Is my reciever powerful enough?

Itallain22

Junior Member
Feb 3, 2017
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I have a yamaha rx- v573. Klipsch synergy s-10(2*)polk audio TSiCS10, Polk csi300(2*). I have a polk psw10 sub. Does my reciever put out enough power. If not what would you recommend. Thanks.
 

Itallain22

Junior Member
Feb 3, 2017
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Also someone i know hooked up two bose cinemates together. He played them loud and they did not sound distorted. Why do mine get distorted and his dont?
 

mdram

Golden Member
Jan 2, 2014
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everything is relative.

what do you want to achieve?
how much space are you filling?

that setup would work fine for my living room.
concert hall? not so much
 

Itallain22

Junior Member
Feb 3, 2017
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everything is relative.

what do you want to achieve?
how much space are you filling?

that setup would work fine for my living room.
concert hall? not so much
I iust the system to be able to perform as good as possible
 

WhiteNoise

Golden Member
Jun 22, 2016
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@mdram good at sounding good and not distorting. Read his initial post. He is asking if his receiver is powerful enough for the speakers he owns and that his friend hooked a couple of Bose up to his receiver and it got loud and was clean but wonders why his speakers are not clean when loud.

I think he provided more than enough info that relates to his question. If you look at the bose speakers online and compare them to his current set; well it is clear to me that he is not trying to power this system in a concert hall. But that is besides the point. He is asking a simple question that in all honesty he should be able to answer himself just by looking at the RMS rating of his speakers and amp.

Back on topic OP. @Itallain22 Your amp has more than enough power for all of your speakers. The surround speakers are rated for 50 watts rms. Of all of your speakers, these are the lowest power handling and if you are really cranking up the volume and sending a full frequency signal then these could be distorting. Your center speaker is rated for 20-125 watts RMS while your towers are rated at 20-150 RMS. Since your amp pushes 110 watts per channel (less than this I'm sure) while in 7 channel mode or 80 watts per channel in 2-channel mode; I would say everything should be jiving.

Do all of your speakers distort? How loud are you cranking these up? Have you tried disconnecting all speakers and testing one or two at a time? This may rule out one speaker that is causing your issues.

For the record your surrounds are fine as surround speakers go as they just carry ambient and background noises during a movie but if you are trying to use them as bookshelf speakers and sending them the full output sound with out cutting bass frequencies then those will distort at higher volume compared to your towers.
 
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mdram

Golden Member
Jan 2, 2014
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the room size is needed.
the sub listed is not that great.
if the speakers are trying o fill in what it cant, it will have issues.
 

WhiteNoise

Golden Member
Jun 22, 2016
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I'll add that I own two sets of Polk speakers. Considered good in their day I was never impressed with them and quickly replaced them with better speakers. I still own those Polks but they are in storage. They just don't sound that great IMO.
 

WhiteNoise

Golden Member
Jun 22, 2016
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the room size is needed.
the sub listed is not that great.
if the speakers are trying o fill in what it cant, it will have issues.


The room size is not needed when asking if his amp is not powerful enough to run his speakers. All that we need to answer that question is the RMS rating output of the receiver and the RMS ratings of the speakers.

He specifically stated distortion. Playing them too loud could cause this. Or there could be another problem BUT his question was is his receiver powerful enough for his speakers and it is powerful enough.
I understand what you are getting at; you think he might be in a very large space and his system just doesn't have the power to fill it but that really has nothing to do with his original question. That is indeed another possible issue but it's not needed to answer his question.

I can take one of my amps, a couple of speakers and place them in my warehouse...sure they won't fill the space but they will get loud and not distort.

If he is cranking up the volume to fill a large space then it should still sound good until he reaches that point where the amp clips or the speakers are over-driven. It would sound good up to that point. We don't know how loud he is trying to play them. Again though he only asked the one question in his original post which I answered above.

His next question in his other post asked why his friends Bose sound clear and loud while his speakers distort. I'd have to know if those Bose were brought to his home and hooked up to his amp or if he just heard them at his friends house. That would give us more info to go on. I was under the impression his friend hooked up two bose to the receiver in question and it sounded great. That implies that something is not right with one or more of his speakers? or his speakers just don't sound good? or the Bose are just better? Who knows.

It could be just a matter of setting the speaker frequencies up properly for each speaker and not cranking the gain on the sub. He doesn't get specific enough about what is distorting, at what point does the distortion occur or anything else.

But the one question he asked that is easy to answer was answered already above. Yes his amp is powerful enough for his speakers.
 
