Who uses ONLY Receiver with no amp/preamp? Is good sound possible?

[westcott]

Ditto Kex.

Speakers are the heart of the system and throwing all kinds of money on components to improve the sound is working backwards.

Spend every available dollar on speakers and some that is not available, and go from there.


To answer your original question directly, yes you can get a good receiver to drive a speaker with plenty of power, if the speaker is efficient and sensitive enough.

It usually aint goin to happen with most direct radiating speakers and that is why horn loaded speakers dominated in the early days. Amps were weak and expensive.

If this is your approach, then I suggest a speaker that is sensitive\efficient. If you do a search, you can find a free calculator to tell you how much power you need for the speaker you consider. To reach reference levels (like those in some movie theaters), you have to hit 117dB!!

Just not a lot of speaker designs that will do that with 100 watts or less! OR EVEN 1000 watts!

[royphil345]

Can't agree with you guys on this one. If you have Cerwin Vegas, you might as well have enough amplifier to drive them properly and "aggressively". That's what they're built for guys...

All theoretical science aside... I've never been able to make any set of speakers play loudly and with the proper authority using a 60 WPC HT receiver. Sound turns to mush pretty quickly, which sounds exactly like what this guy's complaining about. If you think that's all there is... you should try an external amp. Expect much clearer, tighter, more detailed, more powerful sound with better bass weight.... and louder... Sounded to me like exactly what this guy was looking for.

I'm not too sure what he has, but a couple of the new CV lines sound pretty good... with the proper amplification...

[kexodusc]

All theoretical science aside... I've never been able to make any set of speakers play loudly and with the proper authority using a 60 WPC HT receiver.

That's most likely because your speakers require 4 times the power or more to play as loud as these CV's. There's that theory coming back again. Think maybe it's worth learning? Nah...Best to surrender to the marketing machine that tells you to join the horsepower race and get as many watts or as much "current" as you can.

Sensitivity is every bit as important as power. His 60 watt Yamaha receiver gets as much done with the CV's as a 240 watt amp does with today's 90 dB 1w/1m Paradigm/PSB/Athena models....At 5 watts, there's little in the way of "control" or anything like that, certainly nothing close to a night-and-day difference.
Too much power becomes unused.

Ever wonder why some of the most exotic, respected speakers ever made are recommended for use with some of the most coveted SET amps that have 10 watts, 6, watts, even 2 watts of power per channel?

Sound turns to mush pretty quickly, which sounds exactly like what this guy's complaining about. If you think that's all there is... you should try an external amp. Expect much clearer, tighter, more detailed, more powerful sound with better bass weight.... and louder... Sounded to me like exactly what this guy was looking for.

Oh dear. The most discriminating audiophiles I know wouldn't even make that claim - maybe "expect a slightly clearer, tighter, slightly more detailed, somewhat better bass weight, and a few dB's louder"...yeah, that's more like it.

I won't even bring up excursion/distortion properties of the woofers in the speaker, and how the increased power is most likely the cause of the reduction in sound quality...oh wait, I just did...ooops.

[markw]

Those are old school, big box, floor standing speakers. I've never been totally satisfied when mid/tweeters are aimed to fire below my genitals (JBL L-55's, anyone?) and I've had some luck tilting then slightly upwards. That way some of the mid/highs get a little more chance at dispersion.

hey, it's free.

[stevef22]

Thanks for the training in audio 101! Headroom, Ohms, Dbs, etc etc. Im starting to understand that just because I have large bada** old school speakers doesn't mean good sound even when hooked up to amps galore.

So even though these VS-120s are labeled ( Velocity Sensitive loudspeakers has very fast "transient response".) That doesn't mean these Cerwin Vegas are as accurate and responsive as other top brands?

I like to listen to movies loud and clear. Much like a movie theater with accurate bass, Yes my small powered sub doesn't even come close. I need to invest in a nice sub as well. I was hoping that the VS120s would fill in the lower end gap. I guess not.

Thanks Kex, Mark and everyone else for clearing this up for me. Too bad I just dropped my last bills on these darn Cerwin Vegas! I need to go high class. (Even though they are mint condition CV VS-120s)

[kexodusc]

. Too bad I just dropped my last bills on these darn Cerwin Vegas! I need to go high class. (Even though they are mint condition CV VS-120s)

Don't say that! Those CV's will put a lot of speakers to shame when you crank them up at your next pool party. They do what they were designed to do! It's not like they sound bad, just have to accept what they're best at.