ok i got a few questions for any of the audio boffs out there. whats the differenc between all of these sperate pieces of hardware adn whats necessary for what job (i.e. could i use all 3 in my bedrrom or would i loose a wall off my house) any info appreciated. ta.

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Well sounds like you are talking about car audio in the title there. For home stereo, a "receiver" is an amp and a preamp in one...it controls the output of the music and amplifies it. Then for speakers you usually have two choices...1) go for 2 large stereo speakers just for music or 2) go for a surround speaker setup for movies. The first choice you'll want to get a couple of large (bout 3ft) speakers...they'll have a tweeter (high frequency sounds), midrange (mid frequency sounds), and subwoofer (low frequency sounds) built in. The cost for this really depends on what you are willing to spend...you can spend from $120 each speaker to thousands for each. The second choice is to go for surround speakers. Then you'll have 2 front speakers, 2 rear speakers, center channel, and subwoofer. This is decent for music but mainly for movies, I'm assuming you are going more for music so I would go with just the two speakers and receiver.

Hope this helps

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Originally posted by DJ NEILSON ok i got a few questions for any of the audio boffs out there. whats the differenc between all of these sperate pieces of hardware adn whats necessary for what job (i.e. could i use all 3 in my bedrrom or would i loose a wall off my house) any info appreciated. ta.

When considering stereo music only, a preamp is a device that takes in an audio signal (from a cd player for example) at line level, let's you adjust the volume, then sends the modified (attenuated) signal through it's preouts. The signal from the preout is then sent to an amplifier, which amplifies the signal and powers your speakers. There is no way to connect speakers directly to a preamp, you must have an amplifier.

In the world of home theater, a preamp is also known as a preprocessor because it performs more than just volume adjustments; it performs sound processing (Dolby Digital/DTS decoding, Dolby Prologic I/II processing, and also simulating JAZZ, CLUB, ROCK, etc environments as well as bass management, time delays...).

If you put together a stereo preamp and amplifier in one box, you have an integrated amplifier. If you then add a radio tuner to the integrated amp, you have a stereo receiver. Moving right along, throw in sound processing (DD/DTS, etc) and additional channels of amplification to the stereo receiver, then you have a multichannel home theater receiver.

a subwoofer is a bass factory.