5 1 channel music full#
This is pure, unadulterated hi-fi, but you also have a full surround sound system for a properly cinematic experience.Īlso, in some cases, by using an external amplifier for two of your speakers, your AV receiver’s own internal amplifiers can be directed to power other speakers, opening up the option for a surround system with more speakers. The major benefit here is a big one: because all two-channel sources are connected to the stereo amp, which exclusively powers the front-left and front-right speakers, they completely bypass the surround components. Now connect all video sources ( Blu-ray player, Sky, PS5, video streamer, etc) to the AV amplifier as normal, and all two-channel music sources ( turntable, CD player, music streamer, etc) to the stereo amp. Once done, you can begin the automatic speaker calibration as normal, checking that the test sounds are coming out of all speakers as expected, and that there are no error messages that might indicate a mistake in the wiring or amp assignment.Īt the end, you should have a perfectly balanced, volume-matched surround sound system, just as you would if all of the speakers were connected directly to the AV receiver. Use this to tell the AV amp that you’re using an external amp to power the front two speakers. On some AV receivers, particularly higher-end ones, you’ll find an option called something like “amp assign”. In most cases, you’ll need to tell the AV amp the speaker configuration you’re using, whether that’s 5.1 or 7.1, or even 7.1.4 (for Dolby Atmos), but with many amps you won’t need to specify that you’re using the pre-outs at all. Now you need to calibrate the speakers using the AV amp’s built-in, mic-driven set-up. Then use standard analogue interconnects to connect the front-left and front-right pre-outs of the AV amp to the AV input of the stereo amp.
Simply plug your front-left and front-right speakers into the terminals on the stereo amp, and all of the other speakers (centre, sub, surrounds and height speakers, if using) into the relevant terminals on the AV amp. Once you’ve got your AV amp and stereo amp, wiring is pretty straightforward. That’s a more fiddly and less precise way of doing things, but it works just fine. If you’re set on using an amp that doesn’t have a dedicated AV input, you can do so by setting the volume control at the same level whenever you want to use it in tandem with your surround amp. All volume controls add a small amount of distortion and affect transparency, too, so removing one is almost always a good thing. Why is this feature useful? By bypassing the stereo amp’s own volume control the AV amp is in complete control of the volume and has more control over sonic character. On Musical Fidelity amps, such as the M2si pictured below, the appropriate input is labelled 'HT'. On many amps this will be labelled as an AV input, but some also use proprietary names for the feature – ‘Main In’ on Onkyo amps, for example, and ‘Power Amp Direct’ on Pioneers. In theory, a system such as this can be set up with any stereo amp that has standard RCA inputs, but ideally you want one that has a dedicated input for the task – one that bypasses the unit’s own volume control and other equaliser functions.