Bi-Amping & Loudspeakers

[brushro]

Hello-I have a question in regards to multichannel amps & bi-wirable loudspeaker's.
I have a Sherbourn 125w x 7 channel amp & Axiom Audio bi-wireable M-80Ti speakers...I am only using 3 of the amps outputs for L/R & C channels.
Could anything bad (damaging) happen to either L & R speaker (or the amp) if I drove both high & low frequency inputs to each L & R speaker from different amp outputs...what might I be able to expect for sound quality or change.
Does this experiment change or effect the speaker crossovers?
Are there certain speaker's manufactured for this type of operation in mind?
Thanx!

 

[OttoMatic]

Yeah, don't biamp both speaker inputs at the same time without removing the jumpers between them. As long as you remove the jumpers, biamping will be fine.

I doubt you'll hear an appreciable difference when biamping, but it won't hurt to try it out, and you may learn something new in the process. It's only going to cost you a little for the extra speaker cable.

Good luck!

PS -- If you search this forum for "biamping" or "biwiring" you will get an idea of the sentiment that this topic will generate.

 

[haraldo]

If you biamp, generally it would be a good idea to use identical amplifiers, if you have different amp's you may get a difference in the signature of the sound from the different drivers...
Well, I guess there are no rules, whatever works for you is good, but I actually believe biamping is a good idea .....
Next step could be to remove the passive crossover in the speakers and replace it with an active digital or analog crossover, that's not going to be expensive because you already got the most expensive parts already (amplifiers)........
Warranty on speakers, nonexistent once you get to that point, but It could prove to be great fun......

You would probably get even more dynamics and more transparency from the speakers when you remove the passive X-over
Actually I believe the greatest benefits come from utilizing speakers with no passive crossovers.... There's a lot of physical theories why this may be better..... I guess I'm answering something you never asked for

 

[fmw]

If you biamp, generally it would be a good idea to use identical amplifiers, if you have different amp's you may get a difference in the signature of the sound from the different drivers...

Why do you say that? What is a signature?

You would probably get even more dynamics and more transparency from the speakers when you remove the passive X-over

I don't think so. You would achieve greater isolation between the drivers and an adjustable crossover but I couldn't guess what that would have to do with "dynamics" or "transparency" whatever those things are.

Actually I believe the greatest benefits come from utilizing speakers with no passive crossovers.... There's a lot of physical theories why this may be better..... I guess I'm answering something you never asked for

Actually it is the only way to get a benefit from bi-amplification assuming that the purpose is not just to add more power. You can add more power by getting a more powerful amplifier.

 

[edmcanuck]

I believe that you're asking if you can use the SL, SR, and a Rear channel amp output for bi-amping the FR and FL speakers. The answer, of course, would be no... the amp needs to be outputting front-signals.

 

[TLS Guy]

If you biamp, generally it would be a good idea to use identical amplifiers, if you have different amp's you may get a difference in the signature of the sound from the different drivers...
Well, I guess there are no rules, whatever works for you is good, but I actually believe biamping is a good idea .....
Next step could be to remove the passive crossover in the speakers and replace it with an active digital or analog crossover, that's not going to be expensive because you already got the most expensive parts already (amplifiers)........
Warranty on speakers, nonexistent once you get to that point, but It could prove to be great fun......

You would probably get even more dynamics and more transparency from the speakers when you remove the passive X-over
Actually I believe the greatest benefits come from utilizing speakers with no passive crossovers.... There's a lot of physical theories why this may be better..... I guess I'm answering something you never asked for

Bad advice. Unless the owner can design and build an active electronic crossover to the exact characteristics of the passive one, results will be worse, a lot worse. As see this advice again and again, and not just here. Doing what you suggest would be little different than taking out a carefully designed crossover and replacing it with a generic one from parts express.

 

[haraldo]

Bad advice. Unless the owner can design and build an active electronic crossover to the exact characteristics of the passive one, results will be worse, a lot worse. As see this advice again and again, and not just here. Doing what you suggest would be little different than taking out a carefully designed crossover and replacing it with a generic one from parts express.

