Speaker and AV receiver power rating

[admin_exported]

Hi everyone,

Looking into buying a home cinema. I like the look of the Bowers & Wilkins 800 series surround sound speakers, but I am unsure what AV receiver I should use to power them. The pioneer SC LX 85 looks like a sensible choice, but it doesn't have enough power per channel to run the front 3 speakers. The pioneer has 140w per channel power, I believe, but the front left and right are 500w speakers and the centre is 300w. Is this a problem or can I just run them underpowered by a few hundred watts?

Any help would be great fully appreciated as I don't want to spend this much money and find out the components I bought don't work together.

Thanks

Marlon

 

[bigboss]

Check the amplifier in the photo:

http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/Discover/Discover/About_Bowers_&_Wilkins/Abbey-Road.html

http://www.classeaudio.com/html/abbeyroad-oct05.htm

 

[Chewy]

The 800 series speakers have recommended power ratings of 50W-500W (I assume you are talking about the 800 Diamonds?). This means that, in theory at least, the Pioneer is capable of driving them, but will get nowhere near the best out of them.

In all honesty the 800 series are high end speakers - the 803D's are £7500 for example, so matching them with a £2k integrated receiver is a severe mismatch. This level of speakers really require a separate processor and power amps. Even better would be monobloc amps as in BigBoss's picture of the Abbey Roadsetup.

Classe (as in the pictures) could be one of your considerations, but a lot of manufacturers will offer suitable higher end combinations; Bryston, Anthem, Lexicon, Parasound, Denon, Marantz - even Rotel or Audiolab have decent offerings if the budget is a little tighter.

On that topic, what is your budget for processor/amps, and specifically which if the 800 series are you looking at?