'd like to spend. If something that sounds like pure sex is available for only $250, then great. If spending more money is pointless after $150 and before $500, then $150 is best. I'm flexible.
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Apr 7, 2007 03:51
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 16:45 |
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Space Gopher posted:Look for refurbished and last year's model home theater receivers. I picked up an Onkyo TX-SR502 for $170 a while back, and while it's nothing special, it's got all the digital and analog inputs I need and it sounds decent. It's got 80 watts/channel. Why do you need 160W+, though, unless your speakers are inefficient as gently caress? The inverse square law says that you get diminishing returns pretty quickly, and it's entirely possible for me to literally shake floors with a mere 80W/channel, not even turned up to maximum. I'm aware that 2W of actual acoustic energy is enough to cause extreme pain in a bedroom listening environment. Speakers are pretty inefficient, generally, aren't they? I wasn't planning on turning the thing up very much. My primary concern was to match what's printed on my speakers, because I'm told that the waveforms that overtaxed amplifiers produce can harm tweeters. Is that inaccurate?
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Apr 8, 2007 02:57
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UserNotFound posted:The amplifier isn't over taxed by speakers, it's overtaxed by you turning it up! It goes for any amplifier to not max it all the way out, as a clipped signal can/will damage the drivers. A 100W rated amp playing at 10W output is no different for your speakers than a 50W or 5000W amp playing at 10W. The bottom line is to make sure there's more power in the amp than you plan on using, but it doesn't need to be excessive. I know this, but my impression is that the often advertised and easily available stat of wattage has a vague inverse relationship to the often undocumented efficiency. I mean, the speakers I have now don't say their efficiency on them, and I basically have no objective way of measuring it. I don't want to put myself in the position of "quality or volume, pick one"
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Apr 10, 2007 03:51
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UserNotFound posted:What's the thinking behind this? I have some Peavey speakers rated for 320W peak and their sensitivity is 97 dB at 1W/1m (TLS 1X I believe). Most other speakers i own are 100W handling with around 89dB/W/m...? Well poo poo, maybe it was a misconception on my part. Wouldn't be the first. So I guess the real issue here is: what is the efficiency of the speakers that I have now, and what is the objective intensity of my preferred listening level.
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Apr 12, 2007 01:06
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So I have one of those subwoofers that uses a passive system of caps and coils to route low frequencies to the sub's dual-voice-coil driver, and high frequencies back out (so that the user can connect them to regular speakers). A while back, I wanted to use it again after storing it for a while, so I hooked it up, but it didn't seem to be working right. Either it or the connected speakers were super-quiet, and I tried both (output A)-sub-speakers, and (output A)-sub with (output B)-speakers. I hesitate to hook it up again now that I'm making this post, so that I can give a very detailed report of how it fails... if it's a short or something, I don't want to gently caress up my amplifier. What I'd kind of like to do is to wire the voice coils of the driver straight through to the input connectors and leave the output connectors open, and use a new sub amp to take the unamplified subwoofer output out of the back of the receiver and run the subwoofer. The subwoofer says on it that it's 100W and 8 Ohms, so I assume that impedance is per voice coil of the dual-voice-coil driver, and the wattage is total. So, what I'm looking for is a recommendation on an inexpensive amplifier, suitable for a subwoofer. It should have two 50W 8 Ohm channels or one 100W 4 Ohm channel, some sort of gain control, and if it has an adjustable low-pass filter I won't complain, although I'm pretty sure that the receiver would only ever send it low frequencies in the first place, so that's not essential. Can I get this done under $100, or should I be trying to brainstorm some other solution if that's my budget? I suppose I could try to repair the crossover network, but I have no way of knowing which part is bad (none of them look broken). Also, the inductors aren't labeled with their impedance, so I wouldn't be able to replace them with the correct part anyway.
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Aug 14, 2012 03:01
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 16:45 |
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:If you have a multimeter and some patience, I'm sure you could work it out. You may have to desolder some stuff to isolate the problem. The prospect of desoldering and resoldering this stuff is mostly what was stopping me, honestly. I don't have a lot of experience soldering, and I'm quite slow. This is only a $150 unit, so if I spend ~10 hours working on it, I'm losing money versus just throwing it away and buying another one. On the other hand, I subjectively like fixing things, and I've been meaning to check out this hackerspace in DC. I think I can unscrew the MDF board the electrical components are all affixed to from the inside of the enclosure and make it much more portable, and that might make a good trial project to see if I want to buy a membership at the hackerspace. On a related note, I suppose I shouldn't exclude the possibility that the driver is blown. It travels normally when I gently push on it, so I don't think there's a mechanical issue, but I would have to rewire the inside of the enclosure to test its ability to produce a normal amount of sound. Could I touch the contacts briefly with a 9v battery and see if it moves, and call it probably-ok if it does? My understanding is all theoretical, here, so I don't have a good intuition about that kind of test. I could also attach it to an amplifier in open air, and even though it would be unnaturally quiet without an enclosure, I could visually check that it has a normal amount of travel. Edit: I just googled the prices on passive crossovers, and an 80Hz low-pass is like $15 at Parts Express... that would mean that I would have to spend $60 to replace all the electronics inside this thing, since it's like two low-pass and two high-pass filters. I will spend that much if I have to, but it would be great if I could get replacement components a little more cheaply. Is it really that much for a capacitor and a coil of wire? ejstheman fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Aug 14, 2012 |
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Aug 14, 2012 14:53
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