Bottlehead Home theatre... Old Botthead system.

[TheMilford]

Hey friends, Long time no type,

So, I'm such a happy customer I have been using my Foreplay 2, Paramours and Seduction system happily for over 15 years. I have been a devoted user since as early as 2002 or so when I bought my first Foreplay... and eventually completed my system around 2006 or so with the Seduction. Been using it in my main system ever since with my Audio Note AN-J/sp speakers and a Well Tempered Classic Turntable, along other flavor-of-the-day digital sources... But I always have come back to the vinyl setup. I've never upgraded because I've been more than happy with my set-up and have never wanted for much more save for a few small mods.

Now, my dilemma:

We live in a small Brooklyn house/apartment and have just gone through a series of renovations... I'm losing my dedicated stereo listening area. We are combining the home theatre set up with the audio. I know, the age-old compromise. I plan to find a decent preamp processor that can handle most of my analog needs as well as my digital connections. I plan to keep the Seduction for now for vinyl but will eventually upgrade as I think I would like a little cleaner headroom of the newer bottlehead tt pres. But I really need to find 5 channels of single-ended power. I have the Paramours which I assume will be great for rears or a center channel. I have had my eye on 300Bs for the two mains for some extra dynamic range and overall volume over the 2A3s... but the stereo only config is a little limiting. I hadn't looked on the product page in years... I was kinda hooping to buy some monoblocks to fill up my channels... but now I'm not sure how to proceed...

I have a pair of Snell Ks I plan to use for rears and I plan to find a Snell J for center-channel duty to match my AN-Js.

I'm looking at an older Rotel RSP-1570 because it has all the analog inputs I might need plus HDMI. Then there's the issue of bypassing the Pro/Pre for stereo only listening. How would you guys do that?

How would you guys get 5 channels of Bottlehead amps going for this set-up? Which current products should I be looking at?

Any insight would be appreciated.

[Paul Birkeland]

The Paramours would be a good choice for rears, especially if they are still running the Triad/Speco iron combination.

You could definitely use a Kaiju to fill out the front L+R.  You could also bridge a Kaiju for a center channel. 

-PB

(I could also build you a single Parmaour with leftover parts that I have for the center channel, as I'm pretty sure I have one spare power transformer)

[TheMilford]

The Paramours would be a good choice for rears, especially if they are still running the Triad/Speco iron combination.

You could definitely use a Kaiju to fill out the front L+R.  You could also bridge a Kaiju for a center channel. 

-PB

(I could also build you a single Parmaour with leftover parts that I have for the center channel, as I'm pretty sure I have one spare power transformer)

Thanks man. Yeah, I would love to figure out a single Paramour for the center. Or even a single
Paramount would be better. I'm thinking of doing a Dynaco mark III for the sub channel 

[Paul Birkeland]

I might also have one set of Paramount iron.  I definitely do not have a full set for a stereo pair, I know that much!

[TheMilford]

I assume the Paramount would be a better match for what I'm doing no?

How do we make this happen?

I plan the order the Kaiju or Stereomour in December depending on which route we decide to take. But either way we are finishing up construction through the fall.

Let me inquire about another approach. What if I wanted to build this system from the ground up? Which amps would you use to run a 5.1 system driving Snell/AN speakers un a smallish livingroom. The speakers are bi-wireable... would it be crazy to buy 4 stereo kits and run the fronts bi-wired/amped and the rears from a stereo amp?

I ask about this scenario because I might need my old amops for my recording studio at some point.

Man I really with Doc still offered some mono options. 

[TheMilford]

Also, a thought... If I buy a Kaiju kit... can I also buy a iron and parts for half a Kaiju? Could I theoretically just build up half a kit on a custom chassis for a single channel? What would would be the hurdles in doing this?

[kgoss]

You can strap either the Kaiju or Stereomour II into monoblocks if you need more power or just prefer monoblocks. I don’t personally have a pair configured that way but from everyone’s impressions I have read there is no loss in fidelity with the power increase.  PJ has designed very flexible amps!

[Paul Birkeland]

You can e-mail me at pb(aht)bottlehead(doht)com about the random single channel amp.

Doing a 300B monoblock with Kaiju iron would require a bit of a custom circuit, as the power transformer is designed for and expecting the draw from two channels.  There would be some sense to running one Kaiju for your rear channels, one Kaiju for the front channels, then bridging a Kaiju for the center channel.  The center in a home theater has a pretty high demand put upon it, so some extra power might be a good idea.

[Paul Joppa]

You can strap either the Kaiju or Stereomour II into monoblocks if you need more power or just prefer monoblocks. I don’t personally have a pair configured that way but from everyone’s impressions I have read there is no loss in fidelity with the power increase.  PJ has designed very flexible amps!

Just a note to say that the SEX amp can also be strapped to mono.

[Doc B.]

You could get an Oppo player like a BDP 103, or perhaps there is a 4K capable equivalent (I have not kept up with what's out there). That's what I use, with a Sony G70 running at 1080p. It has the analog outs you need for surround with our amps, and you can balance the channel levels. I also run a Roku box thru it for streaming, as the Oppo firmware is pretty clunky for that. And I'm with PJ on the center channel, you could simply strap a S.E.X. amp.