Bi-amping?

[mtrycrafts]

It seems we lost the OP. I'm guessing that he saw 'bi-amping' mentioned in the owner's manual of his AVR and was curious what it was about. All the subsequent discussion chased him away.

As an interesting aside, Salk has introduced a new small 2-way speaker that is fully active with digital crossover and 2 built-in amps: http://www.salksound.com/powerplaymonitor-home.htm.

At $2195 per pair they aren't cheap. But they can accept digital (S/PDIF or USB) or analog inputs, and have sub woofer outputs. They don't require separate amps, preamp or DAC.

Here's a better web page describing these speakers: http://landing.salksound.com/powerplay.html

It looks to me like Salk is testing the waters with this model. If it is successful, I would expect more to follow.

That's great. The industry is slowly catching the drift of things to come.
I like this in that "Benefit" para:
And studies have shown that the flatter the response, the higher the perceived sound quality
ps, their spelling corrected

pps just wondering how loud it will play; can it do 105 dB spl?

 

[MR.MAGOO]

Unless I wired it up wrong, I lost the ability for Zone2 on my Yamaha RX-A1020 when I bi-amped my main speakers. Perhaps will change it back and start over.

 

[KenM10759]

That's not unusual. The feed for bi-amping has to come from somewhere.

 

[herbu]

I lost the ability for Zone2 on my Yamaha RX-A1020 when I bi-amped my main speakers.

Your Yamaha is a 7.1 receiver... meaning it can amplify 7 speakers. 5 speakers, (for a 5.0 or 5.1 system), are hard wired. Meaning they are not configurable. They are permanently assigned to Left, Center, Right, Left Surround and Right Surround.

Your last 2 channels are configurable. It means you can assign them for different uses. Its connection on back of your unit looks like this:

You can see it's even called "Extra Speakers", and your choices are Zone 2, or Front Presence, or Bi-amp.

Your AVR also has a dedicated Zone 2 output, but it's a pre out... meaning it is not amplified. You cannot run it directly to speakers. You need to run it to an amp, then from the amp to the speakers. Your Zone 2 pre out looks like this:

And there are additional pre outs right next to this so you can have a whole surround Zone 2 if you want.

So you can run a 5.1 system with the Front Left/Right speakers bi-amp'd, but then you'll have to use your pre outs, (along with another amp), for your Zone 2. Whichever you chose, you'll have to go into Settings on your Yamaha and tell it how you want it to assign the "Extra Speakers".

 

[highfigh]

I always wonder how good all those enthusiast are relative to big name speaker designers, I would think there are always some top notch ones (TLS could be one, and has the test gear) but not sure about the majority of them. One advantage they have though is, they control how much they want to spend on components, whereas the design team of speaker manufacturers have to take order from their production and sales bosses.

What's the difference between production and sales bosses and a personal budget, other than the actual numbers? Not much really, other than the fact that a DIY builder may not consider resale or taking the end results to market and needing to find a way to make a profit. If quality is the goal, self-design of the drivers is a huge benefit for the manufacturer, or they can work with the driver manufacturer to tailor them to the application as long as they'll be buying large enough quantities. In either case, choosing the best available will yield better results than compromising because of budget limitations. If the growing number of speaker designs that are shown on the internet is any indication, I have to think that someone is coming up with something different and in some cases better.

I wouldn't discount the possibility that someone is marketing a new design that's based on an accidental combination of elements, either. It's easy to reproduce, but not to explain why it happened and that's where the recent availability of calibrated mics, design/modeling software and wider general knowledge of the parameters & their importance come in. Used to be "Grab a handful of drivers, slap them in a box, use some vague rule of thumb for making the crossover and if necessary, change a few things before calling it 'good' " when someone built speakers. Now, we see people designing some really good speakers and other equipment as a hobby.

I think it would be interesting to see a speaker shootout- base the groups by size so they can be matched to the proper room size and get the better/best commercial guys in there with hobbyists. It would probably be a real eye-opener for a lot of people.

 

[highfigh]

That's great. The industry is slowly catching the drift of things to come.
I like this in that "Benefit" para:
And studies have shown that the flatter the response, the higher the perceived sound quality
ps, their spelling corrected

pps just wondering how loud it will play; can it do 105 dB spl?

I think the industry decided that selling preamps would bore their customers when larger numbers make something seem like it's better than the others. No power spec race? Never! The fact that pro audio has used it for so long never made much difference to customers.

If the drivers provide 88dB or better @1W, I would think so- the passive crossover after the amp causes insertion loss, so an active crossover with unity gain through a 50W amplifier should be able to hit 105, provided that the driver can actually do it without thermal compression.

 

[MR.MAGOO]

Your Yamaha is a 7.1 receiver... meaning it can amplify 7 speakers. 5 speakers, (for a 5.0 or 5.1 system), are hard wired. Meaning they are not configurable. They are permanently assigned to Left, Center, Right, Left Surround and Right Surround.

Your last 2 channels are configurable. It means you can assign them for different uses. Its connection on back of your unit looks like this:
View attachment 17562
You can see it's even called "Extra Speakers", and your choices are Zone 2, or Front Presence, or Bi-amp.

Your AVR also has a dedicated Zone 2 output, but it's a pre out... meaning it is not amplified. You cannot run it directly to speakers. You need to run it to an amp, then from the amp to the speakers. Your Zone 2 pre out looks like this:
View attachment 17563
And there are additional pre outs right next to this so you can have a whole surround Zone 2 if you want.

So you can run a 5.1 system with the Front Left/Right speakers bi-amp'd, but then you'll have to use your pre outs, (along with another amp), for your Zone 2. Whichever you chose, you'll have to go into Settings on your Yamaha and tell it how you want it to assign the "Extra Speakers".

I'm using my pre out to another amp to power rear speakers for 7.1 surround. So I can go back to 5.1, with front mains bi-amped, and use the pre out as Zone 2 in another room?

 

[KenM10759]

You would be far better off using the pre-outs from front mains and amplifying those. The rears don't use but a few watts.

 

[fmw]

It would also be better to disengage the passive biamplification. It adds complexity to the system without any benefit.

 

[PENG]

What's the difference between production and sales bosses and a personal budget, other than the actual numbers?

If you can't see the difference then there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise, so just take that as my own opinion and everyone has their own.