Need an amp to power my monitors. Wha...

Need an amp to power my monitors. What should i buy?

Posted on Sep 11, 2004 02:46 pm
kamikaze
Member Since: Sep 11, 2004

Hello!
I need an amp to power my near field studio monitors. I'm thinking of just buying a home audio receiver, and am hoping it wont color my sound. Am i wrong in this regard?

what's a cheap but "flat eq" investment when it comes to amps? Does it even matter? Are all receivers/amps relatively flat if you disable any surround and flatten the bass/treble knobs on the front?

Thanks!

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Walt
Chief Cook and Bottle Washer
Member
Since: May 10, 2002

Sep 12, 2004 09:05 am

Wow, I have been out of the home stereo theater for some time now, but I do have an Onkyo that has a "source direct" setting that defeats all eq, balance etc. and is pretty "flat". My personal favorite is a Crown. I have heard that QSC makes a pretty good amp as well.

As far as all amps being "flat", that is a subjective concept. Crown is so flat it is sometimes used to drive high current pulse driven equipment. Others are not as flat. A large portion of the solution to flat is spending time with your amp / monitors and "learning" them. You might say calibrating your ears to the system. By the time you consider amplification, speaker charectoristics, room charectoristics, there is rarely a "flat" system achieved.

Noize2u
Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Sep 12, 2004 07:32 pm

kamikaze, it might help if we know what moniters you are powering as well. How much juice can they take and that type of thing. I persoanlly would not use a home stereo reciever for powering true nearfield moniters. No matter how flat they say they are, they usually are not that stable. As Walt said, flat is int the ear of the listener. You need to train yourself to hear what your moniters sound like in any given environment. Meaning the room you will be mixing in. My moniters sound one way in my room, but completely differant in my sons room.

I use an Alesis RS 300 for my nearfields and a Peavey PV-900 for my large format speakers. The Alesis is very flat, and the Peavey is not quite as flat but works well with the large format speakers made by Eden. Again, each speaker will perform differantly with differant amps. so knowing what speakers and how much power they can handle would be a good start to recomend and amp.