Help setting up HT and Integrated Amp and Sub
Hi, all...
I have a bit of a hodge-podge system that I am trying to get set up and am having a brain-cramp determining the best way to wire things here...let me give a summary of the journey thus far:
- I live in a tiny little apartment, so my ancient full-range floor standing Polks do not fit, nor does much of anything
- Had a nice little home theater setup featuring Cambridge SoundWorks surround speakers and sub hooked up to a Yamaha RX-A700 HT receiver. Not bad, but I decided to get a little more audiophile as the quality was just meh.
- Bought a set of Harbeth P3ESRs and, wow, they are pretty fantastic...the sub became more important and so I replaced that with an SVS SB-2000.
So now I had the P3ESR, SVS sub and 3 Cambridge speakers (center and surround) driven by the Yamaha...not bad, but not great.
- SACD player (old Pioneer) died, replaced with Oppo BDP-103
- Got a Teac DAC to hook my Mac up to the stereo system
- Felt the P3s were underdriven, so got an Emotiva MiniX (pre-out from receiver into it onto the Harbeths)...sounded much better, surround and movies was bad though, so got 3 Cambridge Minx21s (very blah, but a bit better than the old ones) and left them hooked to the receiver...as is the sub
This was fine for a little bit, but I felt the receiver was really holding me back, so looked at integrated amps...tried a Musical Fidelity 3.5, but it doesn't like my power (even with a conditioner!), so gave it to my brother. Found a good deal on an Exposure 2010s2d and am where I am now:
- I want to connect the Oppo, the Teac DAC and the HT receiver to the Exposure, driving the Harbeths for quality stereo sound and leave the 3 other speakers connected to the HT receiver....but where do I connect the sub? If I connect it to the Exposure for use in music listening, I lose it from the HT setup so movies will suffer (as will the occasional surround disc I play). If I connect it directly to the Oppo, I need to play with the settings constantly and I lose sound level control (i.e. when I turn up the amp/receiver, it won't get louder too).
I did buy a fairly good quality RCA Y connector thinking I could run from both the integrated amp and receiver, but it introduced a pronounced hum, which I am assuming is a ground loop somewhere...
At this point I am getting all confused and it is annoying, as it is a feeling I am not used to. Anyone have any ideas on the best way to connect all this? I mean...I want pure audio through the integrated amp, with the ability to watch movies and play surround content through the receiver...
Thanks in advance!
Os.