Does anyone else utilse their stereo amp with their AVR?

naefeart

naefeart

naefeart

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As per the title.

During covid when I upgraded my hifi, the nice man from the hifi shop utilsed the pre-out on my AVR to feed the front L/R channels to my hifi stereo amp. He suggested it would sound better. This meant my AVR was only powering the center speaker and the sub.

I didn't challenge it at the time and I've been happy with the setup since. Cue last week when I had an urge to change and purchased a new AVR and some new floor standers to go with. I had demoed them a while back but never got around to doing anything about it.

Now I'm wondering if I should recreate the configuration I was using previously; AVR -> stereo amp -> speakers. In isolation the Denon sounds reasonable to my ears and I'm only using it as a 3.1 setup.

Atm it's convenient having my hifi and AVR in the same room/cabinet as I like to watch films and listen to music in the living room. Now I'm wondering if I'm doing the new AVR a disservice and should instead allocate it to covering all the TV watching audio duties.

Interested to hear what others do?
 
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I have a 10 year old Denon AVR that does both. I paid 350 notes for it 2nd hand 8 years ago & when its used (not much these days) it sounds OK to my middle-aged ears. I couldn't do what you have done, I don't have the rack space. If I did, I would have to spend a bit more money than what I paid for the AVR to hear an improvement to the sound. My spare cash goes on other things these days, also my 2 channel listening is done when I'm driving my car. I 'upgraded' last month to a Pioneer model over the supplied Ford car stereo when it packed up, I consider that to be money well spent.
 
Any particular reason you did this in the past, but don’t now?

I had to check, but my stereo amp does appear to have HT bypass, believe it’s called AV Direct on my amp.
 
naefeart said:
Any particular reason you did this in the past, but don’t now?

I had to check, but my stereo amp does appear to have HT bypass, believe it’s called AV Direct on my amp.
Click to expand...

Put stereo in another room, replaced AVR with a AV pre amp, so that controls all channels (9.4.4) not needing another pre or integrated. list of products with ht bypass input

Amplifiers with HT-bypass - update 20. july 2025

Audiophile.no has made a list of stereo preamps and integrated amps that have one sort of HT-bypass. This list is updated 20. July 2025 with amplifiers from Cyrus, and will be will be continuously updated. Written by Karl Erik Sylthe, at 15.02.07 Translated to English in june 2008Latest update...
www.audiophile.no www.audiophile.no
 
Thanks, that’s where I found my amp listed, then checked the manual to be sure.

I’m toying with putting my stereo in another room, but I like listening to it on the sofa. Decisions…
 
Yep, I do this.

Until recently it was; Yamaha AVR front pre-outs > NAD C352 with pre/power links removed > Rotel power amp connected to the front speakers. Rears and centre from the AVR. Subs connected to low level at the AVR, and high level at the power amp.

The NAD didn't have any sort of AV bypass so I set the levels by ear first and then double checked them with an SPL meter, made a little tip ex mark on the volume control so I knew where to set the volume if I wanted to use the AVR. I had all my surround sources through the AVR and stereo sources direct into the NAD. If I wanted to use the AVR I just had to change the input on the NAD and turn the volume control up to match the tip ex mark. A minor inconvenience massively outweighed by the option to have both dedicated stereo and surround systems in one room.

Earlier this year I replaced the NAD with a Naim NAC-N272 which while it doesn't have a proper AV bypass (I think the 282 does), it does have an assignable fixed volume HT option. Again I matched all the levels, stereo sources into the Naim, surround sources into the AVR. It's a little bit nicer to use as I no longer need to manually match the volume on the Naim everytime I want to use the AVR. I just select the input and everything is already set up and volume matched.

The AVR is an older generation Yamaha Aventage and so supposedly a fair bit better than say the RX-V range but I still wouldn't ditch the stereo amp/pre-amp and use the AVR on its own, especially if you use the system for music. Most AVRs just cannot touch a decent stereo pre-amp or integrated for music reproduction.

Even if you don't plan on splitting the sources like I have, moving the front speakers away from the AVR and onto the stereo amp will give you a lot more headroom when pushing the system harder. The front speakers will have access to a dedicated amplifier which will give the AVR an easier life and have more power available to focus on powering the rears/centre etc. One thing I noticed when adding the power amp is the extra headroom allowed me to play the front speakers a lot harder before hitting distortion. This will also be a factor when powering your front speakers from the stereo amp rather than bundling everything together and expecting the AVR to power it.
 
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agw_01 said:
Yep, I do this.

Until recently it was; Yamaha AVR front pre-outs > NAD C352 with pre/power links removed > Rotel power amp connected to the front speakers. Rears and centre from the AVR. Subs connected to low level at the AVR, and high level at the power amp.

The NAD didn't have any sort of AV bypass so I set the levels by ear first and then double checked them with an SPL meter, made a little tip ex mark on the volume control so I knew where to set the volume if I wanted to use the AVR. I had all my surround sources through the AVR and stereo sources direct into the NAD. If I wanted to use the AVR I just had to change the input on the NAD and turn the volume control up to match the tip ex mark. A minor inconvenience massively outweighed by the option to have both dedicated stereo and surround systems in one room.

Earlier this year I replaced the NAD with a Naim NAC-N272 which while it doesn't have a proper AV bypass (I think the 282 does), it does have an assignable fixed volume HT option. Again I matched all the levels, stereo sources into the Naim, surround sources into the AVR. It's a little bit nicer to use as I no longer need to manually match the volume on the Naim everytime I want to use the AVR. I just select the input and everything is already set up and volume matched.

The AVR is an older generation Yamaha Aventage and so supposedly a fair bit better than say the RX-V range but I still wouldn't ditch the stereo amp/pre-amp and use the AVR on its own, especially if you use the system for music. Most AVRs just cannot touch a decent stereo pre-amp or integrated for music reproduction.

Even if you don't plan on splitting the sources like I have, moving the front speakers away from the AVR and onto the stereo amp will give you a lot more headroom when pushing the system harder. The front speakers will have access to a dedicated amplifier which will give the AVR an easier life and have more power available to focus on powering the rears/centre etc. One thing I noticed when adding the power amp is the extra headroom allowed me to play the front speakers a lot harder before hitting distortion. This will also be a factor when powering your front speakers from the stereo amp rather than bundling everything together and expecting the AVR to power it.
Click to expand...

Zero benefit in doing so, and introduces more problems than it solves
 
agw_01 said:
So how else would you suggest I can use the subs with a stereo source from the Naim when the AVR is turned off?
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You don't. Not unless you have a method of individual levels, crossover, phase/timing, and muting the other unused input. I believe Arendel offer settings per input, that way you could use crossover /phase bypass, PEQ disabled in HT mode (input 1) and crossover , PEQ enabled and phase/delay enabled in stereo mode (input 2)

Phase will be different for HT and stereo mode, so you will need to sort that out. The AVR adjusts distance to the sub, your stereo does not. In AV mode, your sub could be receiving the summed low and high level inputs, which are inherently different in phase.

You'd need to do some REW sweeps and see what happens for each high and low level input, what happens when both inputs are active etc.
 
I used to run a harmon kardon dolby system and use the main stereo amp for the front main channels. Worked well but if you’re deep in the AV world then getting balance in the sound is needed so your AV system needs to tailor it’s output for your particular stereo based on a microphone at the listening position..
 
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