Question about adding rotel to existing receiver

[corysmith01]

Hi-

I'm fairly new to ht and have made a fair number of purchases lately. In doing research and becoming more familiar with the hobby, I've decided that I'd like to move to seperates. I can't afford to do it all at once, so I'd like to buy them one at a time. I currently have a Marantz SR8400 receiver that has preouts for adding a power amp. This receiver is rated at 110W per chan. I was looking to add a 2 channel amp first off and use the receiver to power the other channels. I listen to a lot of music, so this seemed logical...to get better sound on the front 2 first. A friend was telling me about the Rotel RB-1050 and saying that, considering my limited budget, that this would be a killer addition. However, I'm looking at the specs and seeing it's 70W per channel. He told me not to worry, that receiver are often rated generously and that 70W from a dedicated amp would seem like more power than the 110 from my receiver. I'd like to buy this amp, but I want to make sure I'm not taking a step backwards. Can anyone elaborate on this? Is is true that the 70W dedicated up front would be substantially better than the 115 my receiver's currently sending? Considering I have a limited budget, does this seem like a good place to start? I look forward to any input from some Rotel afficianados. Thanks!

[gianni]

It really depends on your system: speaker sensitivity, are they full range or crossed over with a sub, music you listen to and your room.

Your friend is basically correct but since your Marantz does have decent amplification I would think an RB-1070 at a minimum or a RB-1080 depending on your long term goals will yield a more noticeable improvement.

I promise you by tomorrow many others on this forum who have done this will chime in. Stay tuned. Also, you can search this forum as this has been discussed before.

One more thought: do not overlook the importance of speaker placement and even simple cost effective room treatments. Otherwise, it is similar to driving your car with the front end alignment off -- no matter how good the tires you put on it, your car will not handle well. Poor system setup will mask potential improvements. First optimize your setup, then upgrade components.