Will a New Amp Make a Big Difference

And your speakers are?

Speakers, IMO, would be the better upgrade sonically speaking, unless you have excellent speakers already. The Integra receiver you have is a fine piece of equipment and spending money on an Anthem PVA7 would not be a worthwhile upgrade, again, IMO.


If its more power you seek, maybe try one of the pro amps everyones been talking about.

The AVM50 might be a worthwhile upgrade but then again, is the difference worth the cost?

5G's is alot of $$$ for a pre-pro, more than most of us would spend unless the lottery decided to kick in.

I recently added two Crown Xls 602's & a 402 to my system & it made one heck of a difference. Much tighter, cleaner bass, mids are clearer, & highs are much more defined. I hear things in music & movies now that I never heard before, & at high play back levels there is no comparison, things are just effortless.

Next to some well thought out sound treatments, I would rank this as the next best upgrade.

The amp will make a big difference with whatever speakers you drive. You will always be able to use it. Good amplification and source will make the speakers better. Most people do not get the full potential from their speakers because they stick with running them with only the ampification from the receiver.

So the Anthem PVA7 would be worth the $$$ over the Integra? Is that what you're saying?

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I second that opinion. Most people upgrades their speakers without knowing how good they could actually sound with the proper source/amplication.

An amp will make a noticeable difference.... the biggest difference that I found however was when I went from analog outputs on my digital sources to a really good DAC. It tightened up the bass, smoothed the midrange and cleared up the high freqs.


You can never go wrong with good amplification however so I say go for it.

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are we talking about power amp?


decoding of digital source using internal dac and output analog or use external dac has anything to do with power amp?

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He asked if a new amp would make a big difference - I simply said that in my opinion the biggest difference from a single change in the sound of my system was changing the DAC - which in my case was in a pre-amp.


Sorry if I derailed this thread...

You made a great choice for a receiver. Integra makes a great sounding unit. However, a separate amplifier is always better than the amplifier in the receiver. You should immediately notice deeper and more defined bass, and open the soundstage quite a bit.


Dynamic drivers are basically electro-magnets, and the current is the fuel by which these magnets can work. By adding a separate amplifier you are supplying enough current to the voice coils so that the speaker diaphragm can move with the most linearity. Helps to eliminate distortion and achieve the most dynamic sound.


Most receivers have current-limiting circuits for protection. Amplifiers do not because they are no digital circuits to be concerned with and generally they use parts that are able to operate at higher temperatures and more stability.

My god, do you people just blindly give advice no matter what the situation is?


He has a very good, hi-current receiver that advertises 100 wpc and the Anthem PVA7 advertises 105 wpc.....I dont know about you but for $1500, this doesnt sound like a worthwhile upgrade. If his current receiver was a Sony/JVC et al, then yes, the Anthem would be a step forward.


And nobody know what speakers he has, maybe they're some old Sony floorstanders!

I guess we'll wait to hear from him......

If you upgrade the amp you should get at least 200W per channel if not more actually (300W+). If you want to find out about this option you could borrow or rent an amp, or get one from a place you can return it.

Thanks for all of the advice thus far. As I was already leaning towards getting the PVA7, I'm anxious now to get to a dealer to listen to them.


I have a 7.1 speaker set up consisting entirely of Energy speakers. I use 4 C2's for the two rear centers and two rear sides. I have a pair of C9s for my fronts. My center is an AC300, and the subwoofer is the exl10. I bought the C9s roughly a year ago. Had I waited a month or so, I would have gone with the new (at the time) Reference Connoisseur series. I did listen to the Veritas speakers and I have to say, I could definitely hear that they were much better. But I was still hesitant about dishing out $2500 for a pair of speakers. I kind of regret not getting the Veritas.


Anyways, I think my speakers are pretty good. I'm happy with them thus far.

FWIW I'm using a PVA7 to drive a 7.1 Linn set-up.


With respect to Integra, it's just another big flagship type receiver that will drop by the way side as last years model or when connectivity/features becomes a problem. The PVA7 will continue to be useful long past the life of the Integra. And by the way, it's a very good, underrated and overlooked amplifier IMO.


I think you have chosen a very good up-grade path.

In my personal experience (YMMV), I had to upgrade my pre-pro before I realized the benefits of a better amp. If your source components are highly colored, as my old AVR was, a new amp may not make a big difference. More power might expand macro-dynamics a bit, but not until I got a more transparent pre-pro did I clearly hear differences in amplifiers. Of course, resolving speakers help, too.

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I would too. On the other hand, it won't make an audible difference under most conditions most of the time, and I think that was the previous guy's point. People love to say, "your speakers aren't being driven to their full potentional with the amp/receiver you're running," but they rarely explain why or how or when this "underperformance" manifests itself in a practical way.


If you want to upgrade sound (not just specs or theory), you should, by far, consider your speakers first. (I might even roll back that thought and say start with room treatment.)

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Relatively inefficient speakers (86db) can produce earsplitting volume from 20 ft away with a 10 watt/ch. input. If we allow 10x that for dynamic headroom, that is 100 watts. Why in god's name would anyone need 200-300 watts unless they were using it for a PA system?