Advantages of external amplifiers?

[btnhfan 5,000+ posts]

What is the advantage of getting one?

Are the receivers overrated? I.e. is it comparable to headunits?

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[thylantyr 10+ year member]

Receivers have more 'stuff' inside the chassis that takes away real estate from the

internal amplifier 'section', so for the same chassis size, an external amplifier has the potential to

have more room for 'guts' to make the amplifier more robust. It all comes down to how

the product is engineered. Some brands of receivers actually make discrete amplifier design

instead of placing 'chipamps' like those found in HU's. The chipamp product is usually the

low end brands. Even the discrete designs aren't 'over-engineered' like an external amplifier can be due to the space restriction.

Because you have a real estate issue, that doesn't mean you can't engineer a solution

to the problem. Look here;

http://usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/226.asp

This is the big Denon reciever. 10 channel, 170w channel. For $6K msrp, I'd

rather buy a $500 receiver and use the leftover $5500 to buy external amplifiers because

that kind of cash would allow me to get more power than what the Denon offers, but

I would have a rack of five 2 channel amplifiers though. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[btnhfan 5,000+ posts]

Thanks for the info.

So are the 80w per channel not really there, as it would be if I added an external amp?

Its a harmon kardon receiver

 

[thylantyr 10+ year member]

The only way to now if the reciever meets spec is to measure it.

I'd imagine that every product would be different.

Since most people can't or won't measure products, a good

alternative is to choose certain brands that have a good reputation. H/K is good and

their specs probably can be trusted.. so look at the specs to see if it meets your requirement.

Most if not all reciever are not 2 ohm/ch rated so if you plan to use it as such you might have issues.

[some may be rated for as low as 4 Ohm/ch, usually 6-8 Ohm is common.]

 

[btnhfan 5,000+ posts]

Yea I am already using it. It has 80w at 8 ohms.

I just wondered if using an external amp would matter that much, and it appears it wouldnt.

Thanks.

 

[thylantyr 10+ year member]

I wouldn't seek an external amplifier unless you need more power.