Advice sought:whether to bi-amp with new amp to go with existing arcam alpha 8r and AE109s

[arcamae109]

Hi

Im new to this forum. all advice will be appreciated.

I have an ageing amp and speaker combination -but to be honest i have always been happy with the sound and i do not have an unlimited budget for upgrades. I still am happy but would like to improve it if that can be achieved without changing the whole system.

the setup is arcam apha 8r amp and acoustic energy ae109 speakers ,with cable talk concert 2.1 (green hosepipe) speaker cable. Previously, i had never biwired the speakers, but i have just done this and i thought the sound was definitely improved. This got me thinking about whether i would also get a noticeable sonic upgrade by bi-amping.

My source is a squeezebox touch with cambridge audio pacific interconnect. At the moment i am not using a separate DAC.The DAC in the touch is pretty good and it would take a DAC costing at least £500 to beat it in my view (that is an upgrade option for the future, but for now im concentrating on the amp)

the traditional partner for the 8R was the 8P - long since discontinued. what would be the equivalent today -or would it be worth something more expensive as an equivalent. Can anyone give me some links to an arcam amp deal?

i have always heard that arcam amps pair well with the ae109s -i presume that is still the same today and that a new arcam amp would still pair well with an older one? I am conscious that the ae109 speakers are not the best in the world but i have always liked them, they are (were) great for the price and frankly i am looking for the best value upgrade for my money -rather than advice to ditch my speakers and get a whole new setup -but as i said,any advice would be appreciated. Has speaker performance greatly moved on in the last 15 years - at that sort of price point?

a final point: I can hear some very low level "buzz" in the right channel when no music is playing. ive experimented, and it is not the speaker -so i must be the 8R. ive made sure the power cable is not touching the speaker cable. Is there anything else i should be doing? to be honest i cant be sure if it has always had this slight buzz or whether it is more recent. Its not annoying but ideally id want to be rid of it.

 

[arcamae109]

or, the alternative option is to just buy a new integrated amp, the arcam a38, for example ,which ive seen for an excellent price. of course i would demo it and preferably home demo it with my speakers first. but then that raises the question ,will the ae109s be up to the job. what is the rule of thumb price ratio between amp and speakers -is it better to have a more expensive amp?

thanks -as you can see, i'd benefit from advice!

 

[Big Chris]

There's an 8p on eBay at the moment. I'd say an 8p or 9p would be the best bet and cheaper than getting an A38, but there is the age factor to consider plus the price of another pair of interconnects.

I noticed an improvement when I bi-amped with my Arcams.

 

[bluedroog]

Alternatively have you considered selling your Alpha 8 and putting that with any other budget towards an Alpha 10?

 

[AEJim]

I tend to agree with Big Chris, bi-amping with more clean power would be preferable to simply changing for an newer equivalent amp to what you have.

I've heard an Alpha 9 + 9P combo powering our very demanding AE5's extremely well (at Des'Ree's house!), not many mid-priced integrated's could do that at the volumes we were listening without clipping.

The 109's are still great speakers and you'll gain slam and bass control with a bi-amp set-up, a cleaner overall sound. I think you have to spend in the region of £1000 on a newer pair of speakers to get a significant upgrade.

 

[arcamae109]

thanks for your advice, which seems to favour bi-amping given my current setup -so my question is - what would i buy to be a perfect match for the 8R? i did see the 8P on ebay but for £200 second hand, and scratched, im not sure. I would be pretty wary about buying a second hnd amp as you couldnt be sure how hard it had been driven etc.

so, what would i buy thats new? the alpha 10 also isnt available as far as i could tell.

the a38 i have seen is £710 delivered. from a 1600 rrp that would appear to be a pretty good deal -but would it reduce more once the (presumed) a39 comes out?. could i not use the 8r with the a38 and perhaps biamp or is that going to be a problem with level matching?

 

[AEJim]

I'd say you're probably better off with a second-hand 8 or 9P, the character will match and the gain will be correct for the Pre. A power amp is unlikely to have any issues unless capacitors have gone but they generally take abuse well or go into protection mode if overdriven. If it doesn't work you're still covered with Ebay as far as I know if it's sold as working but turns up broken...

 

[arcamae109]

ok, thanks for the advice on the 8p and 9p. i have found a really nice second hand 9p at a cheap price -so im tempted to go for that as theres not a lot to lose -but is it going to be an issue if i pair the 8r with the 9p -are they still going to be a proper match?

 

[Pete68]

I bi-amp the AE120's with an Alpha 9/9P set up and it's a huge improvement over just using the alpha 9 on it's own.

Personally, if I had an Alpha 8 I would would try and match it to the 8P rather than go for the 9P (unless you plan on upgrading the 8 to a 9 later - which I would)

 

[arcamae109]

can i just check if there are any more views about whether i can pair my alpha 8R with the 9P. I have searched around online and i did find one forum comment which stated that the 8R and 9P when run in practice resulted in differing levels in treble and bass/mid, and was therefore no good, but with only one comment im reluctant to rely on it as gospel.

I say this because the 9p generally seems to be more available second hand than the 8P, and perversely the 8P seems to be more expensive.

If i end up paying, say £200 for the power amp, to have a bi-amped setup , that is obviously affordable and sounds like the route to go down, but set against a potential cost of £700 for the arcam a38, which is the better option?

will the a38 give me a better sound overall than the pre/power biamped setup? if it appreciably would then maybe it is worth spending more money at this stage.

thanks

 

[Pete68]

I can't comment on the A38 as I haven't heard it but wouldn't pair the Alpha 8 with the 9P. Although the 8 & 9P pairing would work in a classical pre/power set up, it is better to have matching amplifiers as you will probably want to bi-amp the speakers to get a better overall quality of sound.

The Alpha 9 and 9P both share the same amplifier specs (as do the 8 and 8P).

You may want to check this out on another forum or maybe someone here can confirm this though, but I'm pretty sure this is the case

 

[eggontoast]

can i just check if there are any more views about whether i can pair my alpha 8R with the 9P. I have searched around online and i did find one forum comment which stated that the 8R and 9P when run in practice resulted in differing levels in treble and bass/mid, and was therefore no good, but with only one comment i'm reluctant to rely on it as gospel.

You can indeed pair the Alpha 8R with an Alpha 9P they are gain matched just use the 9P for bass duties. The 8P and 9P's are exactly the same internally as their integrated counterparts, they just don't have the preamp section loaded on the circuit board. So the power amps in the 8R and 8P are the same and the 9 and 9P are too. Although you would effectively have different designs of power amp running the 8R and 9P it wouldn't cause you any problems and would sound as good if not better than using an 8P.

 

[Pete68]

The Alpha 8 and 8P have completely different circuit boards from the 9 and 9P. Mismatched they will probably sound okay at low level but if you crank it up a bit you could run into some bloblems with balance etc. If you are not bi-amping then this shouldn't be an issue.

 

[eggontoast]

The Alpha 8 and 8P have completely different circuit boards from the 9 and 9P. Mismatched they will probably sound okay at low level but if you crank it up a bit you could run into some bloblems with balance etc. If you are not bi-amping then this shouldn't be an issue.

You'll have to explain that one, they are only amplifiers, which are gain matched.

 

[arcamae109]

digging around i have found an alpha 8 user manual

http://www.manualslib.com/manual/9221/Arcam-Alpha-8.html?page=8#manual

on this page it specifically states as one of the three possible options "for optimum price/performance ratios"

alpha 8 (HF) plus alpha 9P (LR)

I assume i can take that as an endorsement for an 8R and a 9P then?

 

[Pete68]

there you have it...