Hello;
photo to ‘set the mood’ (I am writing this from a National Park a wee bit after sunrise)…
The dawning of an idea; the illumination that brings one out from ignorance…
So photos are from an ‘all in one’ device rather than a dedicated seperates system (camera phone vs Fuji lens and camera system)…
some may be realising I am setting the scene here…
Decades of tinkering with Hifi has reaffirmed a few points to me - “you get what you ‘weigh’ for” (weight of equipment is a better ‘spec sheet’ metric than most of the ‘other numbers’), and “simple and dedicated” has a naturalness that ‘complex and incorporated’ seldom delivers (or costs 4x the price).
So here is a post to get some people thinking about their present/past/future SURROUND setups and a pathway they may not have done the due dilligence with…
AV BYPASS, or, using a dedicated power amp/integrated amp (with AV BYPASSability) to take the heavy load off a surround receiver and give the speakers what they want!
Thats it- that is the entire rest of this post; if you feel I am here needing a hand or some advice with my ‘broken setup’ etc- “Nope” - I am very happy continuting to service my households home entertainment needs and we have everything pretty much where we want things to be.
“All good” - so to speak…
but…
absolutely enthused to share a recent experience of VASTLY IMPROVED SOUND QUALITY.
ie as a forum member, I am happy to ask for guidance but in this instance, just a FYI for those who may not have given much thought to ‘best pathways forward’ when upgrading kit that may already be installed in the house.
Background:
I’ve been using surround amps since before the Yamaha DSPA1000 came to the market. Naturally (pun intended) the Yamaha was the surround receiver to use during the early to mid nineties, at which point I even found myself using some outboard processors that Yamaha made, great for upgrading bedroom setups etc…
I learned early that Yamaha made nice audio kit, but even in their ranks a simple dedicated TWO CHANNEL amplifier delivered musicality that the biggest of their brethren promised to deliver whilst driving seven speakers (Yamaha did ‘front effects’ back in the early nineties)…
Dedicated processors seemed to always deliver better nuances and ‘more musicality’ (SUBJECTIVE,SUBJECTIVE,SUBJECTIVE!!), and by the 2000s I typically bought a preamp/processor and used outboard power amps (and vintage hifi) to do the MAIN SPEAKERS (or all channels!).
By the late 2000s, I had a habit of buying most THX ULTRA ‘flagship’ receivers that turned up on the market second hand for ‘peanuts price points’, that, whilst being ‘pre HDMI’, often had five or more channels of amplification that was of a higher quality than the generally included ‘power amps’ inside integrated ‘one box’ units that seemed to go down in absolute quality and up in price every couple of years as more and more ‘standards’ and formats came to market… (wifi/blueooth/dolby Z and dts X/internet radio/network servers etc etc)
Simple- costs go up (more to have to include to ‘stay competitive’), specs go up (has to be better than last years model), cost of production goes up (scales of production smaller/challenged supply lines in recent years equals ‘extra costs’ etc)…
In my eyes (subjective!), audio has gone downhill for the equivalent price point since the height of two channel audio (late nineties/early 2000s being the last watering down that I actually cared about).
Every mid 2000s + surround amp I have used has benefitted GREATLY by using an early 2000s THX ULTRA (not ‘select’ or ‘multimedia’ or later variants) receiver as ‘dedicated power amplifiers’ for as many channels as I care to use.
Sometimes, when I am using a modern flagship or ‘one from top of the tree’ in the lineup unit, I will use the internal seven to eleven channels of amplification to render my centre channel speakers. Maybe.
(interesting aside number one: centre channel is probably the most important in a ‘surround setup’)
An average processor, using outdated formats, AND proper amplification equals a better rendition on everything, and I would weigh in with - I’d rather 7.1 channels done well, than 11.2 Atmos setup that has 100 bits of media that use the channels ‘well’ and then EVERYTHING ELSE sounds worse than Hifi we had twenty years ago…
So- “best of both worlds”-
AV BYPASS allows using a high powered two channel amplifier to take the heavy lifting of the front MAINS speakers (most typically the hardest speakers to drive in any given setup) off the amplifier, and allows all the headroom/‘reserve power’ in the front end device to go to the remaining speakers.
This is where the YMMV in the title kicks in hard: Your Mileage May Vary; you may have easy to drive satellites speakers with an easy to drive 8ohm and high sensitivity (etc etc), and you may listen no louder than 65Decibel Peaks etc… there are a range of reasons why we may all net different experiences when playing with this stuff…
My story involves some ‘very hard to drive’ (properly) main speakers.
Revelationary was the difference of giving them the two channel ‘power amplification’ they really needed. (In my case it was a Nait XS3 added to an Anthem MRX720, but it could easily be Nait 5si added to a multithousand dollar front end- the improvement in sound quality (SUBJECTIVE!), for me, was substantial.
