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Does the weight of the receiver determine how good the amp is?

10K views 27 replies 7 participants last post by  Todd Anderson 
#1 ·
It seems like modern receivers are becoming lighter and lighter. Sure most are loaded with bells and whistles like the new Denon avr x3300w with XT32 yet it only weights around 24 lbs.

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#2 ·
Depends on what type of amps it uses. if they use class D amps there would be less weight than traditional A/B amps. Remember my post a couple years ago, it seemed to indicate that for receivers with A/B amplification weight did make a difference driving more than two channels because of the larger power supply..
 
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#3 ·
Yes I know D amps weigh less and are much cooler but A/B amps they seem to be really light these days. That's why I'm wondering how well can they drive the speakers being so light.
Our 805 can drive just about any speaker without breaking a sweat. You then upgrade avr for the modern audio preprocessing but you get a feather amp. It seems like a trade off.

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#4 ·
well the Denon X7200 weighs in at 37lbs (our Onkyo 805 weighs 55lbs) and bench tests on the X7200 get fairly decent results at 122 watts 5 channels driven. So I would say that there is some reduction in weight in other areas as well.
 
#12 ·
You did not read my earlier poost as i clearly said I am taling about A/B amplification not Class D

I think you might have missed my edit in the previous post:
regarding source material not needing more than 65watts of power Ive linked to several different places in the past and Im not going to bother trying to find them now but in one test done a simple snare drum was hit hard and that induced a draw on the amp of somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 watts at a level of 90db so there is plenty of musical instruments alone that can task an amp and movie soundtracks are even more demanding these days sending information to all 7 channels at high levels.
 
#13 ·
You did not read my earlier poost as i clearly said I am taling about A/B amplification not Class D
Ok.. as long as there is some qualification around generalizations.

I think you might have missed my edit in the previous post:
regarding source material not needing more than 65watts of power Ive linked to several different places in the past and Im not going to bother trying to find them now but in one test done a simple snare drum was hit hard and that induced a draw on the amp of somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 watts at a level of 90db so there is plenty of musical instruments alone that can task an amp and movie soundtracks are even more demanding these days sending information to all 7 channels at high levels.
What you have demonstrated with your measurements is that you saw one or perhaps two channels with a temporary or instantaneous peek draw. This is far from the ACD which is based on much longer time periods or steady state. The signal of a drum thwack is also bandwidth limited. Even the lighter amps can provide instantaneous power draw but the heavier amps can do it for a longer periods of time before they too run out of power. My point still stands that ACD tests are unrealistic as not all channels contain full bandwidth signals at the same levels.

Generally, when one is building a home theater or audio room, one should purchase the speakers first to best meet the room size and desired volume levels and match the AVR's power capabilities of driving into 2 channels, the volume desired coupled with the speaker's sensitivities and load impedances. If one has a small room and doesn't require or demand earth shattering SPLs coupled with easy to drive speakers, then a lightweight AVR will perform in that environment to the same level as a heavy weight AVR.
 
#14 ·
I like to think it does but times are changing. I can only answer this question as being an owner of a 67kg monster that has never let me down and is a renowned beast of an amp.I have the Denon POA-A1HD and can vouch for its build and reliability.My matching Denon pre/pro is a 32kg monster and is as reliable as my amp provided i keep it like that. On the other hand i have a pioneer sclx86 receiver at 17kg and that too is reliable as i keep it dust free. Some Mark levinson amps are on the light side and we all know how good they are.Well when i say light i mean in comparison to my POA. Also to note that i know off a good few people have upgraded from the denon AVPA1HD 32kg monster to the marantz 8802 at around 17kg but it is the latest pre/pro with the bells and whistles.So people are sacrificing build quality for the latest bells and whistles and they are people that have experience in home theater and audio.But i think weight and build do matter to a degree. Too early for me to invest in a tin box yet but times are slowly changing again.:smile: The photo below is the delivery of my 67kg amp.
 

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#17 ·
I find this subject really interesting and have always thought about this topic but have never posted anything on it.I have always owned heavy amps and have always thought that the heavier the amp the better due to the fact of what parts are being used.But yet again I am not a tech and don't know how to build one.I also have been in the state of mind that anything less than 17kg is a tin box.I don't know if I should be thinking like that.
 
#19 ·
For this thread to have more merrit, let's restrict the arguments to the same amplifier class, avr to avr, power amp to power amp. If these conditions are met, I believe the heavier unit would have more power reserves if the weight added is due to a more powerful and robust power supply. The other point I would like to make is that a more powerful amp doesn't make a less powerful amp (assuming conditions met that I outlined above) of lesser quality. If one never uses the full potential of a more powerful amp, then the less powerful would work just as cleanly. The take away I've learned in this thread is to match one's amp to both the speaker's load and room size.
 
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#20 ·
Yea I agree and I think matching the hatch is very important too.I am very fortunate that I have a building 8x5 metres out back soundproofed and dedicated which justifies my Denon otherwise I would really not need it.In that case I think it matters to the extent of the open possibilities of a heavier amp in my case.I love the macintosh amps too and they are a little on the heavy side also.I love their new pre/pro,s.The mx160 would be an awesome pre with all the latest bells and whistles.
 
#21 ·
It certainly seems like weight is a good indicator of overall quality... hard to know how much of that lends to actual build quality vs amp performance.

When it comes to power and performance, nothing is as disappointing of trying to drive the show with an amp that tops-out and shows its limitations. My inclination is to go overkill on the power-side, just to be on the safe side
 
#22 ·
Circuitry architecture, like A, A/B, D, T etc, will have some effect on the mass of the finished product... but that effect is insignificant compared to the design of the power supply. The weight you're all experiencing is almost always due to the presence of a large toroidal or EI transformer wound entirely out of solid copper wire, heavy gauge and lots of it. These linear power supplies are nearly indestructible as long as you stay within the specs, and deliver power very predictably... and more important they deliver power constantly. Each approach (EI vs toroidal) has its pitfalls, but skillful design and assembly can get around them.

Switch-mode power supplies rely on pass transistors that are full-on or full-off in order to deliver power. They are generally much more efficient than traditional transformers, given that they only deliver power when asked... and they're smaller and lighter. They got a bad rap a few decades ago because of a few things. 1) switching frequencies were too low, resulting in loss of efficiency which in turn resulted in unstable power. 2) Lack of good design resulted in the process of switching generating EMI for the device drawing power and 3) companies that were making low-end equipment were the first to adopt the technology because of the relative ease and inexpensiveness of manufacturing. These three things taken together gave us the association of switch-mode power supplies with bad gear. And it isn't that the association is unfounded... it WAS bad gear, and the WERE poorly constructed power supplies. But at this point, knowledge of the design process and the availability of high quality components at lower prices have yielded SMPS's that are as clean and reliable as their linear cousins.

Take the current line of Crown XLS amps; the most grotesquely obese model in the line weighs in just shy of 16lbs... and it will dump 775W x2 into 4Ohms. (I know... specs lie). I'm using these (1000's and 1500's) in my system right now, and they sound great. The old models (202 through 802) had chunky toroidal transformers... and they also sounded great.

Even though I definitely prefer a little heft in my gear, I don't think it's necessarily an indication of quality over a lighter unit... so why do we, myself included, prefer the heavy stuff given the choice?
 
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