Never claimed this to be easy, I agree that you would be into very deep water by doing such a thing, but with the right tools like a Lyngdorf with Room perfect and DSP based crossovers or deqx with room correction and DSP based crossovers, this could be achievable, but not with any speaker, and yes.... This is difficult, but why always pick the easy ways.....

I have a friend who dismantled a professional speaker and replaced the passive crossover with a Behringer Ultracurve, and added a raven ribbon tweeter..... The results.... Fantastic improvements.... But he's a professional sound engineer and really knows what he's doing....

 

[TLS Guy]

Never claimed this to be easy, I agree that you would be into very deep water by doing such a thing, but with the right tools like a Lyngdorf with Room perfect and DSP based crossovers or deqx with room correction and DSP based crossovers, this could be achievable, but not with any speaker, and yes.... This is difficult, but why always pick the easy ways.....

I have a friend who dismantled a professional speaker and replaced the passive crossover with a Behringer Ultracurve, and added a raven ribbon tweeter..... The results.... Fantastic improvements.... But he's a professional sound engineer and really knows what he's doing....

The problem with your post was that it made it look straightforward. We have a huge range in members knowledge of technical matters. Someone might have done what you said with an active crossover bought on the net. That would have been a bad and expensive mistake.

This makes posting here on technical matters very difficult. I personally find it a huge challenge, and even with care, and I do try and take care, the possibilities for misunderstanding are legion.

Now I think for a lot of reasons, it would be a tougher nut to crack than even your last post suggests. Personally I would not go to the trouble, and start from scratch.

While we are on it there the need to biamp in any form at the tweeter level I believe to be non existent, and might even lead to worse results.

I think passive crossovers in the range of usual handover to tweeters actually work well and have a lot of practical advantages. In my rig I use a combination of active and passive crossovers. Seven passive crossovers and
six active crossovers. For the actives I usually take an existing crossover and modify it to the task at hand.

Sometimes like in the rig in our town home in GF I have one made from scratch. These kinds of projects are for the very experienced members.

 

[haraldo]

The problem with your post was that it made it look straightforward.

Thanks for the reminder, I will be more careful in the future

 

[fmw]

Bad advice. Unless the owner can design and build an active electronic crossover to the exact characteristics of the passive one, results will be worse, a lot worse. As see this advice again and again, and not just here. Doing what you suggest would be little different than taking out a carefully designed crossover and replacing it with a generic one from parts express.

The active crossovers are adjustable. You can adjust them to be electrically or sonically exactly like the passive ones. But they provide way, way better isolation between the drivers and are way, way more efficient. In other words using an active crossover is an improvement. Wasn't it you who said crossovers are necessary evils?

 

[haraldo]

The active crossovers are adjustable. You can adjust them to be electrically or sonically exactly like the passive ones. But they provide way, way better isolation between the drivers and are way, way more efficient. In other words using an active crossover is an improvement. Wasn't it you who said crossovers are necessary evils?

And the passive components in the X-over provide for losses, no matter how you put it, even if they are small, it will be audible....
By going fully active this is eliminated....

 

[TLS Guy]

The active crossovers are adjustable. You can adjust them to be electrically or sonically exactly like the passive ones. But they provide way, way better isolation between the drivers and are way, way more efficient. In other words using an active crossover is an improvement. Wasn't it you who said crossovers are necessary evils?

Tue, but electronic crossovers have most of the same evils. The main advantages are less amp inter modulation distortion, a mute point with modern amps, and better coupling of amp to speaker. However the evils if time shift and phase shift are the same. So there is no difference in the worst evils.

You can't adjust an active crossover usually, that is generic, to replace a custom crossover. The reason being the response has to be the inverse of the driver roll offs. Often this requires changing orders, like starting second order and then changing to first order roll off for instance. Also driver break up peaks often have to be dealt with by notching, especially those just above the pass band of the woofer, in the roll off zone. These are just some of the issues. This can all be done active, but it means a custom design. The problems to be solved are the same, passive or active.

Now as digital filters come of age this will change the situation drastically. I think eventually you will see filters and amps custom designed for the drivers used.