I am hoping someone can steer me in the right direction since this is pretty new to me and I don't want to blow money. I just did that with speakers.
First of all here is what I have:
1994 Denon 545R receiver 60wpcRMS 1994 Denon DCM 340 5 disc CD player Monitor Audio GR-10 speakers (3 days old and they are sweet), beat the new Energy RC-10s, but of course I had to buy the Energys first.
I am not sure the 60WPC is going to drive these speakers to do them justice. I am either going with a Power Amp and use the Denon as a pre-amp or move the Denon in to the study and go with a whole new system.
What I want to do is get a power amp or integrated amp to run my GR-10 and be able to hook up a powered sub like a Velodyne SPL1000R.
I was thinking 125-150wpc would be a good place to start? I was looking atRotel, Adcom and NAD, the NAD 372 look like a good amp and it appears there is a pre-out I could connect the powered sub.
Any other suggestions? People have told me a 12 yr old Denon would do fine, but I am thinking something on the order of 130-175 watts per channel would really change things.
What's this about bright and laid back amps? This is getting complicated.
No one can tell in advance whether you will hear a difference between the receiver you now own and a spearate amp and pre amp that's waiting for you somewhere in a shop. The best advice, of course, is to go looking and listening until you hear the component that calls out to you.
It is not really an isuue of wattage; as the difference between 60 watts and 125 watts (everything else equal) is really barely perceptible on music content. What you are hopefully buying in a separate pre and power amp is the build quality of a "specialty" product. When no longer confined to marketing the watts per dollar and face plate/back panel features of mass market receivers, separates manufacturers often will build beyond frequency response and THD measurements to a somewhat more enigmatic quality that is usually refered to as "musicality". Whether you catch on to what "musicality" amounts to is dependent on how you listen to music in your home. If you sit down and listen to music while doing nothing else, you will probably notice the improvements separate components can achieve. If you listen while doing everything else and music is not much more than background "stuff", your present receiver will probably do just fine.
Don't be too concerned about the words other people use to describe what they hear. Often they use words which have little meaning because they find it difficult to describe what they hear. And, besides, when you get down to brass tacks, there's much more to consider than "warm" and "bright". Contary to a popularly held belief putting a "warm" amp with "bright" speakers will often result in a mismatch of personalities and a system that screams out "bandaid". Rather than patching the weakness of a unit, building on the strengths of each product will have a better chance of reaching a synergistic match between components.
The point where you should begin is to understand what you are looking for in music reproduction. For this I suggest you go out and listen to some live music before you make any more purchases and figure out what it is about live music that makes its sound so recognizable as different from most recorded music. Once you have an idea what you are hearing in "real" music, you will have a clue what to listen for in the audio shops in order to get as close as possible to live sound. At that point take your speakers around to some shops and ask for an audition with your equipment and/or request an audition of the shop's equipment in your home before you make a final decision. Choose based on what sounds the most like live music to your ears rather than using words or advice from anyone else.
Consider also that the signal that goes into a component is the best that can come out and think again about using the receiever as a pre amp. Listen to a separate pre amp with the power amp you choose and I would be surprised if you didn't hear the compromises the receiver makes in handling the signal before it goes to the power amp.
Jan Vigne is dead on in his assesment. Especially when talking power output. Going from 60 to 120 watts only yields 3db more output. Which is not very noticeable.
It all comes down to the quality of the amp design. Watts are for the most part meaningless. Espcially in a typical living room using especially audio products like NAD and Rotel.
Most people only ever use 5 to 10 watts. Maybe more if people are cranking things at lease breaking levels or watching movies at reference levels. Usually its more like 2 to 5 watts in typical home situations.
Your speaker will list a sensitivity and impedance. Pay attention to these.
Your speakers produce a 90db sensitivity in a normal setting. So what this means is when MA put a mic 1 meter away with 1 watt of power they achieved 90db in a typical room. The spec will usually look like - 90db at 1W/1 meter. Next look at the impedance. Which is the resistance to electricity that the speaker presents to the amp. Most speaker are between 8 and 4 ohms. This number does fluctuate when music is played. So the number is given as its average or mominal. The lower impedance the bigger the demands are on the amp. The higher impedance the easier the speaker is to drive. Less resistance. This is why most speakers are around 6 to 8 ohms since most recievers and mass market receivers amps can't handle 4ohm loads.