Bi-amping with 200wpc bottom, 125wpc top?? (1 Viewer)

[Alan Pummill]

Question...

Is it feasible to bi-amp speakers using this configuration? I currently have Paradigm Monitor 7 as my main speakers, but I am an inch away from upgrading to either Wharfedale EVO-40 or Magnepan MG1.6 QR. Both of these speakers are 2-way.

The amps in question are a Rotel RB-990BX (2 x 200wpc) and a Carver AV-705x (5 x 125wpc). Thanks for you help!!

 

[John S]

Oh yeah baby.. I'd love to hear it when your done....

I am curious as to how to get all the channels bi-amp'd though.

Do you buy like 4 stereo electronic crossovers or what?
That would give you 8 channels of bi-amp at least.

 

[Erik Farstad]

Alan, I bi-amp my Martin Logan SL3's: The panels are powered by my Musical Fidelity A3cr (120x2) amp and the bass modules are powered by 2 channels of my AMC (150x5) amp...works like a charm and sounds oh so sweet! You should have no problems, and I'd have your larger/more powerful amp running the bass section of the speakers.

E

 

[Brett DiMichele]

I was running my AR9's BiAmped using an Onkyo M282 110Watt
RMSx2 for the dual 10's and 20 watt Push/Pull Tube Monoblocks
for the Mids and Tweeters.

I am not bi amping at the moment since I built a dedicated
sub. But when my new Line Array's are complete I am going
to drive the 24 7" Midranges with my M282 and the 24 Planar
Ribbon Tweeters with the Tube Monoblocks.

And later I am switching over to a fully active crossover
and BiAmp.

 

[John S]

After my HDTV upgrade, over the next year, I may attempt to aquire eveyrthing needed for real electronic crossover bi-amping.

That has to be the ultimate HT and music setup indeed.

 

[WillieM]

When bi-amping the speakers, the only real concideration is if the two amps have a similar gain. if one is too much different than the other, as the pre-amp signal increases, one amp will deliver power at a greater rate than the other. This may or may not be evident, depending on the difference in gain.

On the subject of bi-amping using external electronic crossovers; It is absolutely the best way to utilize amplifier power, but you have to disconnect the passive crossover system inside the speakers for any effect, thus voiding any warranty on your speakers.

 

[DavidLW]

I'm confuse as to what you are bi-amping. Are you using one amp for the tweeter and another one for the woofer? Or are you using one for the main and another for the subs? It really doesn't make sense to bi-amp a tweeter as they take very little power to drive (unless you have an array of them or a ribbon like the Maggies). Some audiophiles
bi-amp using a 25w to 50w tube amp for the tweeter because of the "sweeter" sound offer by tubes. Or they would use a tube amp for the mids and highs and a more powerful transistor amp for the lows. Other than that, there's really no advantage to having the Carver drive your tweeter and the Rotel drive your woofer. Unless your Carver offers you a certain quality in the high end (that the Rotel doesn't) and not enough low end extension.

By the way, how are you crossing over the amps. If you use the internal speaker crossover (or a crossover after the amp) then you are still sending the full signal to each amp. The better way of course is to have a crossover after the pre-amp and before the amps so that each amp only has to deal with the frequencies it's outputing. This is a big advantage as it takes a load off the amps and may improve the quality of the sound. Otherwise each amp is still processing and outputing all the frequencies as though it it's driving the whole speaker and thus any benifit of bi-amping may be loss.

True bi-amping is when you use two amps to drive a speaker to play it's full range. Adding a subwoofer to a full range speaker is not bi-amping because the subwoofer is a separate speaker. Using two amps to drive a Maggie is
bi-amping, because the Maggie with it's ribbon section is still consider one speaker. Bi-amping benifit music listening the most. The best improvement, for the bucks, that you can make for HT is to add a power subwoofer (or two).

Right now (for music) I'm driving my Martin Logans CLS2z's with a 200wpc Counterpoint amp and have Entec subs. My amp and CLS's are benifiting from the fact that I'm cutting off all frequencies below 100hz to them with an electronic/passive crossover and my Entec's only receives frequencies of 100hz and below. But it's not bi-amping because I'm still only using one amp to drive my full range CLS's.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

David,

In my case what I was doing was using 20 watts from my
Tube Mono's to drive my M-T-M (Dual 5.25" Mids and 1" Ti
Tweeter) and the other amp 110wpc to drive the 10" Bass
Reflex Subs and in my case yes this is Bi Amping because
everything is integrated into one cabinet and everything is
passive even the "low frequency" drivers and the regions of
the XO Networks.

But you are correct that Bi Amping with a passive XO network
is not the "ideal" way to go.. That is why when my Line
Array's are done I am going to run external Passive Networks
for the time being and then I can simply "unplug" the Passive
Network boxes from the back of my Array's leaving me with
2 sets of Binding Posts on the cabinets that lead directly
to each set of drivers (one set goes to 12 7" Mids the other
set goes to 12 Planar Ribbons). All I have to do at that
point is to jack in with an Active Network (DBX DriveRack
in all likelyhood) and they are now active.

But either route they will be BiAmped with the Tube Mono's
supplying the power for the Ribbons and the S.S Amp driving
the Midranges.

 

[Alan Pummill]

Thanks for all the help. So it would benefit the maggies....??

My local Paradigm dealer is trying to get me to buy a Studio 60 set-up. The only trouble is that all they have in the store are Studio 100s. I don't think I need the lower end of the Studio 100s along with my PW-2200 sub.

One of the reasons I've sold all of my Monitor series speakers is because they lack detail and sound sort of shrill at the top end when played loudly. I wonder if the Studios are better in these areas??

BTW, when I added the Rotel for the Monitor 7s, I did notice that the shrillness was reduced somewhat over the Carver sound. Is the Rotel a "warmer" amp then the Carver??

 

[John S]

If I do it, I will bi-amp the mids and highs, and driving the woofs with a different amp. In addition to my 15" Velodyne sub.

The gain staging can be tricky, but usually using a much less powerfull amp for the mid/tweets or or just tweets compensates for this nicely.

And I am way out of warranty on my s38's, they are 3 way w/8" woofs. I don't know if I will ever really do this or not.


I would love to be able to have a demo of such a system though.

Electronically cross over'd tweets and mids, just have that extra high end sparkle from my experiences. Let alone the punch it would give the woofs. I am talking woofers here, of 8", not the 4" woof/mids a fair amount of people use.

But if you only have like 4" low/mid drivers and a tweet in a two way speaker, it probably makes less sense to try.