Any real benefits in going for a home cinema amp when watching older movies?

[CompleteCount]

Regardless of being in mono rather than having multi-channel mixes, running older films through an amp really adds to the experience. You might want to pick up a (comparatively) cheaper home cinema amp so as to not skimp on quality, so you'll be equipped for any kind audio experience which takes your fancy.

An amp and speakers really enriches mono soundtracks, with firmer lows and sweeter highs. Many just think that mono equals lower quality, but most were mixes designed to be as good as possible, and don't just reply on everything being largely lumped in with the midrange.

A rather obscure example of how potent a mono mix can be when put through an amp comes with the film The Colossus of New York. Sure, it's a low-budget "B"-movie from the 50s, but every time the Frankensteinian creation takes step, the bass really THUMPS!

Many amps/receivers allow selection of 2.0 mono to be either distributed evenly between front lef/front right or piped exclusively to the centre speaker, for more localised placement. The various settings on the average amp will usually tailor the output to match your speaker array, or how to you want it output.

[romain]

Originally Posted by CompleteCount

Regardless of being in mono rather than having multi-channel mixes, running older films through an amp really adds to the experience. You might want to pick up a (comparatively) cheaper home cinema amp so as to not skimp on quality, so you'll be equipped for any kind audio experience which takes your fancy.

An amp and speakers really enriches mono soundtracks, with firmer lows and sweeter highs. Many just think that mono equals lower quality, but most were mixes designed to be as good as possible, and don't just reply on everything being largely lumped in with the midrange.
An amp and speakers really enriches mono soundtracks, with firmer lows and sweeter highs. Many just think that mono equals lower quality, but most were mixes designed to be as good as possible, and don't just reply on everything being largely lumped in with the midrange.

A rather obscure example of how potent a mono mix can be when put through an amp comes with the film The Colossus of New York. Sure, it's a low-budget "B"-movie from the 50s, but every time the Frankensteinian creation takes step, the bass really THUMPS!

Thanks for the reply. My question was not really amp or no amp but rather home cinema amp v. audio amp.

The bass will be thumping just as much with an audio amp two speakers and a subwoofer.

Originally Posted by CompleteCount

amps/receivers allow selection of 2.0 mono to be either distributed evenly between front lef/front right or piped exclusively to the centre speaker, for more localised placement. The various settings on the average amp will usually tailor the output to match your speaker array, or how to you want it output.

I see. So in that case having satellites would be rather pointless. I still struggle to see the benefit of having mono delivered to a central speaker rather than two column speakers with a good sound stage.

[CompleteCount]

Originally Posted by romain

So in that case having satellites would be rather pointless. I still struggle to see the benefit of having mono delivered to a central speaker rather than two column speakers with a good sound stage.

It all depends on the quality of you centre speaker. I have always picked really good ones so as to have uniform sound on multichannel audio, but a fringe benefit is that they also function as a really good single speaker for mono sound, encompassing full bandwidth. And of course, any decent home cinema amp/receiver will allow you to channel the low frequencies to a subwoofer to handle the bass.

Having a 2.0 signal split passed to front left/front right annoys the hell out of them, as they prefer the sound locked firmly to the centre of the image, without it sounding one-sided depending on where they are sitting. It's all personal preference,