Budget SQ amp for Polk Monitor 40's and a question

[justblaze]

Hey guys,
I've been drooling over the emotiva equipment for the past couple days
because I'm on the hunt for an amp to power my Polk Monitor 40 Series 2's

I've been powering them for the week that I've had them with my 1980's Yamaha Natural Sound R-3. Problem is that all the controls on the reciever are staticky and have to be played with to become clear, I also don't think it has quite enough ass being rated at 35w RMS per channel.

I would love to get a XPA-5 but I can't justify a $900 amp for a pair of $125 speakers.

I've also been looking at recievers but haven't really been too impressed after reading a fair amount of review, especially on the $200-300 Pioneer's and Yamaha's.

The mini-x a-100 caught my eye as soon as I saw it but I'm not sure if 60w per channel would be enough to make the Polk's happy.

Lastly I have a question about my Polk's if anyone could help me. I swapped out my Yamaha temporarily for a RCA 2 channel reciever from upstairs because it seems like the left speaker is louder than my right. It's frustrating because I can notice the difference and the sound stage sounds like it's shifted to the left. Any advice on this problem would be much appreciated.


Sorry for the long drawn out post.
Any advice on my amp / reciever situation would be much
appreciated as well as the speaker imbalance situation.

Thanks in advance
-Justin

[jlafrenz]

I would suggest looking for a UPA-2 on the used market. You could pick one up for not much more than the mini-X. If you can stretch your budget, look for an older model called LPA-1. It is a 7 channel amp that goes for around $400 on the used market. Both would be good options depending on what you can afford.

[knucklehead]

You can cure the noisy controls on the Yamaha with some stuff called deoxit. works well and comes in several brands. I've used it on several pieces of old gear I have - makes them quiet down very nicely. If you are near a Radio Shack they might carry it. My local one doesn't but some do. Amazon also has it.

www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=deoxit&x=10&y=14