Can you mix Steak and Hamburger??

[manlystanley]

I have a strange setup, brought about by being poor (e.g. 5 children, 3 in collage). I bought a used denon 687 that sounded terrible for my front speakers, and so I bought a 20+ year old H/K PM655 integrated amp for my front speakers. For music I listen to the H/K, for movies I power both amps on. The H/K I feed analog, the denon I feed fiber both from my DVD/CD player. So, I'm mixing an old high end H/K amp with a run of the mill amp for surround sound.

In my listening/movie room, I listen to music 90% of the time and only watch one move once a week. So, music by far is the most important thing to me. I currently use the Denon 687 to power my surround and back speakers. Then I power my front speakers with the H/K PM655. The PM655 has multiple issues, but when it works it sounds great!

I'm thinking about upgrading to something like a Anthem AVM20 (and sell the Denon and H/K) or possibly a two channel Anthem TLP-1 (and keep the Denon for the surround sound).

So, my question, do you loose much by using a different amp for the front and surround speakers? I do lip sync at the DVD player.

Thanks for your help!

Best Regards,
Stan

[Auricauricle]

All I can say is try them out, alone and in combination. If you like them set up a particular way, it's your recipe. I have a pretty variegated set up myself and am quite happy. So, turn up the heat and throw the skittle on and tell us how she cooks!

[manlystanley]

So, turn up the heat and throw the skittle on and tell us how she cooks!

Thanks for the pointer. BTW, I love your follow on analogy!

Best Regards,
Stan

[Auricauricle]

No prob. I'm just hungry....The porch light is on, everybody! Who wants a beeeeer!

[nightflier]

Still a little early for beer, but I brought BBQ sauce for them burgers....

Anyhow, isn't a burger just ground steak?

[Mr Peabody]

Your set up works well and shouldn't be a problem as long as the amps have a pretty close sonic signature. You may be better off getting a good integrated opposed to redoing the entire system. Some integrated amps have a "bypass", "theater loop" feature built in so the integrated can become a slave to the receiver or processor when using home theater. I used to have this type of setup and it worked well. I planned on keeping with that setup and looked for a stereo preamp with such a loop. I ended up getting Conrad Johnson. Well, the loop is a waste because the CJ tube gear did not blend at all with my, then, Arcam multichannel amp. Long story short that's how I ended up with basically two systems. It also depends on how picky or sensitive you are to these things. Some guys here mix their speakers and don't seem to care. I'm more anal about it, the slightest variation that I could actually detect would drive me crazy and I couldn't enjoy what I was listening to.

[pixelthis]

I have a strange setup, brought about by being poor (e.g. 5 children, 3 in collage). I bought a used denon 687 that sounded terrible for my front speakers, and so I bought a 20+ year old H/K PM655 integrated amp for my front speakers. For music I listen to the H/K, for movies I power both amps on. The H/K I feed analog, the denon I feed fiber both from my DVD/CD player. So, I'm mixing an old high end H/K amp with a run of the mill amp for surround sound.

In my listening/movie room, I listen to music 90% of the time and only watch one move once a week. So, music by far is the most important thing to me. I currently use the Denon 687 to power my surround and back speakers. Then I power my front speakers with the H/K PM655. The PM655 has multiple issues, but when it works it sounds great!

I'm thinking about upgrading to something like a Anthem AVM20 (and sell the Denon and H/K) or possibly a two channel Anthem TLP-1 (and keep the Denon for the surround sound).

So, my question, do you loose much by using a different amp for the front and surround speakers? I do lip sync at the DVD player.

Thanks for your help!

Best Regards,
Stan

a LOT WHO CANT AFFORD BOTH a HT and a pure audio system do some variant
of this.
Marantz even has a "direct" switch on one of their integrated amps, push it and it becomes an amp, which can run the front two speakers in your system during HT time, push it again
and you have a 2 channel audio system.
I will probably wind up doing it myself, sooner or later, but its not "mixing" anything,
its a hybrid that can do two things , one at a time.:1:

[Mr Peabody]

The switch Pix refers to is the type of feature I was talking about in my post.

Pix, you are mixing, when you have one amp driving the mains and another driving center/rears there is a potential for sound variation, especially if the amps have vastly different sonic characteristics. When you have matching channels and a change is made to one and not the other, then they don't match any more. The question then becomes how noticeable is the difference.

[blackraven]

It sounds like your cost conscious, I would give strong consideration to an Emotiva amp based on the reviews by members here that own them. They are a lot of bang for the buck, seem well made and have gotten great reviews.

www.emotiva.com

[Hyfi]

Maybe I mis-understand original post but I run something similar. I use an HK HT receiver for sub, center and rears. I run the front outs to my 2CH pre-amp and out to amp and fronts. All I have to do is set the volume on Main system to 12 o'clock to match HK volume.

I would not worry too much about sonic matching of fronts since almost nothing of any importance comes out of the fronts. Mostly center-sub and rears. Sometimes I never even switch on the main rig and I can't even tell I am missing anything from the fronts.

I also added a switch box so I can switch the sub back and forth between the HT and 2CH systems.

[Mr Peabody]

Hyfi, it sounds like you have a set up issue on your HT with the HK's speaker level. There is plenty of information from the left/right main.