Onkyo sr805 to use as amp and pre-amp together?

The Onkyo 805/875/905 are capable of 4 ohm speakers according to the manual. The JM Labs should not be a problem at all for the 805, but a good external power amp would bring the most out of them.

Jaguarcondor,

I am using a BAT VK-31SE tube pre-amp and BAT VK-250 SE amp as part of my 2 channel system. This is used for 2 channel listening to my SME 10/Lyra Skala/BAT VK-P10SE w/ superpak analog front-end and Aerial 7B front loudspeakers. The Onkyo 805 is used only for watching Blu-Ray or HD-DVDs on my front projection home theater system. The L and R pre-outs from the Onkyo are run into one of the inputs set-up on my pre-amp to unity gain. It works perfectly. Excellent home theater with no compromises to my 2 channel analog system. I have not compared the internal amps on the Onkyo to my BAT amp. The Onkyo has no difficulty powering my Aerial CC3B center channel or SR3 surround speakers, however.

Scott

Jaguarcondor

JM Labs makes some hungry speakers as their impedance figures are low.

The info in the Onkyo manual suggests 6 ohm minimums.... it'll drive lower impedance units though.... but having them all around might be taxing.

I'm curious too about that part. I've had no issues with it driving my Silverlines, and yes, an outboard amp does improve things but then, that's pretty much a slam dunk isn't it? I mean an outboard amp should be better than what's in the receiver, huh?

Hey Sdrenslow,

Can you share with us your experience, did you notice significant improvement after switch to external amp? is the Onkyo serves well as an decoder and pre-pro?

Thanks in advance.

(PS: I am using Onkyo sr805, and main speakers are JmLab Electra 920, center and surrounds are all JmLab speakers. I am thinking of getting a classe to power the main speakers.)

Thanks, everyone. I'll give it a try.

Blindjim had a good point, but guess I am fine, my speakers are 92db.

I am thinking is in most cases since it's for music, so, I'll use the Onkyo solely as Pre-pro to process the digital signal, and switch it to "Pure music" and "Stereo", thus, hopefully it will minimize the one-box solution and other interference.

the ONLY consideration for using the 805 to entirely run a 7.1 system would be the speakers themselves. Hard to drive speakers will cause problems I suspect.

if all the speakers are 89db or higher, with decent impedance values, the 805 ought to do very well.

Adding an outboard amp (s) can only help.

Do remember, Onkyo did make this piece to be a one box solution for powering, and processing a signal, afterall.

I am thinking about doing the same thing - using my 875 for processing and connecting to an outboard power amp. Any user experiences appreciated.

Yes, that will work just fine. I am doing the same with my set-up and a BAT amp for the L and R main speakers