Bi-amping/unbalanced or Single/Balanced (1 Viewer)

[Bryan-M]

Which gives the most sonic benefits, passive bi-amping with a good amplifier or single amping with a better amplifier? More specifically, are there any advantages to bi-amping a system using two Marantz MM9000 amplifiers at 150 wpc/unbalanced as opposed to a single B&K 200.7 amplifier at 200 wpc/balanced? In MSRP terms, the B&K costs about $800 more than the two Marantz amps. I'm using Definitive Technology speakers (BP 30s/mains, CLR 2000/center and duel Supercube I/subs). The processor is the B&K Reference 50. I'd like to know what you think. I'm going to make the purchase next week.

Bryan-M

 

[JohnnyN]

Bryan,

I'm not sure what listening tests would say and while I'm no expert, I'm under the impression that passive bi-amping really does not provide that much benefit at all. The signals going into the amps are full range signals, so you are wasting a lot of work at the amplifiers so you are sending signals to the different speaker components that get sloped off anyhow. Also, I believe the different drivers and tweeters have different power requirements, with the drivers requiring more power than the tweeters, so I don't necessarily think that sending two parts of equal power to the highs and lows is necessary. So, unless you disable the passive crossover in the speaker and use an active crossover between your source and the amplifiers, then there really is only very marginal benefit to bi amping vs getting more total power to your speakers overall.

I'd be interested to hear what others here have to say as well, but you'll find plenty of info on the subject, just search google for "bi amping"

An article that suggest bi amping, but indicates that it's necessary to disable passive crossover network in the speaker

 

[Bryan-M]

JhonnyN

Thank you for the link/article on bi-amping. That site is awesome. I'm going to keep it in my favorites for future use.