Need help on eq. hook up for new tube system

[graykeene]

Before I present my question and detail the situation I want to apologize to all audio purists that may be offended. With that out of the way…

I am waiting on the delivery of an integrated tube amplifier and new tube CD player. I currently am running a Denon 7.1 HT system. I want to be able to use the front speakers and my sub with the tube amp and tube CD for listening to music and then be able to switch back to the HT setup using the full 7.1 system for the video world.

How can I accomplish this?

I have looked/called/researched and found nothing that appears to do exactly what I want.

If specifics are necessary or would help:

Shanling STP 80 Integrated Amplifier (four inputs, no outputs-I believe)
Shanling T-100 CD
Denon 887AVR 7.1 dual zone


Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[kevinkr]

You'll probably have to build what you need. There may be speaker/amplifier switches/comparators you can buy from a failed hifi business as an option. (Unfortunately one of our local chains went bankrupt recently, and will be rescued by a VC firm, but lots of stores are closing though. It's Tweeter Etc. in case you are interested.)

Does the current sub use the LFE output on your HT receiver? If so you will need to sum L+R to mono using resistors, probably on the outputs of the Shanling amp. You can use heavy duty switches or relays to connect and disconnect the front speakers and sub from the tube amp - but you must be very careful to assure that the amplifier outputs remain loaded whenever the amplifier is on to prevent inadvertent damage to the output transformers - And it must be arranged so that both amps can never be connected simultaneously or the Denon might loose some output devices.

Note the switches or relays should be DPDT - no output connections should ever be common to both. I recommend relays configured to operate with a single toggle switch with loading on the Shanling when not connected to the speakers.

One other concern is that directivity and sometimes frequency response flatness of commercial HT speakers is not optimum for high quality music reproduction in a lot of cases.

And I'll put my money where my mouth is, I have dedicated speakers and electronics for both in my listening room - and the only common component to both is the media server which provides s-video (or dvi) and analog audio to the HT system and spdif format transformer isolated digital to the hifi.

Audio Concepts makes some great speaker kits that feature high performance and compactness. You might want to check them out.