stereo amp and av receiver at same time

[admin_exported]

ok so i currently have an AV receiver hooked up to my surround sound speaker setup (Front L/R back l/r and centre) i connect my blu ray player and ps3 to the av receiver for surround sound, and i connect my computer SPDIF to the receiver to listen to music through the front L/R speakers. however i would like to use a stereo amp (along with a DAC) for music but getting a second set of stereo speakers to do that is not an option (space budget etc.)

so what i would like to know is if it would be possible to connect the front L/R preouts of my receiver to a stereo amp which would then be connected to the front L/R speakers and play surround sound, so that the back L/R and centre are being driven by the av receiver and the front L/R are being driven by the stereo amp. this is the only way i could have a stereo amp and a receiver but would it make surround sound tracks sound horrible and unbalanced?

thanks

 

[The_Lhc]

Yes that's the recommended way of doing it, shouldn't be any problem, you might notice a slight difference between the fronts and the centre but there's a number of people here that do it and I don't recall any of them mentioning it.

Once you've got the calibration set up properly it should be fine.

 

[Anonymous]

'Back in the day' when I had a Yamaha processor/Nad combo that is how my av system worked. After a while you should get used to it once things are calibrated. There is more chance of noticing a difference acros the front/centre than front/surround. It might be an idea to see if you could borrow/use an amp to see if this would be an issue.

 

[Anonymous]

Agreed with above. And if you are worried about a difference, you could opt for a stereo amp that can bypass, like the Kandy K2.

This also solves the inconvenience of having to mind the stereo amps volume when using the AV receiver.

 

[Anonymous]

thanks for responses everyone, luckily i do have a stereo amp somewhere that we are storing for someone. sorry for the noobishness but what do you mean by bypass?

 

[Anonymous]

It bypasses the Kandy's pre-amp. The incoming signal from your AV receiver is sent directly to the Kandy's power amp section. This means that the volumeknob on the Kandy has no influence on the signal when you use your AV receiver.

However, since the signal still goes through the power amp section, it might still sound different. No idea how much difference this makes with the Kandy.