I love my old Luxman amp, but now need more POWER!!!
Charlie in Chicago
Unregistered guest
Posted on
I recently purchased a new construction condo that was pre-wired for whole house audio (and surround sound in two rooms) covering five pairs of speakers. My goal is to stream MP3's throughout the house for grilling outside, romantic evenings, parties, tunes while I am in the shower, etc. and I trying to piece together an appropriate audio system. I am planning to use my existing 12 year old Luxman R-341 receiver (2 x 35W) for power but am resigned to the fact that I will need MORE power and am not sure what direction go.
Allow me to present my set-up so far:
1. Speakers --For the four inside rooms I bought four pair of in-ceiling speakers --> JBL SP6C which are 80 watts at 8 ohms. I got them for $140/pr online. I hope these will serve my purpose. --I still need to buy a pair for outside. I have a small (300 sq. ft.) private outdoor terrace that is partially below grade, and therefore is partially enclosed with concrete walls. I am considering a pair of "fake rock" speakers or wall mounted. (my fiancee thinks the rock speakers are "cute". Who knew? She did agree to marry me however, so I guess it makes sense.) All of the speakers are pre-wired with 14 gauge "bundled" wire (a single white plastic wire), with no run longer than 30 to 35 ft. All five pair home-run to an a/v closet.
2. Computer/Digital Audio Receiver --I picked up a Sony Vaio desktop at Best Buy that has 160 gig hard drive and hold all my MP3's. I have a linksys 801/G wireless router thingy. --I also grabbed a Creative Soundblaster wireless digital audio receiver that will pick up (wirelessly) the streaming audio MP3 files from the computer/jukebox. This cool little device lets me access ALL of my mp3 library from anywhere in the house/outside via a RF remote that has a cool-looking LCD display. Got it for $200 online. It will plug it into the Luxman as if it were a CD player.
3. Amplifier/Receiver (here is my Question!) --My Luxman receiver is over 12 years old and has low power. But it SO clean sounding! I had it hooked up to some large Kef speakers and it powered them flawlessly. I was not disappointed. I had the best sounding system in my fraternity. Anyway, as this will be a distributed audio system, I thought I could recycle this older amp by adding a power amp and then adding an impedance matching speaker selector ( I was looking at a Sonance or a Niles six-speaker unit). Therefore, going this route, I will need to add more power via a new power amp and a speaker selector. --I saw somewhere a review of a Niles SI-1230 12 channel amplifier and I thought that maybe I need one of these babies. I would not need a speaker selector and would be able to selectively give more power to the outside pair of speakers. Excellent solution. There is only one problem, it is like $1,800
So, any thoughts on how to best power my five pair of speakers? Keeping in mind: -I am playing mostly lower quality music (MP3's) -5 pair of speakers, (4 inside, 1 outside) -I would like to re-use the Luxman
Thanks- For your help I will invite you over for a few cold ones