Sunfire Theater Grand Amps for Mosaics - Overkill?

[captain_tinker]

Folks,
Hey, I was thinking that it may be nice to get an amp to relieve the heat from my 90 wpc Marantz receiver when running my Mosaics and Fresco's. So I figured it would be smart to get a beefy enough amp to work well now and if I ever upgrade to something larger like Vantages or Summits (in some future lifetime ) that it would work well for them too. I am just wondering if the Sunfire TGA-5400 400 wpc amp (@ 8 ohms) is overkill for my setup? I like the fact that it has the tracking downconverter to keep it cool, as my components are in a cabinet. I also like the idea that it has a voltage and a current out option, for running both electrostats and cones. It also has a fairly decent price for the power considering I have looked at all sorts of other amps, from Cary, to Primare, to Classe, Krell and a whole slew of others that I have found written about here, and most of them are just plain out of my price range. Even that one is going to be stretching it a bit. It is also just the right size to fit in my cabinet too.

So would that be overkill, or would it hurt my speakers? If so, perhaps I should go for the 200 wpc instead?

-capT

 

[JonFo]

...
So would that be overkill, or would it hurt my speakers? If so, perhaps I should go for the 200 wpc instead?

-capT

No such thing as amp overkill

While I'd not recommend cranking it to the max, it's always nice to know you have the headroom now, and compatibility with future ESL speakers.

Most speakers can take way more than their 'rated' power for brief periods, such as when playing musical peaks. What they generally do not appreciate is constant overdriving, which can burn out crossover elements or if they have tweeters and small voice coil mid-ranges, you could burn those out as well. So as long as you keep the kids from throwing a party and turning it to 11, you'll be fine.

 

[Joey_V]

Ahem...

No such thing as overkill in my opinion.

 

[wink]

Look at it this way; when you get summits for the front and move those to the back you won't have to change amps:music: I've had Sunfire and Carver amps for over 20 years, they're great amps. That's a very good one there.


Dan

 

[captain_tinker]

Folks,
Ok then, that was what I was wondering. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to be so much power that it would blow my nice speakers apart just by playing them normally. I didn't think it would, but I just want to be careful.

I went to Magnolia this weekend and they had a pair of Vantages set up in the front, with a cinema i as the center as the Vista's as the rears, all run off of some B&K components. It sounded great for the highs, but there was just no bass! Turns out the guy forgot to hook up the Depth i sub that was sitting there, and had somehow either turned down or did not have the woofers in the Vantages hooked up or something. But even without those, it still sounded good. I noticed that they were about 5 ft from the wall, and unfortunately I would not be able to manage this in the home I have now. If I ever move, I have told my wife we are building a theater room. She thinks I am nuts, but that's ok. She is learning a lot about my hobby and can carry on an intelligible conversation about it too. The other day she asked me, "remind me again what an amp does?" She actually sat and listened to it, and then said, "ok, so when the receiver gets warm, that's the amp part of it? So we must need an amp then, right? I don't want your speakers to ruin the receiver..." I grinned inside and said with the best straight face I could muster "yeah, we really do dear. Especially this one, it should have enough power to handle these speakers, and if we ever get any of the bigger speakers like the Vantages or Summits, this should be able to handle it. At least that's what the guys on the ML forum tell me anyway..." :music:

-capT

 

[Joey_V]

"... At least that's what the guys on the ML forum tell me anyway..." :music:

-capT

Nice!!! Don't you like how we all brainwash each other! And we're so willing too!

I love this hobby!