How do I bi-amp Denon 4400h with external power amp?

[john20182050]

I have a 7.2 setup with KEF R11 as fronts. My receiver is Denon 4400h and the external power amp Parasound halo A21+.

How do I bi-amp Denon 4400h with an external power amp? Also is it worth doing this?

 

[lovinthehd]

I take it you're talking passive bi-amping rather than active (real) bi-amping? I'd not bother myself, just use the power amp. If that's not enough, get a more powerful amp is the conclusion of the article here at AH https://www.audioholics.com/frequent-questions/the-difference-between-biamping-vs-biwiring

 

[ryanosaur]

I have a 7.2 setup with KEF R11 as fronts. My receiver is Denon 4400h and the external power amp Parasound halo A21+.

How do I bi-amp Denon 4400h with an external power amp? Also is it worth doing this?

You would need multiple external Amps, preferably matching. It is not recommended to run the internal Denon Amp and an external... if that is what you are thinking.
While I am not a fan of passive bi-amping, some Speakers seem to benefit from it.
You would need to "Y" the Pre-Outs from the back of the Denon. You can send the Highs to one Amp and the Lows to the second Amp -OR- you can send the high and low for each Channel through one Amp.
If you choose to do this (Passive bi-amping), make certain you remove the jumpers between the High and Low Binding Posts.

 

[lovinthehd]

You would need multiple external Amps, preferably matching. It is not recommended to run the internal Denon Amp and an external... if that is what you are thinking.
While I am not a fan of passive bi-amping, some Speakers seem to benefit from it.
You would need to "Y" the Pre-Outs from the back of the Denon. You can send the Highs to one Amp and the Lows to the second Amp -OR- you can send the high and low for each Channel through one Amp.
If you choose to do this (Passive bi-amping), make certain you remove the jumpers between the High and Low Binding Posts.

How does "wye-ing" the pre-outs yield a separation of high and low frequencies? Let alone the avr separating them for bi-amp purposes at all?

 

[Verdinut]

While I am not a fan of passive bi-amping, some Speakers seem to benefit from it.

Passive bi-amping is useless. Just use a more powerful decent amp and the speaker will sound just as well and probably better.

 

[ryanosaur]

How does "wye-ing" the pre-outs yield a separation of high and low frequencies? Let alone the avr separating them for bi-amp purposes at all?

It's fcuking magic, man. Like biwiring, but with power amps. Dude.


I know you know the answer, Lovin'. But to humor the conversation...
The PASSIVE XO Circuit in the Speaker does the "Separation." The AVR and the Amp just send the full signal along each path.

 

[ryanosaur]

Passive bi-amping is useless. Just use a more powerful decent amp and the speaker will sound just as well and probably better.

Complete agreement.
As I said, I'm not a fan.

Get a good High Powered Amp, stable at 2 ohms, and you won't ever have a problem. Better still if you go MonoBlock style and give each Speaker their own Power Supply.

 

[lovinthehd]

It's fcuking magic, man. Like biwiring, but with power amps. Dude.


I know you know the answer, Lovin'. But to humor the conversation...
The PASSIVE XO Circuit in the Speaker does the "Separation." The AVR and the Amp just send the full signal along each path.

Just wanted you to spell it out Still, it's fake bi-amping

 

[ryanosaur]

By The Way...

We got ourselves a Bi-Amp thread...


DRINK!

The Official _/Unofficial/_ AH Drinking Game!

I've been joking about this for far, far too long. It started up as an idea in my head after AH was inundated with people buying lower-tier B&W Speakers and coming on the Forum to find out why they sounded like @$$ once they set them up in their home. :) After that, there were... other topics of...

forums.audioholics.com

 

[lovinthehd]

Oh yeah, got some Boneyard IPAs going for each post....or something like that

 

[j_garcia]

 

[Verdinut]

Yeah! I lost a friend that way. He had bought some speaker cable elevators. It's no use when a guy doesn't want to admit he was screwed.

He is one of those who are never satisfied with what they have, always replacing speakers and amplifiers.

 

[john20182050]

You would need multiple external Amps, preferably matching. It is not recommended to run the internal Denon Amp and an external... if that is what you are thinking.
While I am not a fan of passive bi-amping, some Speakers seem to benefit from it.
You would need to "Y" the Pre-Outs from the back of the Denon. You can send the Highs to one Amp and the Lows to the second Amp -OR- you can send the high and low for each Channel through one Amp.
If you choose to do this (Passive bi-amping), make certain you remove the jumpers between the High and Low Binding Posts.

what I thought is setting AVR to 7.1 bi-amp and using pre-out of AVR to Parasound and Parasound output to low-frequency connection in KEF and bi-amp out from AVR to connect to high frequency connection in KEF

 

[john20182050]

Passive bi-amping is useless. Just use a more powerful decent amp and the speaker will sound just as well and probably better.

Got it. Thanks. I was trying to do what this guy described in youtube but he didn't explain. what I thought is setting AVR to 7.1 bi-amp and using pre-out of AVR to Parasound and Parasound output to low-frequency connection in KEF and bi-amp out from AVR to connect to high frequency connection in KEF

 

[ryanosaur]

what I thought is setting AVR to 7.1 bi-amp and using pre-out of AVR to Parasound and Parasound output to low-frequency connection in KEF and bi-amp out from AVR to connect to high frequency connection in KEF

I advise completely against this. You need to use matching amps to do this successfully. