Four channel intergrated amp?

Go with a McIntosh Integrated,call Audio Classics in Vestal New York. Very nice people.

Brad,

As Tls49 mentioned, your Onkyo is a two channel receiver. I believe that you have mistaken the fact that is has two sets of speaker terminals for each side to mean that it is a four channel amp.

The specs for your receiver, as published on Onkyo's website, indicate that your receiver is rated at 100wpc, but they also indicate that your receiver is neither 6 or 4 ohm capable.

From what I gather based on the specs, your current receiver doesn't have a very robust amp section.

What I'm saying is that if your current amp was driving your present speakers, all at once, and it wasn't over heating, then your speakers must not present too much of a load. Either that, or you didn't play them very loud.

Just about any quality two channel integrated should be able to, at the very least, match the performance of your current receiver.

I've been a long time fan of NAD equipment because I think it offers a very good bang for the buck in terms of sound quality and power.

It should drive two pairs of speakers, with a nominal impedance of 8 ohms without problems. It's also going to sound better. What ever you check out, just be sure that it is rated to supply power at the impedance load that your speakers are going to present.

If your speakers have a nominal 8 ohm rating, then running a pair in parallel is going to present a nominal 4 ohm load to the amplifier. I do believe that NAD equipment is rated to at least 4 ohms.

If you just have your heart set on spending the whole $2500, then shop around. There's lots of good stuff out there for the money that you can spend. I'd suggest checking out the classifieds here to see if anything sparks your interest.

For $2500, you could get yourself into something that retails for $4K or more.

Thanks Tony and everyone else who has responded. As you can tell I am very "green" and my terminology about four channels obviously being incorrect. Yes, I have an A/B speaker option, and can engage both at the same time. Again, I really like the four speaker sound surrounding me. :)

My speakers are a pair of Paradigm Monitor V 7.5 at 8 ohms, and a pair of Paradigm Titan Monitor V5 also at 8 ohms. Yes, I don't run them very loud, maybe at volume position 4 out of 10 at max.I find running them louder than that starts to bring on too much distortion.

Matt had mentioned Mac gear which interests me greatly, but from all the research I have done I have not seen an intergrated with A/B speaker selection. I WILL follow up on the other brands and models recommended. A good photo section is paramount, as again the vast majority of my listening is vinyl via a nice Pioneer PL-71 that I recently had recapped.

I have heard other stereo gear in Hi-Fi stores, so I know my current set up is "Mid-Fi" at best. I'm not looking to spend all $2,500, but simply have that as my current budget.

I would love to have four times that, and just by a preamp with two amplifiers. We all have to live within our means.

Again, tyvm for all the replies. I apologize for being so new, but the learning process is a lot of fun!!

Brad, the only newer Mac integrated that has the A/B speaker capability is a MA6500.

Brad, is an integrated what you need due to space or is it just what you're used to?

First of all, Paradigm Monitor speakers aren't bad at all. My first pair of speakers were Monitors. What I remember the most about them, though, is that they are the reason that I went from a receiver to a separate amp. They sounded MUCH better with a more robust amp with a good supply of power, which I believe your current amp is lacking. When I went from using the 100wpc internal amp of my Denon receiver to an 80wpc Harman Kardon dedicated amplifier, I remember thinking, "wow" I have bass now.

The point I'm trying to make is that you are searching for a unit to drive all four speakers and you may find that with a good amplifier, you might actually prefer a two speaker setup. I say this because with two speakers, you'll actually start to enjoy things like sound staging and depth, rather than sort of feeling like the sound is just coming from all around the way it does at a restaurant, rather than the way it might sound at a concert or live show.

In any case, just to give you an idea of what's possible, I also have a very modest system. I am now running a Marsh P2000 pre amp with an Aragon 2004 amplifier.

I recently got the Marsh as an upgrade to my former NAD C162 pre amp, and the step up definitely moved my little system into another league. I got the Marsh here on Agon for $400 and it retailed for around $1200 when new.

The Aragon 2004 is an old amp from the early 90s. Still, it is a very good sounding amp and is a beast of an amp, as far as 100 wpc amps go. It weighs over 40lbs. It's been able to drive any speaker I've thrown at it with detail, smoothness, authority and control. This particular amp is rated to 200wpc at 4 ohms and will drive a 2 ohm load. Mondial actually said (in an ad) that it will drive a dead short.

I feel that I've gotten myself into the lower end of hi fi for under $1K for the pre amp and amp.

Oh, if running four speakers is just your thing and it's what you want to do, keep in mind that you don't NEED A/B switching, if you're always going to be running four speakers. The switching is only handy if you want to be able to choose to run either A or B or both.

If you just want to run four speakers, you can connect a pair to each side using the single sets of binding posts. You just connect two wires to each post. The only trick is making sure that your amp can drive the load without over heating and cooking itself.

If you have a speaker that presents an 8 ohm load and you connect two of those speakers to the same set of binding posts (parallel connection), you are halving the impedance and the pair will present a 4 ohm load to the amp. With less impedance, your amp is going to want to put out more power and you have to have an amp with a power supply that can keep up.

This is necessary information and the reason why manufacturers of better equipment rate their amps into an 8 ohm load, a 4 ohm load and sometimes a 2 ohm load.

Generally speaking, an amplifiers ratings at differing impedances gives a pretty good representation of an amplifiers ability to provide juice as it is needed. Amplifiers with very healthy power sections will typically be able to double (or almost double) their watts per channel output as the impedance is halved.

Take a look in the classified here. Lots of good stuff there.