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Itallain22

Junior Member
Feb 3, 2017
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again, you need more info.
good for what?
room info?
my room is a dorm room at the moment and then it will be in a basement
I just want the music to be able to be played decently loud (not max) I want it to sound high quality. The other guy has two bose cinemates hooked up and they sound louder and more clear. why would that be
 

WhiteNoise

Golden Member
Jun 22, 2016
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When listening to music do you run all of the speakers? Try just running the two floor standing speakers instead add in the sub if need be. for stereo music running stereo mode is going to sound better than running all channel mode or some surround mode.

Bose have a very warm sound signature. Polk do not. Maybe you like the richer sound of his Bose.

Also now you are not mentioning that there is distortion and only that it doesn't sound as good. If that is the case buy some proper speakers and run two channel mode. Some people really like Polk. I'm not one of them.
 

mdram

Golden Member
Jan 2, 2014
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in a dorm room that setup should be plenty loud.
as for bose, they just dont do it for me, they sound too artificial.
kilpsch, jbl, infinity are more to my liking
but everyone has diff tastes
 

monkeydelmagico

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2011
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Double check your polarities. Make sure your bi-amp connectors on the back of those Polk speakers are properly secure. Run your sub crossover at 120htz and make sure the amp is crossed over at roughly the same frequency. Check your levels on the surrounds.

There is no way a dinky cinemate setup is going to sound anywhere near as loud as your setup unless you have done something seriously wrong.
 
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guidinggod

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Nov 24, 2010
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Your receiver is fine for those speakers. Recheck your connections, make sure your speaker and receiver wire polarities are correct, as stated above.

Make sure the rca cable goes from your receiver's LFE or SUB out to either the L or R input of the subwoofer. Turn the Volume control knob of the subwoofer to midway (12 o clock) position, turn the Low pass filter to extreme right (clockwise).

Run the Yamaha receiver YPAO auto setup and after setup make sure all speakers are set as 'small' (even the front ones) and the sub crossover in the receiver is set to 80hz. Turn off 'extra bass' (lfe+speaker) option in the receiver. Turn off extra processing etc in the receiver. Playback something with 'straight' mode engaged.

Report back.
 

Pacfanweb

Lifer
Jan 2, 2000
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Your receiver could be more powerful and the speakers would handle it, but in a dorm it should be plenty.
As someone else said, double-check the polarity.

Those are simply not great speakers, but I would have thought they'd be better than most any Bose speakers. Might just be something wrong with your speakers.

In a room that small, it should get loud and be clear. My guess is that since another set of speakers sound better, you have an issue there.

Question would be: Did you hook up 5 different speakers, or just 2? And if just 2, did you run them with your others, or just in stereo to check it? I'd isolate each speaker to the main channels and see if you notice one in particular that is bad.
 

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
13,141
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Klipsch in general tend to be harsh. That might be what you're experiencing. Play some music using just the Klipsch towers, then swap them for the Polk towers. You'll hear a different sound, and I bet you'll end up liking the Polks' sound more.

You shouldn't have a problem with your speakers matching your AVR. I have the Yamaha 375, 4 Polk TSx110 and a TSx 150 center, and it's loud and clean all the way to the single digit decibles. At around -15db it's loud enough to be painful. It's only using my two fronts and my sub to play music, though.
 

alcoholbob

Diamond Member
May 24, 2005
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The more powerful the receiver the more heat it will build up and the larger the size it will run. Coming from someone who used to run the Yamaha RX-Z11 (73lbs) and Denon AVR-5805 (98lbs), super-heavy receivers really have diminishing returns in terms of power output, not to mention trying to service them when anything goes wrong is a nightmare since nobody wants to lift a 100lb amp.
 

rancherlee

Senior member
Jul 9, 2000
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How are you running them? If your in straight up Stereo mode the receiver should be pretty close to its rated power, if your running an enhanced stereo or surround mode you will be lucky to get 40w of clean power to each speaker. I have a Yamaha Aventage A800 7 channel and it drives my Monitor 70's loud and clean in 2 channel stereo mode with 110w+ but any use of a surround mode doesn't allow the same levels clean sound. Power output on mine, when tested on a bench, only shows ~5x45w or 7x35w of clean power. The same goes for just about any brands low-mid range recievers. If you really want/need more power hook up a Pro amp, I hooked my Yamaha 3500 up to my Monitor 70's and feed them there full 250wrms rated power and was pleasantly surprised how loud/clean they played. Usually the 3500 is driving my DIY Subs.