[nonstopdoc1]

Are my Yamaha AVR (RX-A2060) and Monolith Amp (3x200) mismatched?

I added a Monolith 3x200 Amplifier to my living room setup few months. To be honest, I didn't see any huge improvement in volume at the least. I had lots of issues with ground loop hum. I ended up moving my CC speaker back to the AVR and hooked my L/R speaker through a passive hum eliminator. With this I was able to eliminate the hum issue but the performance issue remains

My current Setup - Yamaha RX-A2060 -> L/R PreOut -> Hum eliminator -> Monolith 3x200 Amplifier -> KEF Q900

While doing some research I stumbled upon couple of threads discussing inadequate Peamp voltage output from Yamaha AVRs

Here is a statement from a Parasound engineer to a customer that I found in a post on Emotiva Lounge.

"Yamaha has been problematic with external amps for years, because they have unusually low output voltage. At full volume you will get less than half of the rated power from the Parasound, This is not an unusual for any external power amp, and the Parasound fully complies with THX recommendations for sensitivity. You should consider a different receiver/preamp brand than Yamaha. Yamaha has kind of painted themselves into a corner"

Monolith Amp specs state that it needs 1.6 V to put out its full power output and has a Voltage gain of 28dB
Yamaha Specs - Rated Output Level - PRE OUT - 1.0V/470 Ohm | Maximum Output Level PRE OUT/ZONE OUT - 2.0 V or more

I am confused whether my AVR is not giving enough voltage to Amp to show me improvement or am I just looking for issues when there is none and just had too high expectations when it came to impact of adding a separate amplifier to my setup. Now I understand that the passive hub eliminator could impact the signal and I planning to do some measurements with and without it in the circuit but even before I added it, I was underwhelmed with the performance.

 

[Leeliemix]

Improvement or not, the hum will ruin the experience.

Did you try different signal cables, or connect the amp to another pre/avr to check if it hums everywhere?


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[KidHorn]

I have a 3050 and use an external amp for the LCR and main surrounds. Works fine.

I suspect the problem is with the hum eliminator.

 

[Alan P]

Are my Yamaha AVR (RX-A2060) ...............To be honest, I didn't see any huge improvement in volume at the least..............I was underwhelmed with the performance.

You need to clarify what, exactly is your issue with the new amp (besides the hum). When you say you didn't see an improvement in volume, do you mean that you are still hearing distortion at the same volume setting as before? Or, were you expecting the external amp to improve the overall sound of the system, not just allow it to play louder with less distortion?

If the former, there is either something wrong with the amp, your speakers, your AVR or how you have them connected. If the latter, that is what should be expected.

 

[nonstopdoc1]

Improvement or not, the hum will ruin the experience.

Did you try different signal cables, or connect the amp to another pre/avr to check if it hums everywhere?


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The hum eliminator has resolved the hum issue for me. Its completely gone

 

[nonstopdoc1]

Just wanted to give an update on the issue. Earlier, I was using a hum eliminator between my Yamaha AVR and Monolith amp which resolved the hum but did lower the volume noticeably.

I switched my Yamaha 2060 to Denon X4400H and RCA cables to RCA->XLR cables and hum has completely gone away. I am not even using the grounding wire between receiver and amplifier that I was using earlier.