Audiolab 8000s+8000p....+ av procceser????

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As title im getting the new audiolab 8000s (to use as a pre amp) and a 8000p power amp. Anyone give me any info about intergraiting an AV Procceser into this system?? i cant understand it...

 

[Lost Angeles]

reggaedave:As title im getting the new audiolab 8000s (to use as a pre amp) and a 8000p power amp. Anyone give me any info about intergraiting an AV Procceser into this system?? i cant understand it...

The usual way to integrate an AV receiver into a system is as follows

1) The front left and right pre-outs of the A/V Receiver go to an input on the stereo amp (Tape 2 for example)
2) Some stereo amps (not many) have a fixed-level input especially for this purpose so you can miss this step out: set the volume of your stereo amp to about 10 o'clock and run your speaker calibration routine on the receiver. Then always use this volume setting on the stereo amp whenever you watch AV - overall volume is handled by the receiver.
3) When watching AV, have both amps on - the stereo amp will handle the front speakers, the AV amp will handle the rest.
4) When watching stereo, the AV amp is out of the equation so won;t degrade the sound.

Hope this is a least an idea of how it works
I would guess that the Power amp on the processor will power the centre, rear and sub and the 8000p will do the fronts.

 

[Anonymous]

I know this post is quite old, but the above reply is misleading to anybody else Googling this.

First, the Audiolab 8000S (old or new) has many operational modes available through the selector switch on the front panel. One of those is to specifically use it as a power amplifier. This removes the integrateds pre-amp section from the equation and no fiddling with the volume control (as suggested by previous poster) will make a different as power amp stages operate a fixed amount of amplification (technically called: gain).

In an AV set-up, this is exactly what you want to do so that the pre-outs from the processor/receiver can be amplified by the 8000S alone. The volume is purely based on the signal voltage provided from the receiver/processor.

To do this, the input you would use is the "Power Amp In" connectors on the back of the 8000S. Now, having an 8000S and 8000P will only give you 4 channels of amplification, which is not enough for the 6 channels of a 5.1 setup, or any later 5.2, 6.1, 6.2....up to 11.2 like some Yammy HC receivers can provide although little support for it from discs. However, many don't care. If you have good enough front speakers (high end ones) that have plenty of low end, you should not need a sub.

I do not know about the 8000AV. I do know about the 8000AP and the 8200AP and how they work. However the 8000AV has no HDMI inputs and doesn't support the latest HD audio codecs. Notwithstanding, most cinema processors/receivers allow you to specify how many speakers you have and can downmix to support that number. For instance, if you have 4 speakers (front L+R and rear L+R) then in 5.1 you would configure the AV receiver/processor to supply centre channel to front left and right channels in equal measure.

In the proposed configuration, I would use the 60W of the Audiolab 8000S for rear speakers given the limited bandwidth most rears have - generally 80Hz and up. The 8000P has more current driving capability (more welly) for large fronts that would be taking on some vocal duties in lieu of a centre and also the bass duties in lieu of a sub. You probably wont hear an audio mag say it, but an amp capable of high slew rate and producing better voltage swing in to speakers in milli/microseconds generally will sound more detailed and dynamic than one that cannot manage it - so always put the best performing amps with the speakers that will have the most demanded of them.

With an HD capable processor/receiver the same configuration arrangements can generally be made - and it is preferable to have a cinema processor and not a cinema receiver for the following: it allows proper hifi power amps rather than the trimmed down space-saving and cost-saving multichannel equivalents. I am not saying ICE power amps that fit nicely in one box are not great for multichannel, some are, but typically, the hifi power amp route bolted on to an AV processor is preferable for the following reasons:

1) Each channel is fully isolated against crosstalk, or fully isolates as a pair if using stereo power amps

2) Each channel/pair-of-channels uses its own dedicated power supply, so a loud noise on one channel does not sap power from the others causing a temporary distortion in the imaging of the soundfield because of this. Instead, everything stays as it should.

3) The specifications per channel on a typical stereo/mono hifi amplifier are usually far superior in terms of THD, IMD, SNR to those found in AV multichannel amps - there are exceptions, but you pay for this big time.

4) AV processors/receiver can get dated quickly and replacing them can be expensive. It is more cost effective to use as good a processor as you can afford and then use hifi amps (preferably monoblocks) for the amplification. This way, you can slowly upgrade your amps distinctly from the processor. If your AV processor is out of date and needs replacing, you don't lose the quality set of power amps you built up and you can buy a newer processor that will hook up to them. This also allows you to directly compare processing/DAC quality of your old processor with the new one to see if you get the desired improvements that are costing you a lot of money.

5) Most people who have high end audio systems are disappointed at what an AV amp that costs even 4,5 times their main amp will actually deliver in terms of sound quality for stereo music. The only real way of mainting that quality is to use the same power amps for AV and hifi, and ensure that any DACs used in an AV amp is of a high end quality (e.g. PCM1794 or AD1955 or Wolfson WM8741) for each channel pair. Also, if you can, find a processor where the output stage for music is a discrete class A topology. It is high quality DAC chips coupled to good output stages feeding your power-amps that will see hifi maintained for music.

In summary, there is nothing wrong with the OP's proposed setup. It would probably better an integrated AV receiver in sound quality, back in 2008 and now in 2012.

I run an Onkyo PR-SC5507 processor in to Audiolab amplification with high end speakers.

Any top-tier DAC chip with suitable output stage, be it in an AV processor, or dedicated stero unit, is going to sound similar going through the same power amplifiers. It is the difference in output stage quality and pre-amp quality that generally affects sound and it is cheaper to use a top-tier DAC chip and design a top-tier output stage for 2 channels than 5+ channels. This is where the price differential is in the commercial market. Therefore, a top-flight processor designed to be used with external amplification will have purely had design concentrated on DAC, DSP and output stages and come closer to what a top-tier stereo DAC and stereo pre-amp would normally supply to the power amplification.

 

[Lost Angeles]

Well my answer seemed to be OK for nearly 3 years and did finish with " Hope this is a least an idea of how it works" and did start with "The usual way to do this". Sorry I got it wrong. :wall: