How to connect an external amplifier to a receiver

hello YouTube this is Magnolia Mo and I'm back with another video so in today's video we are going to discuss how to connect an AV receiver to an outboard or to a power amplifier using the the RCA pre-outs that you may have on your receiver all right so let's get on with it right after this [Music] let's go [Music] let's go [Music] many of you uh have a receiver that is a 9.1 or a 9.4 receiver and you need uh you know to utilize or or in order to use the to expand your channels right to to an 11.1 you have to use the RCA pre-out um if your receiver has them uh and and add a power amplifier right so that's what we're going to talk about today and and I'm going to use the Denon X 3800 um you know for this particular uh video uh you and and I'm going to use one of my old Pioneer Elites that I have um to show you I've been doing this for many years right even before 3D audio right uh where I I always felt uh that the receiver never had the the the power or the ability uh uh you know to to actually drive your speakers to their maximum potential um because you know receivers doing many different things it's processing you know your your audio processing your video and then it also has to to power your speakers and if you have power hungry speakers uh you know you're turning up the volume to the to the max most of the time and and it's just not efficient right um and and you get Distortion uh you know ever since I started using the RCA jacks the pre-outs for instance uh to go to a power amplifier uh you know I've uh like the sound just expands it's just much more um you know it's easier easier in your ears as well you can turn up the volume and don't have to worry about you know blowing your your your speakers or or overheating the the receiver and things like that right so it's it's and it's a clean it's cleaner audio right um from that standpoint so so how do you go about doing that right so you can go online you can uh look for a five channel amp or a seven channel amp or a two channel amp motiva has really good uh you know affordable little stereo amplifiers then they have five channels seven Channel amplifiers in the case of the x3800 you can use that receiver to to to only Power your front left and and right speakers uh from an outboard amplifier and then use the rest of the the channels you know and connect all your speakers to the x3800 except for the left uh front and left and right front uh and and and and you know utilize the full uh potential of 7.4.4 uh seven bed layer speakers for heightened four subwoofers right so so you could do that with the x3800 um the advantage of that again is you're going to get cleaner audio and and and cleaner video as well because the Distortion that's caused by the amps that are built into the receiver is no longer an issue and this is it's strictly a pre a preamplifier strictly a processor so that's another good part right if you wanted to buy a you know a a processor from Denon uh or I'm sorry from Marantz or a processor from um you know any other like Integra or uh or our Anthem right those processors are going to cost a lot of money so that's why the x3800 is is a really good deal in my opinion it's got the direct live uh it's got Odyssey uh and and it has the ability to run in a preamp mode where you can connect all your speakers you know all your seven bed layers uh you can connect your four ceiling speakers uh or your height speakers I should say and and you know obviously have your subwoofers four subwoofers up to four subwoofers connected to to that receiver and you'll lies it as a pre-amplifier as a processor only right and you will get better better sound better video if you did that and the best way to do that you know obviously as I mentioned you know go online to find find a five channel amplifier seven Channel amplifier whatever you want to do like you can go on eBay and you can get like a old a Rotel 1075 which is a five channel amp or a 1095 which is a seven channel amp those are a really good they they have actually bought you know a hotel online on on eBay and it lasted me and and you get clean power you know you get pure you know power they'll drive four ohm speakers you know those are good you know receivers still good amplifiers to to use now emotiva has I as I mentioned has really good good stereo and multi-channel amplifiers that you can look into as well Outlaw has some really good ones so there's many companies out there right so this the the point is the possibilities are endless right and and as I mentioned I've been doing this for many years because I've had Martin Logan speakers you know the electrostats which were heavy demanding you know were very demanding speakers when it came to to power uh and I never felt like my you know any of the receivers I had I have had top of the line receivers they they never had had the you know enough to drive him um I always felt I was pushing them too hard uh and and and I've been you know doing this uh uh this whole deal with you know using the the receiver as a as a processor only and then connecting an amplifier all right I'll start with the with the Pioneer Elite uh just to show you even the older receivers have this capability uh and and then you know we'll we'll get into the 3800 right after that so here's my old Pioneer Elite receiver it's the vsx uh 52 Old Faithful uh it's got THX you know Adobe true HD DTS Master audio but the key part is it has the the pre-outs and it has a speaker on off button that you can that you can just select to turn off all the speakers and it becomes a preamp right and then here in the back this is what I've been using for years is you got your all of your pre-outs right here your front uh front left right your two subwoofers Center and then your surround surround backs and then the front Heights in in the front wides right so so this is no different from any of these new receivers that we have on the market today they'll all have a set of RCA pre-outs and then they'll have your speaker Jacks same same Principle as the x3800 for instance where where you can choose to forego your your front two channels left and right and then only make the connection to the rest of the speakers and then and then go from there or you can connect all of your your pre-outs right into a outboard power amplifier and then from the front of the the speed Receiver right here uh shut off the speakers and what that does is just you know helps the receiver concentrate on uh the audio and video processing only right so that's that's a simple simple way of doing it where basically you connect your your RCA jacks into your power amplifier and don't make the connections here uh and and then connect your rest of the speakers right into these speaker terminals uh so that the receiver Powers all the channels and then the power amplifier Powers just the uh the left and and the right so now how do we do this for the x3800 specifically let's find out all right so here's the back of the x3800 the Denon x3800 um and you see the the RCA pre-outs uh right above the speaker terminals connecting connection terminals so so if you want to use this receiver uh as a preamp only you leave all of the speaker connections off do not connect anything into the speaker connectors and then use the pre-outs the RCA pre-outs to go into a power amplifier for all of your uh you know 11 11 channels right so your seven bed layers you know and four height channels and then obviously your the four subwoofers are going to go into the individual Subs if you have up to four you can connect up to four uh but now it you know doing it this way you can now use the Denon as a you know in in its pre-amplifier mode uh and what you do is you go into the amp settings and select that and I'll show you that in just a sec uh now if you wanted to to um you know use the x3800 speaker terminals and not use all the pre-outs uh you can do that and and where you you would need is a stereo amplifier um you connect all your speakers right uh from Center surrounds uh and your height speakers you leave the front left and right off um and take the RCA pre-outs for your front right and left and go into the stereo power amplifier that you would have bought to power your front left and right channels the beauty of doing that is for music stereo music two Channel music you're gonna you're really going to enjoy that because the power amplifier is going to drive your front channels the right way with all the power right so that so that this is option two you can you know in this in this particular option within the amp uh assign menu uh and I'm gonna show you take you there in just a second uh but before I go there this is here's another option uh you would have you can you can do a five point four point six so you can have six height speakers but in that case you're gonna have to connect your top middles into the surround back and Surround back left and right so you forego your back surrounds uh but you get two additional height speakers uh right but same principle you connect your front left and right into the power amplifier and then you connect your top middles uh here's the amp amp assign mode you know in this particular mode this is the 11.1 Channel mode that's what you're going to select if you want to use only the front left hand right speakers you have to go into a stereo amplifier uh and you know and and use the speaker terminals on your x3800 and then if you want to use all of the the pre-outs and go into an outboard amplifier you would go into the the amp assign menu and assign preamplifier all right so I hope you like this video um and and please don't forget to hit the like button share and subscribe to my channel as you know I'm trying to grow this Channel and and trying to put out you know the content that that everybody can benefit from and I hope this video is something that you guys like and and hang in there with me as I continue this journey all right so until next time YouTube don't forget to subscribe like and share the video

Channel: MagnoliaMo

Views: 17,049

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Id: zbJz1FxqiFI

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 25 2023