Indeed very assertive rocks I would think. In regards to those assertive rocks here is another newbie question...

I have a Yamaha reciever rx-v995 rated at 100Wpc x 5. Some time ago I noticed that the power consumption on the back of the reciever is 400W. So the reciever cannot do what it is advertised to do. Since I bought it back in 1998, I learned to live with it. It does handle the center and 2 surrounds just fine.

Now for the question. For the Mains I have a pair of Cambrige Soundworks Tower II's driven by an even older onkyo reciever at 80Wpc (stereo) from the yamaha's pre-outs.
As the speakers are rated at 200w continous maximun, would I be slowly killing them if I connected an M200 amp to the preouts of the yamaha? So the resulting setup would be 2 M200's ( one for each main ) and the yamaha for the center and 2 surrounds. Additionally, since I would then effectively have 200 wpc for the front channels and only 100wpc for the center and surrounds, would the fronts "drown out" the other speakers?

Thanks,

Bob045

Bob045,
It seems to me like the M200 would be a perfect match for your speakers power-wise that is. 200W amp and 200W rating on the speakers. No reason to fear for the life of your speakers. It's been my experience that most speaker damage is done by overdriving an underpowered amplifier. Those poor little tweeters just don't take too kindly to an amplifier that's driven into clipping.

As to the issue of relative channel balance, that's a matter of speaker sensitivity and amplifier gain, not it's ultimate power rating. The mains may ultimately be able to play louder when the system is turned up because of the extra power in reserve but you don't want to go past the point where the other channels start to give up the ghost anyway. Your speakers are rated at a middle of the road 90dB so I don't think getting the loudness levels in line with the center and surrounds would be an issue. I assume the Yamaha has facilities for channel balance calibration.

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Tekdredger

Thanks for the info Tekdredger. The Yamaha does NOT have features for channel calibration, all it has is Large and small settings for the speakers, Bass out is Main/sw or sw and Main level at 'Normal' or -10db. However the Normal and -10db would take care of any apparent volume disparity, I suppose.

In view of that, it may be best to upgrade....Sigh. $579 for 2 M200's vs a 950 and a 5 or 7 channel amplifier....This will take some time to think through

Tekdredger hit the nail on the head as far as matching amp to speaker and blending the different channels together. I was surprised to hear that a Dolby Digital receiver like the RX-V995 lacked channel calibration capability, so I grabbed the manual from Yamaha's site and skimmed through it. There actually is a way to adjust the channels, but it looks a little bit more complicated than I'm used to. Check out pages 32 through 34 of the manual (also available online ) for the exact procedure. That should allow you to get all five channels balanced properly even with outboard amplification for the mains.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

DOH!

Yes, that would work, wouldn't it. Thanks Gonk. I grabbed the manual as soon as I saw your post, and yes, you are right! I was thinking automatic channel balancing, for some reason. Why, I don't know.

Thanks again,

Bob045

Bob045:
I have the same receiver and am doing the same thing except I have M200s across the 3 fronts. To adjust the levels of the speakers simply hit the test tone in setup, you can then adjust the levels of the center and rears to match the levels of the front L&R. You will find that the M200s make a remarkable improvement in the sound and is especially evident in the bass output of your speakers as compared to the Yamaha. Bass seems more "punchy" (hows that for an audiophile term ;-). I am very happy with my 200s.

Roland,

3 across the front, do you have those amps plugged into a dedicated circuit? Way I look at it, it seems that at max power draw, you would need 15 Amperes for them. Please correct me if I am wrong but if 600 watts is max power consumption, for the M200, that is 5 amperes of current ( 5 amps X 120 volts = 600 Watts) So 3 amplifiers = 15 amperes of current. If you would be inclined, how do you have those hooked up?

Thanks,

Bob045

There's also efficiency. [insert: monkey] It's not talked about much here. Getting a full 200 watss from each amp is a LOT of power actually. It would be hard to stay in the room.

It is not necessary to provide a single dedicated 15A circuit for three M200's if they are being used as intended (home theater / music amplification) because of diversity: you will never drive all three amps to full output at once. You may in fact never drive any of them to that point individually. Now if you are using them to run some sort of air raid siren or driving tactile transducers with a constant signal for a shaker table or something bizarre like that, we might be looking at a different scenario...

An extension of this logic: the Model 770 provides 200W per channel for seven channels, yet the nameplate rating is 1800W - exactly the same as the Model 755, which has the same 200W per channel for only five channels, and exactly 15A worth of load on a 120V system. Add to this the fact that people can and do operate a 770 on the same circuit as other electronics (pre/pro, source devices, TV, subwoofer amp). This is possible because many electronics (particularly amplifiers, but also components like PC power supplies or transformers) never draw their nameplate rating in normal use.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

Seemed like a good place for me to chime in. Just picked up a B-M200 (just one) and hooked it up to my 950 and Definitive Technology C/L/R 2300. Compared to the sound quality & 85 watts my Pioneer Elite was giving... I am very pleased with the difference. So much more detail to hear in a few dialog scenes in LOTR. Needless to say..I'll be ordering a pair to drive my BP2006TL's if the don't sell out too soon.