Amp Advice for a lady

[yabeeb]

Hi. I have been using my dad's old Mission 77 speakers with his very old JVC A-K22 amp. I decided it was time to replace it though and did some research. Was going to go for Marantz PM6005 but after some advice from the nice men in Richers SOunds I went for the Yamaha A-S301. Generally I hook up to my Dell Inspiron laptop and play spotify but when i did this on the new one through Phono input it sounded AWFUL. Almost like the speakers had blown. Wayyyy to bassy and all distorted. Thought i'd done something wrong (and still might!) so i rigged my Sony CDP-XE530 up to it instead and it sounds amazing. Nothing wrong with the speakers or the amp.

Can anynoe suggest why i'm suddenly having a problem with playing spotify on this new amp? Am i missing something really obvious?!

Thanks!

 

[The_Lhc]

The only thing you're supposed to plug into the Phono input is a turntable because they have a very low level output which needs the bass boosting up to normal levels.

Use any of the other inputs (CD or AUX or something) and it should be fine, assuming you haven't blown the speakers already.

BTW, of what relevance is your gender in this question?

 

[jjbomber]

Generally I hook up to my Dell Inspiron laptop and play spotify but when i did this on the new one through Phono input it sounded AWFUL.

What exactly did you use to connect them?

I would use a Turtle Beach micro II and optical cable to connect to the digital input of the Yamaha. In simple terms, the digital signal from Spotify has to be converted to an analogue signal somewhere. With the aforementioned, it is done inside the Yamaha, which should be superior to the Dell, where i suspect it is being converted now.

 

[DaanS]

but when i did this on the new one through Phono input it sounded AWFUL. Almost like the speakers had blown. Wayyyy to bassy and all distorted.

Yes if you hook up your imput like that you effectively run your music through an additional amplifier, and one that is intended to straigthen out inconsistencies in the actuall playback of vinyl (hope I put it correctly like that) resulting in a distorted and very loud output from anything other than a turntable.

You get the same effect if you put a usb-turntable's line output through an amplifiers phonostage. The lineoutput makes use of the turntables buildin preamplifier, resulting in the same output as that from a cd-player. This way you can use your turntable with an amp that doesn't have a phono input, and without the need for a seperate pre-amp. In the past that pre-amplifier was build into the amplifier --> the phono imput.

As such, it's intended for a turntable alone. Even than, if you set the turntable to 'line output', you get the same problem you were facing because than you use the turntables pre-amp, the amplifiers phono stage, and than the normal amp. I nearly blew up my speakers that way.

Just run your laptop through any of the other channels and you should be fine.

 

[yabeeb]

Thanks all!

I just use a Belkin lead to connect them.

I've switched to Line 1 and it is better but compared with running through the CD player the sound quality still isn't as clear and a bit distorted. I was wondering if there was a bass/treble adjustment in the computer. I doubt it as its pretty basic. My friend also said i might need to get a better soundcard.

I don't know about the Micro Turtle but i will investigate and will give Richer Sounds a ring.

Thanks again

 

[rainsoothe]

Hi. As the others have pointed out, the only thing that's meant to go into the "phono" input is a turntable.

As for laptop sounding worse, there are two reasons: first is that computer soundcards are bad - worse then what's in cd-players anyway. The workaround, of course, is to use an external DAC (digital to analogue converter - it transforms digital data to analogue signal), which your Yamaha fortunately has. The only problem is that the Yammy only has optical or coaxial digital inputs, so you need to get a USB to SPDIF converter cable. The second reason is that spotify maximum quality is 320kb/s mp3, while your CD player uses... well... CD quality. And, of course, another possible reason is that the DAC in your CD player is better then the one in the Yamaha. You can always test the Marantz PM6005 I guess, if you haven't already, maybe you'll like it's sound more, but if you wanna stick with the Yamaha, the USB to SPDIF cable is your cheapest sollution to get better sound out of your laptop.

To make a fair comparison, you should play the same CD on your CD player, then on your laptop (using the USB to SPDIF cable of course) - that's when you can really tell the difference between the cdp and Yamaha DACs.

Hope this wasn't too technical.

 

[yabeeb]

Actually i take that back.... it sounds pretty darn GOOD *yahoo*

 

[yabeeb]

Hi. As the others have pointed out, the only thing that's meant to go into the "phono" input is a turntable.

As for laptop sounding worse, there are two reasons: first is that computer soundcards are bad - worse then what's in cd-players anyway. The workaround, of course, is to use an external DAC (digital to analogue converter - it transforms digital data to analogue signal), which your Yamaha fortunately has. The only problem is that the Yammy only has optical or coaxial digital inputs, so you need to get a USB to SPDIF converter cable. The second reason is that spotify maximum quality is 320kb/s mp3, while your CD player uses... well... CD quality. And, of course, another possible reason is that the DAC in your CD player is better then the one in the Yamaha. You can always test the Marantz PM6005 I guess, if you haven't already, maybe you'll like it's sound more, but if you wanna stick with the Yamaha, the USB to SPDIF cable is your cheapest sollution to get better sound out of your laptop.

To make a fair comparison, you should play the same CD on your CD player, then on your laptop (using the USB to SPDIF cable of course) - that's when you can really tell the difference between the cdp and Yamaha DACs.

Hope this wasn't too technical.

Thank you Rainsmoothe. Do you think the Marantz would be more or less bassy? I'm worried about the neighbours below!

I might have some questions when i get a chance but that's really helpful.