I've had my DIY Sound Group kits in my signature powered up for about a year now. This was my first speaker build and Eric was extremely informative and quick to answer my questions. Partnered with the Epson and 120" screen we have become the neighborhood "hot spot". Not a weekend goes by without movie night shared with family and friends. I have to say that when I moved up from the "mainstream" brand of HT speakers which consisted of tower fronts and surround rear I was skeptical if I would notice a difference. Man was I wrong. Voice clarity and sound effects are outstanding. We also empty the room which is blacked out and have "club" night. These speakers deliver in all genres. Now I am faced with a question... I have an opportunity to upgrade my AVR to separates. Specifically the Outlaw 975/5000 combo. I see that the RMS ratings are about the same on paper (120 watts). We also use the wifi of the Denon for streaming music. We run 5.2 so paying more for 7 channel amps just to gain a few watts seems useless. What would I gain or lose with this change? Would you do it if movies were 90% of it's use? Thanks.
As far as power concern, by looking up the Outlaw, it's power is rated with all channels driven. A lot of AVRs are not even rated for that. Looking up your Denon, I found a bench test on it: http://www.soundandvision.com/conte...receiver-ht-labs-measures#VDXMLzHgOLJshqX8.97 So more like 82.9WPC for five channels driven, into 8 ohms. Which isn't bad, I've seen some get lower than that, like my Onkyo AVR for all channels driven. You'd gain headroom, but only about maybe 1.6dB worth. You'll need to double your power to gain 3dB more. So about 160WPC. If you're pretty comfortable now with your system, I wouldn't worry about it. If you really just want to, you'll still gain a little bit, but you shouldn't lose anything in terms of power in the process. I'm all for separates, which I'm mostly there now with my AVR and pro audio amps. If I had only the AVR, I still would opt for going that route if it were me.
Yeah, was thinking same. Been pretty happy with the 3311 compared to AVR's of the past. Paired with these speakers and sound treating the room I get tons of compliments. Puts out enough for the room "most" of the time. Really what I'm curious about is how getting in the 200+WPC would open up these speakers even more. Think I'll sit on it for awhile and wait for prices to come down on some bigger amps and use the AVR as a pre. Thanks for the reply.