My 2-Ch listenig w/wo Sub and Spks (woofers) in a bi-amping (passive) set-up?? (1 Viewer)

[Will Gatlin Jr]

Hello...

I feel that the best time to do some critical listening is late at night when everything (hustle/bussel) has been mellowed down. You'd be surprised at how good your rig will sound as to the afternoon when everyone is into something or another.

I've always been one to feel that a great dedicated sub will preform much better than the woofers in full range spks any day of the week and twice on Sunday's.

I bi-amp my NHT VT-2's in a passive set-up with 225 watts to the highs/mids ad 250 watts to the woofers. Late at night I play 2-ch w/o my sub, and when it's conveinent and I want to get down and dirty, I fire it up with y VT-2's.

Tonight I fired up the upper part of my VT-2's (mids/tweets) without the lower bass spks. I usually have my Velodyne xo at 40hz for the real low down (hardly ever there) stuff. This combo didn't do it for me. But once I upped the xo to 80hz, that's when my "NEW" 2-ch system took over. The bass notes from my HGS-18 took over my listening room where-as it didn't have to compete (problems??) with the woofers in my spks for all the space, because it took up all of it. The LF notes were more pronounced, sharper, fuller, and dynamic. I could feel the notes. The sub was able to hit those low notes with such force (even at low volumes) that the woofers in my spks couldn't do.

When I went back to the VT-2's w/o the sub playing, it was no-where near the same experience. The strange thing is that I didn't have to make any adjustments with my system. I listen to a lot of singing groups and the vocals in the mids opened up even more than before. Even at low volumes, the music was beautiful. I can't wait until later today, when I can open up this new combo and really hear "What's Going On" with different kinds of music.

With me using just the upper half (mids/tweets) and not using the bottom half (woofers) for 2-ch music (using sub), is any of my components in any danger from this set-up? Try it and hear the difference as I did. Any opiions? Thanks!!

 

[Martice]

The bass notes from my HGS-18 took over my listening room where-as it didn't have to compete (problems??) with the woofers in my spks for all the space, because it took up all of it. The LF notes were more pronounced, sharper, fuller, and dynamic. I could feel the notes. The sub was able to hit those low notes with such force (even at low volumes) that the woofers in my spks couldn't do.

Once I crossed over my Goldi's at a higher crossover freq, I knew that the performance was much better than even when I played the speakers full range w/wo the sub. I'm sure my room played a hand in the end result but I preferred my calibrated and eq'd sub handle the low stuff while my PSB's handled the bookshelf territory information(80hz+). I then said why don't I just purchase one hell of a bookshelf and get rid of the floorstanders? That's what I did and I received my GR Research AV1+'s Thursday and my preliminary findings are excitingly positive. (I'll withhold my exact findings while I get more aquainted with them)

 

[BruceD]

My experience with this combination, mains+sub in 2-channel has been a real experience.

I have taken a stereo Marchand electronic xover and inserted it in the pre-out path of my mains (very low noise floor component) with a very musical M&K MX-700 powered sub. Note, the Marchand xovers are 4th order L-R -24dB slope low-pass and high-pass.

I have played around with where the best xover frequency is for my mains which are 2-way towers with a passive radiator and a -3dB of 31Hz (Dynaudio Contour 2.8).

I found the best xover to be about an octave above the mains -3dB @60Hz. The mains' mid-range clarity was noticeably improved because of the reduction in IM distortion due to the mains' bass driver being relieved of the lower octaves. An 80Hz xover wasn't as good.

I further improved the smooth frequency response of this setup by inserting a Parametric EQ in the xover output path to the sub and reducing the bass peaks from my room nodes. Room is 19 x 13 x 12 = 3000 cu-ft.

So even with towers for mains, I found a sub improves the reproduction of 2-channel music for me, like clearly hearing a stand-up double-bass riff sequence with impact.

 

[Barry_B_B]

Hi,

I'm not bi-amping, but have been amazed at how my low-end system sounds on 2-channel music. I've been searching for affordable towers for my new apartment but now exploring a new sub/bookshelf combo as well.