I had used said Anthem MRX720 in conjunction with ‘other’ power amps… - have used a stack of Rotel monoblockable power amps for said duties and quite a few times a Marantz SR9200 or an Onkyo TS-DX989 generally being ‘easy’ fallbacks to throw in place, but a few 2000 and 3000 (near flagship) Yamaha TOPARTs in the mix too… all gave a nice sound quality jump over burdened ‘onboard power amps’…
Now; with regards to the Anthem MRX720 - it is the best budget ‘not quite a processor, but nearly a processor grade sound quality’ front end device I could find, in the modern hifi world, at a somewhat affordable price -
I found it after going to the market and looking at all options, and walking around the stores until I found the MINIMUM SOUND QUALITY that would equal ‘ten years earlier’ cheaperparts. (I wanted to have a front end that could handle higher refresh rate 4K and HDR)
For Atmos the need to rebuy a home theatre simply wasn’t going to be worth it, but a hardware collusion in the marketplace was forcing my kit forward in unison, and other than buying all new transports with dual HDMI outputs (one directly to screen/one directly to audio front end), of which the market had stopped innovating (Still have my Oppo!); buying ‘new’ and getting sound quality was nearly impossible (for reasonable coin).
Based on what I was finding prices had doubled to net sound quality equal to what I was using.
Quite simply- the Anthem MRX720, which I only planned to use as a processor (does Anthem Room Correction), was twice the cost of what I felt was marketed to me as equivalent to what I was using (spec sheets implied budget stuff was good, but junk-fi was clearly creating more tiers in the lower end of the market and ‘mid-fi’ was more about MQA and latest formats rather than actual sound quality.)
Anthem MRX720 is a stripped down surround product.
It doesn’t have fourty flavours of surround sound.
Heck it barely amplifies seven channels well; but is CLEVER- it uses class D amping on some rear channels so that the MRX720s’ power supply isn’t taxed fully at any given moment (reserves of current for the main channels to handle peaks that the rear channels pull straight from the power block).
I have heard the MRX720, I have heard the MRX720 using ancient THX Ultra ‘all in ones’ as ‘power amps’, and, now having heard the Anthem MRX720 with a Naim integrated 'AS A POWER AMP": excellence achieved!!
For anyone picking on an Nait XS3 as having a smaller sound field than other competing (same class) integrateds’- this may be true, but when it does the stereo duties vs those found in a (crappy) modern surround receiver?
The soundfield extended back beyond the rear wall, the left and right staging improved considerably; in fact all steering of sound qualities was improved (reasons given in a moment), and the extra ease of hearing dialogue and, more so- musical nuances- this was like what the venerable Yamaha DSPA1000 was delivering thirty odd years ago, back when surround amps had to be equal/better than cheaper stereo units that filled the lower price points in the sales market…
EVERYTHING had improved!
So, again, “YMMV”- I was using tricky to drive front speakers that drink a lot of power if it is available, but the massive burden being taken from the amp (main Left and Right speakers), freeing up all that power ‘headroom’ for the remaining channels, especially the Centre channel; the improvements were so very night and day.
Using a Sound Pressure Level tool, and quite awhile measuring this… the actual channel levels didn’t need varying, and the test tones were identical- up until some actual media was playing that required some power to be thrown to all speakers; and then the amp was quite noticeably louder.
Nearly two times louder.
but during power draw moments…
The obvious reveal was the opening credit music to a streaming TV show (ie ‘the Office’), where the compressed ‘everything is loud’ taxed the seven channels of amplification- it clearly didn’t have the steam to resolve the same performance as when doing so with a lowly little Naim Nait attatched to the loungerooms’ surround sound setup.
Whilst many in the Naim community use setups of vastly more cost and refinement than this- the fact is that an Anthem MRX720 is probably twice the price point of what most would consider ‘a great surround amp’… and the Anthem gets away with being ‘better bang to buck’ by being super simple.
(closest to ‘processor grade’ dedicated/seperate sound quality that a modern integrated could give for ‘reasonable coin’)
Given many will use ‘lesser’ eqiupment - it stands to reason they have more to gain.
My setup- the remaining speakers beyond front left/right are all SUPER EASY to drive, and the listening levels we like are ‘low’. (amp runs at -43dB for majority listening).
The Nait amp doing ‘AV Bypass’ is such a step up in sound quality it is better than/‘equivalent’ to significant upgrades elsewhere in the system.
All audio from the integrated surround receiver has been improved and the cost being relatively low, and upgrade/‘install time’ being easy and quick; it is a ‘no brainer’ for anyone wanting
MORE BASS
MORE CLARITY
MORE MUSICALITY
MORE SOUNDFIELD
BETTER IMAGING
and, as a bonus-
VASTLY IMPROVED CENTRE CHANNEL (assuming the ‘all in one box’ is being taxed, which is likely it will be… )
YMMV: ear training and ‘expectations’ is a large part of this
a fully modern system with matched ‘super easy to drive’ speakers may sound ‘alright’ in some instances…
Hoping this helps anyone ‘on the fence’ about future upgrades for their theatre room.
I’d highly recommend adding a power amp to do the duties of front left and right speakers; and the added boogie that Naim give is wonderful to experience in TV/games/movies and music videos etc.
Best audio upgrade for my family in awhile; was the reason we bought a Naim integrated (“AV BYPASS mode”), and was one of the easiest upgrades to a hifi rig I have done.
(took half an hour for me, not including rerunning ‘room re-eq’)
AV BYPASS for the win…