Is there such a thing as too much power?

[admin_exported]

Hi all,

Ive recently added an Arcam P38 power amp to my A65+/rDAC/B&W DM602 S2 setup. To cut a long story short I bought a NAD C355BEE last week to replace the A65+ as I found it lacking in power, didnt get on with it and on friday I bought the P38.

With the A65+ it would cut out whenever turned it up very loud (I use the system with my Traktor DJ setup), with the NAD (80w) I got my speakers to go very loud indeed, way louder than the A65+. With this A65+/P38 setup I can again get my speakers to cut out when the volume dial is at about 1'o'clock, but the volume level was nowhere near that of the NAD.

Is the P38 (105w/channel) just too powerful for the 602's or is there some limitation in using the A65+ as a pre-amp that is causing it to cut out again?

 

[Anonymous]

anyone?

 

[Electro]

It's very difficult to say but I would guess the protection circuit in the A65 is cutting in or it may be faulty .

Are you using the A65 as a pre amp into the P38 or are you bi-amping the speakers using the A65 for high frequencies and the P38 for low frequencies ?

 

[Anonymous]

Providing your sensible with the volume control theres no problem with 105W. In many ways I prefer to have an amp too powerful for the speakers rating, it tends to assist with dynamics and extending frequency extremes.

It sounds like a problem with the A65, that seems to be the common link. Sometimes amps have circuitry that cuts the amp during certain loads or in case of shorting. To me this seems the most likely cause, your speakers would probably be fried if you overdrove them.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Yes im using the A65+ as a pre-amp into the P38. It feels like im putting Maureen from driving school behind the wheels of a Bentley, I cant find any in-depth info about the pre-amp stage of the A65 to research it a bit.

I suppose its a bit of a stop-gap solution until I source a decent pre-amp, In an ideal world I'd be on the lookout for an A38, however buying an rDAC wireless, a NAD C355BEE, 2 expensive sets of interconnects and a P38 within the space of 7 days has cleaned me out of disposable for a little while!

 

[Electro]

Have you tried using the pre -out of the Nad with the P38 , if so is that any better ?

 

[Anonymous]

I havent no, its not a route I particulalry want to take as the sound from that NAD was below par imho.

 

[Electro]

I havent no, its not a route I particulalry want to take as the sound from that NAD was below par imho.

I just thought that if the sound level was OK with the Nad as a pre-amp and it did not cut out, then the fault would definitely be with the A65 and you could then replace the A65 or get it repaired

 

[Anonymous]

Aaaaaah, the penny drops! I will do that tonight and report back

 

[Anonymous]

Ok, so I didnt try out the NAD as a pre-amp, but I did make 2 key changes to my system.

1) recieved the rWAVE dongle and boy what a difference that has made to the overall sound as oppose to the crappy USB cable I was using.

2) Chopped the ends off my speaker cable and exposed some fresh wire (Nakamichi banana plugs still havent arrived), the bits I chopped off have been connected to the speakers for knocking on 6-7 years and had become dirty.

Verry happy with things right now overall, I think im finding out that you can never accommodate every single musical genre/recording and its a great system for relaxing with, which is what I do mostly.