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Combining home theater with two channel

I have a 7 channel home theater system. In my system, I have Marantz 7706pre amp, Emotiva XPA-Differential 3 channel(450 wpc) driving my golden ear R1s and center channel, XPA-4 (275 wpc) driving surround speakers. When I switch to 2 channel to play music, I’m just not impressed with the emotiva.
My dealer suggested that I add an integrated amp to the system to play music.  The krell K-300i. I just have a hard time understanding how can a 150 wpc amp pack more of a punch than a 450watt amp. 
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Showing 2 responses by holmz

holmz's avatar
holmz
2,328 posts
 
Does the Emo/450w have RCAs for the L/R fronts?
  • If so you might try running those into the integrated…
  • It may be the preamp section of the Emo more than the amplifier section. 
  •     So a way to figure that out could be worthwhile.
  • Confirming that those two channels of speakers sound OK on the Marantz would also be worthwhile. (It could be that the speakers need to move around a bit.)
holmz's avatar
holmz
2,328 posts
 
I know it sounds like hokum but it is not.  For me, full HT is less important than sound quality.  So I am going the two channel route for TV and movie streaming.   I find that it is more than adequate for HT duties. But now music streaming is so much better.
I am running the TV with a 2.1 stereo set up… and I am wondering why I even ordered a center channel. I might try 4.1 for a while if the surrounds arrive before the center channel (then decide on 5.1).

And also have an AV processor “soon to arrive”, so this is sounding like we are along somewhat similar paths.
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