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Need suggestion on tube amplifier with XLR inputs

I am looking for a two channel tube amplifier (not sure of the wattage I will need as I am not 100% sure how the wattage correlates to transistor wattage so I will need a recommendation on this as well). My current set up is as follows: Emotiva DMC-1 Pre-amp/processor, Behringer cross-over, Emotiva XPA-5 (5 channel amplifier) and a Krell KSA-250 (2 channel amplifier) I have them connected via XLR cables throughout. I use the Krell to power my two JL-Audio 13W7 subs. I use the XPA-5 to run all other speakers at this time. What I would like to do is purchase a 2 channel Tube amplifier to run my center channel speakers as these are responsible for most of the mids/highs and use the 5 channel XPA-5 to run the surround speakers. My thought is that the center is responsible for most of the sound in a 5.2 system anyway so if I were to put my money on adding quality sound this would be the spot to do it. I need a two channel as I would like to run my tweeter on a separate channel then the mids so as to isolate each signal through the cross-over to have more granularities in tuning each of them. My tweeter has a speaker efficiency of 106 db and my mids are 87 db. If I run them through the same channel the tweeter will obviously overwhelm the mids and does as I have tried this already. So my question is, what 2 channel tube amp would you recommend that would drive 3 4” midrange drivers on one channel and then on the other drive 2 tweeters? I think I need something that would equal around 200 transistor type watts per channel as that is what the other surround speakers have running to them. I thank you in advance for any and all advice!

P.S. I would like to keep the cost under $3000 and am perfectly fine with purchasing used equipment. Thanks again!
ectomorph81

Showing 1 response by sbank

sbank's avatar
sbank
3,378 posts
 
With all due respect, this sounds like a horribly overly complex setup, which would be difficult to wrap your arms around.

I recommend stepping back to see the forest from the trees. For starters, are you using this rig mostly for movies in surround, multichannel music only, or 2 channel music? IME, most 5.1,7.1 etc. has most music from front mains, and the center channel is mainly spoken dialogue. Any rig that is bi or tri-amped is going to rely on expert knowledge of crossovers etc. to get any kind of balance. You mention everything except what your speakers are. That would help.
Can we translate your question to something akin to,

"I have X speakers in a HT setup w/JL subs, driven by Krells. What amp would make sense for the other 5 channels?" Cheers,
Spencer
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