Happy New Year chaps. Hopefully you, or anybody else on the forum of a technical bent, can help me out here. I have been having issues with a pre-amp/power amp impedance mismatch. The technical aspects of this are covered elsewhere on the forum (see link below), but the long and the short of it is that I am going to have to replace either the pre or the power section of the chain.
http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/bias-adjustments
I started off looking at replacing the pre-amp. This item was purchased second hand (grey import) and subsequently fully serviced by the UK importer, so I stand to lose little/nothing on selling this, hence looking at replacing this instead of my power amps which were purchased new and would haemorrhage cash. However replacing the Reference 5SE is proving difficult. I didn't realise just how much I liked the sound until I started to audition other equipment. I may therefore have to look at replacing the Bryston amps instead which should, in theory, have less impact on the overall sonic flavour of my system. So here is my question: PMC's recommended amplification for my loudspeakers is 500W to 1200W but I cannot understand why it needs to be so high. My listening distance is 4m from face of drivers and my listening room is 6m x 5.5m. Speaker specs below. Impedance: 4 Ohm NominalSensitivity: 91dB They are physically large speakers with 15" LF drivers but the specs to me suggest that a much, much smaller amp could drive them easily without any clipping. Listening levels are usually fairly low for me. Any help would be much appreciated as I really don't want to damage anything. There are a pair of Audio Research Reference 210's on eBay you see and if they are man enough for the job that could be my answer. Any help would be appreciated!
http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/bias-adjustments
I started off looking at replacing the pre-amp. This item was purchased second hand (grey import) and subsequently fully serviced by the UK importer, so I stand to lose little/nothing on selling this, hence looking at replacing this instead of my power amps which were purchased new and would haemorrhage cash. However replacing the Reference 5SE is proving difficult. I didn't realise just how much I liked the sound until I started to audition other equipment. I may therefore have to look at replacing the Bryston amps instead which should, in theory, have less impact on the overall sonic flavour of my system. So here is my question: PMC's recommended amplification for my loudspeakers is 500W to 1200W but I cannot understand why it needs to be so high. My listening distance is 4m from face of drivers and my listening room is 6m x 5.5m. Speaker specs below. Impedance: 4 Ohm NominalSensitivity: 91dB They are physically large speakers with 15" LF drivers but the specs to me suggest that a much, much smaller amp could drive them easily without any clipping. Listening levels are usually fairly low for me. Any help would be much appreciated as I really don't want to damage anything. There are a pair of Audio Research Reference 210's on eBay you see and if they are man enough for the job that could be my answer. Any help would be appreciated!