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Rockets, Swans Bi-ampable? (1 Viewer)

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I'm deciding to get either the Swans or Rockets. Before I decide on either, I would like to know if Rockets can be bi-wired or bi-amp. Same for the Swans.

thanks,
 

John Garcia

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Not sure about the Reference, but a 30 second trip to their website shows the Rockets are not because they only have one set of terminals.
 
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Rockets :thumbsdown: for not having the ability to bi-wire and bi-amp.

Swans :emoji_thumbsup: for having that ability. I guess i'm going with Swans;)
thanks
 

Rob Kramer

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In defense of the Rockets, they have a very complex crossover, in which the drivers are interlinked in some form of non-linear array (or something like that). I would guess that the crossover doesnt lend itself into separating the drivers into individual circuits. This would only be a "con" if you have an under-powered amp (however, most of us do).
 

Alex Prosak

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Correct, the crossover on the Rockets does not lend itself to biamping. FWIW their Ref 2 and Ref 3 speakers can be biwired but their probably out of your price range based on what you're currently looking at.

They are both fine speakers. My suggestion is to try and audition both and let your ears decide, not the connection on the back.
 

John Garcia

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IMO, unless you actually have separate amp channels for each driver, bi-wiring isn't going to be a huge improvement anyway.
 

Mark LS

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Nice decision... fine product... very nice company...

One question...

Are you speaking of having the ability to bi-wire, or bi-amp...

Thanks for your time...

All the best...

mls
 

Jon Lane

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As with perhaps 85% of the speaker product in the US, no they're not. They're made to US spec offshore...
 

Russell _T

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Bi-wiring was a useless trend that fortunately passed several years ago, and never produced any sonic improvement. Most speaker companies have dropped the practice because even they couldn't argue the merits. Bi-amping if done properly may or may not lead to improved sound, but it is more complex than it may seem on the surface, and is best left to very serious tweekers who know what they are doing.
I wouldn't buy a pair of speakers on their ability to be bi-wired alone. The design and engineering behind each company is telling as to the implementation of the sonic signature and quality of sound produced by that particular speaker.
I have a pair of Swan 6.1's and a pair of Rocket 750's sitting side by side, and they are very different animals.
 

Terry St

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Bi-amping is good for getting more power out of weaker amps, but probably won't produce any audible benefits unless you use active crossovers and make sure that the internal crossovers of the speaker are defeated. (Just because a speaker has two sets of binding posts does not mean there aren't further connections inside which render them cosmetic.) I have no idea what the internal wiring of the Swans are like, so you have homework to do. If you wanted to put the work in, you could bypass the rockets internal crossovers with a little rewiring, but the external crossover network would be quite a complicated build.
 
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Terry St, I'm not that savvy to try to do something like that. I do have weaker amps and want to do 7.1 setup...which ever speakers I end up...I'll prob just buy a dedicated amp for the fronts so I'll under power them. You guys are probably right...maybe bi-amping is not too big of a deal....maybe I should start a new thread asking folks if anyone tried to bi-amp the Swans and have any improvement/success..etc.
 

John Garcia

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Biamping without active x-overs is still a big benefit because you are effectively increasing the available power to each driver at all times. The improvement will come in detail, clarity and SPL, and would not require rewiring anything. IMO, using anything but the x-over designed for a speaker will result in unpredictable results.
 

Stephen Hopkins

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Non-active bi-amping DOES NOT increase the power to each driver. The crossover for each driver still filters information outside of the crossover's frequency range and in turn filters the power driving the frequencies outside the crossovers frequency range.

Here's a slightly over-simplified example...

If you feed a speaker a single input of 100 watts the crossover filters it and sends 10 watts to the tweeter and 90 watts to the mid/woofer. If you feed the same speaker 100 watts to the tweeter and 100 watts to the mid/woofer then the tweeter crossover filters the frequencies below it's range and still sends the tweeter only 10 watts of power. The mid/woofer crossover filters frequencies above it's range and sends the mid/woofer only 90 watts.

As you see, given the same power in a mono-amper and bi-amped situation yeilds the same amount of power to the drivers. There's more going on with amp/crossover/driver interaction than this but the basics still hold.
 

Jon Lane

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Stephen is correct: In short, the crossovers dictate the power division per driver.

As far as bi-wiring goes, in the case of all parallel crossover networks, which probably account for over 90% of all passive crossovers, the multiple amplifier connection is theoretically superior to the single amplifier connection. Multiple parallel connections ground each respective circuit (tweeter, midrange, woofer, etc.) at the amplifier terminals. Electrically speaking, this is a bit more elegant. Highly complex or non-parallel crossovers cannot be bi-wired (or easily bi-amped).

Whether or not you can hear a difference in bi-wiring is an entirely different discussion...one I'm going to stay out of. :D

Concerning bi-amping, this is a technique that when done in the classic, preferred way (with each driver circuit driven with it's own amplifier and using no passive crossovers) literally replaces the passive crossovers inside the speaker with an active crossover upstream of the individual amplifiers. Since the passive crossovers designed into the speakers originally include extensive equalization and contouring in addition to their band-filtering chores, replicating these complex functions in the active stages preceding the individual amps is no easy task.
 

John Garcia

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Understood, but that division is still based on the power present, so each driver is, in effect, getting more power. Each driver may not be getting the full rated power of the amp driving it, but it does now have all the headroom it wants; probably more than it needs, depending on the driver/x-over. Feeding a speaker with a single channel of 100w vs 200w or 100w to each driver, is still an increase in power and that was my point (I'm assuming monoblocks). Yes, two 50w feeds vs a single 100w feed would yeild essentially the same results, though the availability of current is now slightly greater (again, monoblocks) due to a dedicated power supply & cap(s) per driver. Correct me if I'm mistaken.
 

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