What receivers/amplifiers do you use to drive you Arendal setups?

[Kristoffer Svendsen]

I’m curious, What receiver/preamp/source and/or amplifiers do you use with your Arendal speakers? Have you tested brands that worked better than others? I’m curious to know what you guys are using!

I’m using a Yamaha RX-A2060 to power a pair of 1961 Monitors and a 1723 Sub 1v and it sounds great! I might add a dedicated amplifier down the line if I get something bigger, but I definitely don’t feel like I’m missing much with my current setup.

[arkmann]

Gavin glad to hear your system works for you.   Enjoy and Welcome to the community!

[gavin-stevens]

Hi Jimmy – good stuff, I’ll check out the Marantz power amp you have 😉

[rene-paulus]

I am using a Anthem mrx 740 and with great pleasure

[arkmann]

Gavin welcome to the community!  Enjoy your system!

[Anonymous]

What do you guys think about a Yamaha R-N2000A with a pair of 1723 towers?

[Hal]

Christian,

I’m expecting a Black Yamaha R-N2000A integrated amplifier this weekend to drive my newly installed 1723 THX towers.
I’ll post back after I’ve had time to listen for a bit and get past the 50 hour burn in on the towers.

I’m also going to be trying the preouts on the N2000A into an XPA-2 Gen3 2 Channel amplifier driving the 1723 towers, which would free up the internal amp to drive a set of KLH Model 5 stand speakers on Channel A and a set of Buchardt S400 MKII bookshelf speakers on Channel B (Only one set at a time) to give me three distinct listenting options and placements.

The idea is to have a modern set of towers, a retro set of box speakers and a set of modern set of bookshelf speakers all off the main brand beaten path.

Right now I’m running the 1723 towers on a Yamaha RX-1080 AVR two channel only, which works fine, but not impressively so. It sounds like an AVR, if that makes any sense? And controlling it is difficult as it’s designed to work  with a video menu system and there’s no monitor or TV attached, which means any EQ is bass/treble only and is very broad band and clunky through the MusicCast app. It plays nice music, but the AVR is beneth the 1723 towers.

I’ll know more once the N2000 arrives.

[Hal]

Good evening Christian,

My Yamaha R-N2000a Network integrated amplifier arrived and is now up and running.

The room is 30′ x 50′ with the 1723 towers 15′ apart and the listening position 15′ from the fronts of the speakers.
The towers are perpendicular to the back wall about 12″ away with zero toe-in.

The soundstage is wide but not amazingly so, which is expected from this solid-state amp.
At the time of these tests there are 24 hours of use on the speakers, so they’re about half burned-in.

They’re connected using banana plug speaker connections on 10gage speaker cable  from GearIT purchased from Amazon from the N2000 amp and then the Emotiva amp for both testing phases.

The interconnects from the N2000 to the Emotiva amp are RCA single ended connectors from Emotiva.

There is no measerable noise floor on either the N2000A or the Emotiva setups. Informal “ear against speaker” also yields no noise.

Here are my initial thoughts and results from the tests I’ve done so far:

1. Night and day differnence from the Yamaha RX-1080 AVR. Sound, power, everything better.

2. Using the internal N2000 amp on Channel A the speakers are assertive, and 70db is achieved at volume setting level -35dB. Using earplugs pushed the volume db level to 90dB at volume setting -15dB. Plenty of power in the internal amp driving the 1723 THX Towers for all inputs digital and analog. Net radio, Amazon Music, Spotify, DLNA server, Optical in from CD transport, Internal Tuner and external Sansui 517 on Audio 1. Everything sounds excellent being fuller, clearer, and with more authority than on the AVR at the same sound dB levels, but with the AVR working a lot harder to produce worse results.

3. After finishing that testing I installed an Emotiva XPA2 V3 amplifier on the N2000’s pre-outs. And thats how I’m going to run it from now on. Another big jump, this time in power. No change in clarity or other sound attributes other than now it reaches the above sound levels at -60dB volume level for -70dB sound level and -25dB volume level for 90dB. It’s something to hear and feel even with earplugs in.

My overall conclusion is this:

1. The Yamaha R-N2000a is an excellent integrated network amplifier to pair with the 1723 THX tower speakers. For all safe listenening levels. It’s clean, powerful and it’s DAC are a joy to listen to. It has all the things I want in an integrated amp save perhaps a tape monitor, but hey, it’s 2024, who uses tape anymore? I mean, I do, but I get it.

2. Pairing the N2000 with a quality external amp just improves it’s disposition and takes a strong integrated amp to an amazing pre-amp. Also, with this setup it leaves the A and B internal speaker channels free to add on other speakers to be used one at a time giving the ability to have three distinct and powerful options for speaker driving without sacrificing either quality or clarity the N2000 provides across all its inputs.

I think the N2000 is the sweet spot for cost, quality and value of all of Yamaha’s offerings, and perhaps many if not all other offerings in the Integrated amplifier space right now.

Hope this helps in your audio journey.

Happy listening!

– Hal

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much, I think I will go with the yamaha, 2 towers in s version and a sealed sub.

[Hal]

Christian,
It’s my pleasure.

I’d love to hear back when you get your system up and running.

Attached a couple pictures of my current setup.

Right now its just the Arendal 1723 THX towers, which is more than enough, the additional speakers are in the works, and I need to get more stuff moved around and cleaned up, but it’s always something right?

I’ve got the tone controls tweaked a bit as I like overpowering bass when playing the soundtrack from the final season of The Vikings… its tactile at this level.

– Hal

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[arkmann]

Nice rack!  Yamaha makes everything including the outboard engine on my boat.  Love the meters.  All integrated amps should have twin meters in my opinion.  Enjoy your new system!