First post! And of course, my first question....

[cskolnick]

Hey all, im new to the board. As a member of the mountain biking board I've gotten great advice on all things bike related (and some not) and have also been able to give some as well; i hope the same for this audio board. Basically, ive always been into sound and recently a very good friend of mine gave me the following system: Sumo 9 Plus 600w amp, Sumo pre amp and a pair of Polk Audio SDA-CRS speakers along with some nice looking speaker cables that i do not know the name of. Despite the terrible acoustics of my current room (i will fix them shortly), i am blown away by what this system does for my music. However, i have a few questions that i hope can be answered. ive read some reviews on my equipment and they seem quite good. i was wondering if there is anything in particular i could/should know about my system. On the amp, it has 2 wires sticking out: what are they for? also, it mentions i should not "ground output terminals!" and "the outputs are balanced with no reference to ground", what do all these mean? On the speakers, there is no power rating or ohm load, any ideas? It also warns only to use common ground amps; what does this mean?Additionally, it has a common ground plug that attaches to both speakers. what exactly does that do? do i need it if the speakers are not perfectly spaced? Furthermore, are these speakers a good match for my amp? The preamp kind of stinks, i think. The sound bleeds through all inputs. i may get another one in the future.

lastly, and really most unfortunate, is one of the channels on the amp (ive checked and it is definetly the amp) no longer puts out sound! it started as distortion at higher volumes then even at low levels. Now, it just doesnt work. I currently have the SDA's on a very old, very cheap Kenwood receiver. No comparison. I am speaking to the manager at Stereo Exchange in Lower Manhattan (im in NYC) and may have it shipped by them to Sound-Smith's in Peekskill. It seems to be that this repair, if possible, will cost around 400 or more dollars. what could have happened? is the repair wirth it?

thats about it. hopefully i can get some insight so i can furter understand the sytem i own and what it all means . thanks

[JoeE SP9]

Hey all, im new to the board. As a member of the mountain biking board I've gotten great advice on all things bike related (and some not) and have also been able to give some as well; i hope the same for this audio board. Basically, ive always been into sound and recently a very good friend of mine gave me the following system: Sumo 9 Plus 600w amp, Sumo pre amp and a pair of Polk Audio SDA-CRS speakers along with some nice looking speaker cables that i do not know the name of. Despite the terrible acoustics of my current room (i will fix them shortly), i am blown away by what this system does for my music. However, i have a few questions that i hope can be answered. ive read some reviews on my equipment and they seem quite good. i was wondering if there is anything in particular i could/should know about my system. On the amp, it has 2 wires sticking out: what are they for? also, it mentions i should not "ground output terminals!" and "the outputs are balanced with no reference to ground", what do all these mean? On the speakers, there is no power rating or ohm load, any ideas? It also warns only to use common ground amps; what does this mean?Additionally, it has a common ground plug that attaches to both speakers. what exactly does that do? do i need it if the speakers are not perfectly spaced? Furthermore, are these speakers a good match for my amp? The preamp kind of stinks, i think. The sound bleeds through all inputs. i may get another one in the future.

lastly, and really most unfortunate, is one of the channels on the amp (ive checked and it is definetly the amp) no longer puts out sound! it started as distortion at higher volumes then even at low levels. Now, it just doesnt work. I currently have the SDA's on a very old, very cheap Kenwood receiver. No comparison. I am speaking to the manager at Stereo Exchange in Lower Manhattan (im in NYC) and may have it shipped by them to Sound-Smith's in Peekskill. It seems to be that this repair, if possible, will cost around 400 or more dollars. what could have happened? is the repair wirth it?

thats about it. hopefully i can get some insight so i can furter understand the sytem i own and what it all means . thanks

For that $400 dollar repair cost you can get an Adcom GFA585 or equivalent. You could also buy 2 Adcom GFA-545 amps and bi-amp your polks.
Polk Audio could probably tell you the impedence rating of your speakers. If you are going to use amps as good as the Sumo (if repaired) or Adcom the impedence rating of your speakers is a non issue.
The warning about grounding usually applies to speaker switch boxes. The Sumo 9 is a bridged amp with no real ground in reference to the speaker terminals.
I don't now why there are wires sticking out. I'm certain this is not good.