Dull speakers or inadequate amplification?

[JackD201]

Nice!!!

 

[Raider]

How do people feel about adding power to my Arcam SA20?

Arcam PA240 2 Channel Power Amp

• 225 watts per channel into 8 ohms (20-20,000 Hz) at 0.2% THD with 2 channels driven
• 380 watts per channel into 4 ohms
• efficient high-voltage Class G amplifier
• toroidal power transformer for low noise and high-current output

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[ecwl]

How do people feel about adding power to my Arcam SA20?

Arcam PA240 2 Channel Power Amp​

• 225 watts per channel into 8 ohms (20-20,000 Hz) at 0.2% THD with 2 channels driven
• 380 watts per channel into 4 ohms
• efficient high-voltage Class G amplifier
• toroidal power transformer for low noise and high-current output

I think part of the challenge in audio is that anything you change will change the sound, and usually, if you're making an upgrade, you'll upgrade the sound (but not always).

If your SA20 is loud enough for your B&W CM5, it should be loud enough for your SF. If you never thought of buying the PA240 before, why would you suddenly want to buy the PA240 now?

Sure if you like what you're hearing, buying the PA240 would probably upgrade your sound to a more refined version of what you're getting now and you'll probably be very happy with it. The question ultimately to me is options and best bang for the buck. What if you sell the SA20 and take the money to buy Peachtree Carina or Cambridge Audio Eco 150 or Musical Fidelity M6si?

It's really hard to make recommendations sometimes because we don't know your personal sonic preferences. Ideally, you want to be able to listen to these amps in your home. If not, you should try to hear them at a dealer's demo just to get a feel of how it'll work with your system. If none of these are options, and you already like the Arcam SA20 sound with the SF, then I guess upgrading to the PA240 is your safest bet.

 

[Raider]

I think part of the challenge in audio is that anything you change will change the sound, and usually, if you're making an upgrade, you'll upgrade the sound (but not always).

If your SA20 is loud enough for your B&W CM5, it should be loud enough for your SF. If you never thought of buying the PA240 before, why would you suddenly want to buy the PA240 now?

Sure if you like what you're hearing, buying the PA240 would probably upgrade your sound to a more refined version of what you're getting now and you'll probably be very happy with it. The question ultimately to me is options and best bang for the buck. What if you sell the SA20 and take the money to buy Peachtree Carina or Cambridge Audio Eco 150 or Musical Fidelity M6si?

It's really hard to make recommendations sometimes because we don't know your personal sonic preferences. Ideally, you want to be able to listen to these amps in your home. If not, you should try to hear them at a dealer's demo just to get a feel of how it'll work with your system. If none of these are options, and you already like the Arcam SA20 sound with the SF, then I guess upgrading to the PA240 is your safest bet.

I'm asking about headroom based on this "amplifiers with more headroom can reproduce transients with less distortion, and are therefore better able to reproduce the dynamics of music."
Also I've been reticent to test the volume with the speakers due to their ability to handle 250 w and my amp maxes out at 150 w 4 ohm. I'd like to not have any fried electronics.

 

[Raider]

I was reading up on the Peachtree Carina. Can you explain why it doesn't need a DAC?

"The Carina GaN is designed so that it does NOT even require a digital-to-analog-converter (DAC) for its digital sources. The digital audio signal at the input of the Carina GaN directs the amplifier outputs to drive the speakers. That's it - no DAC needed! Just a direct musical path from your digital source to your speakers."

 

[ecwl]

I was reading up on the Peachtree Carina. Can you explain why it doesn't need a DAC?

"The Carina GaN is designed so that it does NOT even require a digital-to-analog-converter (DAC) for its digital sources. The digital audio signal at the input of the Carina GaN directs the amplifier outputs to drive the speakers. That's it - no DAC needed! Just a direct musical path from your digital source to your speakers."

GaN amplifiers are high frequency switching amplifiers. Now I don't know the exact switching frequency of Peachtree Carina GaN. Let's say it's 500kHz. So you could take a digital signal, say 44.1kHz 16-bit and then convert/upsample/noise-shape the signal into 500kHz 1-bit to directly drive the GaN amp. This is of course an over simplification because we didn't even take into account volume control.

 

[JackD201]

I'm asking about headroom based on this "amplifiers with more headroom can reproduce transients with less distortion, and are therefore better able to reproduce the dynamics of music."
Also I've been reticent to test the volume with the speakers due to their ability to handle 250 w and my amp maxes out at 150 w 4 ohm. I'd like to not have any fried electronics.

I don't think you'll be frying any electronics. You would probably bust a tweeter before you bust an amp in an underpower/ hard clip situation.

Go and explore your system's limits. If you are uneasy, just go gradually. I'd say risk is minimal.

 

[Hear Here]

How do people feel about adding power to my Arcam SA20?

Arcam PA240 2 Channel Power Amp​

• 225 watts per channel into 8 ohms (20-20,000 Hz) at 0.2% THD with 2 channels driven
• 380 watts per channel into 4 ohms
• efficient high-voltage Class G amplifier
• toroidal power transformer for low noise and high-current output

View attachment 116367​

You seem to have found solutions to much of your problem and the SFs are now sounding pretty good.

Now to look for further low-cost improvements. You mention cables. I've switched recently from expensive solid silver speaker cables to Duelund Dual DCA 12GA tinned copper wire in cotton and oil - a cable I heard about from Jim Smith, who knows a thing or two about tuning systems! It's a fiddly cable to work with so best to get the terminals fitted by the supplier. Not expensive if runs are 3 m or so.

Precise positioning of the speakers is a time consuming but rewarding exercise. What flooring in under the speakers? If timber board or other smooth surface, place the speakers on a cloth of some sort so they can easily be moved an inch at a time without spikes. If using "sticky" feet such as IsoAcoustic Gaias (great on hard floors), then this cloth makes the job of moving them a doddle. Probably lots of toe-in for maximum "life" despite a smaller sweet spot will meet with your approval.

Your amp is possibly not ideal, but I wouldn't go for the PA 240. I'd look at a good modern Class D one as I believe these offer best value by far and sound quality is likely to beat or match most A or AB class amps unless spending daft money - others will of course disagree, but perhaps they've not actually home demo'd a good Class D amp!

Personally I think you should consider ditching the Bluesound and Arcam and take a serious look at the truly excellent NAD M33 that uses the Purifi Eigentakt module, arguably the best Class D yet. You'll still be using the first-class BluOS app, but the electronics will be better all round. With the M66 coming out soon, you may find a good M33 at little more than half list price. Then you won't even need to worry about interconnects as none are necessary! Good luck. Peter

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[Raider]

I don't think you'll be frying any electronics. You would probably bust a tweeter before you bust an amp in an underpower/ hard clip situation.

Go and explore your system's limits. If you are uneasy, just go gradually. I'd say risk is minimal.

Will you hold my hand?