Bi-Amping? (1 Viewer)

[Mark Madden]

I’m thinking about buying a Rotel 1066 six channel amp and bi-amping the front three channels of my HT setup (a pair of Paradigm Reference Studio 40’s and a Studio CC center). Does this make sense to do?

Also, it’s just now occurring to me… if I bi-amp the speakers, than adjustment to the input level controls will effect the bass / treble of the sound, perhaps in an unnatural way, right? I mean, you don’t add more highs by simply throwing extra juice to the tweeter? Maybe I’m better off buying a straight three channel amp? Am I getting ahead of myself here?

 

[Greg_R]

Just because a speaker has dual binding posts don't feel obligated to to biamp/biwire. Personally, I would upgrade the speakers before spending all this $$$ on amplification (bang/buck). BTW, I own/use Studio 40s so I understand how good they sound .

 

[Dzung Pham]

What you're looking into doing is called passive biamping. Active biamping is biamping with an active crossover before the amplifier. Passive biamping basically just increases the power to your speaker. Active biamping has the added benefit of substantially reducing the load to each amplifier as well. So in your case, you could probably get a three channel amplifier with a higher power rating in each channel to get the same effect. If your center channel doesn't need the extra power, you could just get a 5 channel amp and bi-amp the mains but not the center. Don't forget that some extra cables will be required to biamp, possibly including y-adapters if your pre/pro doesn't have multiple outputs for each channel.

To biamp you will need to split the output from your preamplifier to each amplifier input. Tone settings will affect the outputs identically so there should be no problems on that front.

 

[Mark Madden]

Yeah, I love 'em too, but right now i have them hooked up to an inexpensive Kenwood reciever (and i still think they sound great). I gotta get into a real amp. What are you using to drive the 40's?

 

[Mark Madden]

dzung, thanks for the input. i wasn't referring to tone controls, however, but rather to the gain/level inputs of the different applifier channels that seperatley power the tweeter and woofers (i think). how do i adjust these so the tweeter get the right amount of juice?

 

[Dzung Pham]

In order to keep it balanced, you should set them to be exactly the same.