preouts / amp input

[uncooked]

i dont know a whole lot about this so if someone could clear this up for me that would be great.

awhile back i was reading info on different amps for the preout use, and it sad "for more power use the preouts"

and i remember along time ago when i was looking at buying a receiver and i got the yammy 5650, the salesmen told me that the 5660 had preouts and that i could run an old tube amp into it and it would filter the power and use it for the fronts as well as the yamahas 80 watts, i know some amps have "ampli inputs" where you run the amp in. but the 5660 does not have that. so how would you be able to run a stereo amp into "AND use the yamahas power as well, is that possible" i know you can hook up a stereo off the preouts instead of using the amp, and just use it as the brains of it all. was the salesmen confused or something? and thought it had amp input?

[jeskibuff]

when i was looking at buying a receiver and i got the yammy 5650, the salesmen told me that the 5660 had preouts

According to one description of specs I found, the 5650 has pre-outs, too. See http://www.jandr.com/JRProductPage.p...ed.YAM+HTR5650 where it says Pre-outs for all channels, including sub

i could run an old tube amp into it

You'd never want to "run" the output of a power amplifier into your receiver, but I'm not sure that's exactly what you mean. Maybe you just mean "connecting" a power amp to the pre-outs of a receiver. It could just be a matter of semantics.

how would you be able to run a stereo amp into "AND use the yamahas power as well

I think this is the heart of your question. According to what I'm reading, I believe you CAN use the power of the Yamaha in addition to the power of an external amp. For instance, if you had a good stereo amp that you wanted to employ, you'd connect the RCA inputs of that amp to the desired pre-outs of the receiver. If you wanted to drive your main speakers with the external amp and use the Yamaha to power the center and surrounds, you'd connect the RCA inputs to the Yamaha's "Front L&R" pre-outs, connect the main speakers to that power amp, but keep the other speakers connected to the Yamaha. The "Front L&R" SPEAKER connections on the Yamaha wouldn't be connected to anything. That would take the burden of powering 5 speakers off your Yamaha - it would only be tasked with driving 3, giving it more "headroom".

[skeptic]

Having preamplifier outputs on an integrated amplifier or receiver gives you much greater flexibility than you'd have without it. You have several options.

First, if you find that the amplifier in the receiver is not powerful enough or you would like to experiment with a separate power amplifier you are considering for say another sound system, you can use the receiver as a preamp only and just connect your speakers to the other amplifier.

Another application is to bi-amplify your speakers using the amplifier in your receiver for say the mids and highs and a more powerful amplifier for the woofers. Just use a Y connector and choose a power amplifier having it's own volume controls. Many do. In the same way you could power another pair of speakers in either the same room or a separate room without compromising the performance of your main speakers.

Another intent is to have the flexibility to install a signal processor such as an equalizer between the preamp and the power amp instead of in the tape monitor loop. Most such devices have redundant tape outputs and inputs but this gives you another alternative. If you own speakers like Bose 901s with a dedicated equalizer, you can use the equalizer with the receiver's own power amp with the 901s and send the unequalized signal to a subwoofer. Since the volume control on the preamp controls the output to both, you only have to set the gain for the subwoofer once and it will stay in proportion to the output to the main speakers.

There are probably other applications where this is useful as well. Considering how little it costs the manufacturer to add it, it's too bad this isn't more common.

[uncooked]

i know how basic preouts work and how you can use them instead, or along with the receivers amps.

but this salesman said i could run in my old amp, and the yamaha would filter the power and add it onto the front left and right channels. so it would be like 80 yamaha watts along with like 150 - 200 watts a side from this amp. is there anyway of doing that with out bi wireing / bi amping. i know higher model yamahas have the ampli input. was he confused and thought this one had it to? or maybe one of you know how to use the preouts as a input? maybe a setting in the amp that you switch so it turns into a amp input?

[markw]

Either you're somehow misunderstanding what he said or he's simply full of shiite.

FWIW, an "ampli input" (or "main in") simply allows the use of an external preamp with the built in power amp. No amplifier/device I've ever heard of will "combine" the outputs of two power amps.

[uncooked]

no i understood it right, so it was the salesman huh, i kept asking him are you sure over and over becuase i didnt think they could do that, and they didnt have a demo out of the 5660 at the time