My new 340's

[KPFury]

What's bi-amp, and would it be possible to do it w/ the Panny XR55 and the Ascend 340?

[dae3dae3]

To bi-amp the 340's you remove the jumper between the top and bottom binding posts and then run speaker cables from one amp to the top binding posts and speakers cables from another amp to the bottom binding posts.

Because you are still running everything through the crossover inside the 340's this is usually referred to as Passive Bi-amping. The idea is that you are running more power to the speaker because one amp is powering the tweeter and one amp is powering the mid/bass drivers.

I know nothing about that receiver so I can't help you there.

[dae3dae3]

Another update to my Ascend voyage.

I bought a pro-amp with some money I got for Christmas. I am now running a 350 Watts per channel amp to power my 340 mains.

Mid-bass is punchy as heck and I can play the speakers much louder now without them sounding strained. I was reading pro-audio amp buying guides and they said to buy "at least" twice the watts that your speakers are rated RMS so that you never send a clipped signal to the speaker. I'm not quite there with 350 Watts per channel but it was as close as I was going to get without spending more money than I had.

The imaging also got even better. I don't know why but it did. I guess there is no replacement for nearly unlimited headroom in the amp. This amp is stable down to a 2 Ohm load so I doubt I will ever make this amp break a sweat powering the 340's. It should also be able to easily drive any speaker I ever may purchase in the future. Not that I am shopping around but you never know when you are going to win the Lottery and have a few hundred thousand to spend on speakers.

[S_rangeBrew]

The evidence is mounting that pro-amps are a incredible bang for the buck. Even the most inexpensive ones make the amps in all but the most expensive home audio equipment look weak.

The amps in my 1014tx will hold me over for now, but eventually I hope to have pro-amps powering every channel.

I'll use one of these SmartStrips to power them (and my subwoofer) on automatically when I turn my amp on.

It's too bad Pioneer, Onkyo and others don't make a pre-pro without the amp section, which is most of the cost.

[mboy]

Darren, which amp did you go with?

before I bought my Infocus 4805, I was looking at a QSC which was 2xx watts per or one of the crowns. Most likely the 402b.

[dae3dae3]

Darren, which amp did you go with?

before I bought my Infocus 4805, I was looking at a QSC which was 2xx watts per or one of the crowns. Most likely the 402b.

I got a Carvin HD 1800. I am working on getting quieter fans for it. The fans aren't loud but I think I can get quieter for around $30. I will probably post over at AVS and here with how that turns out.

I am very happy with the sound of the amp and a little disappointed in the fan noise. I disconnected the fans and the top of the amp barely gets warm so I could probably get away with leaving them unhooked since the amp is rated for 2 ohms and I am not even straining it with my 340's but I would feel better knowing that it is getting cooled properly.

[dae3dae3]

I just called Carvin and the guy told me not to disable the fans.

After giving me the "Official" response that he can't give me any advice about how to modify a Carver product he then "Unofficially" told me I can just use regular quiet computer fans as long as I get the right size. I have some links for quiet computer fans so I'll probably go that route once I determine what size I need.

[dae3dae3]

I found that I can't replace the fans. Carvin uses 24 Volt DC fans. Very strange.

[dae3dae3]

I am going to return the Carvin Amp before my 10 day return period is up.

I have a few other options in a similar price range that I am going to look into. This really stinks because I loved the sound. I am just too picky about fan noise.

[bikeman]

I am just too picky about fan noise.

Maybe if enough people follow your lead, the folks at Carvin will figure out how to properly build an amp.

David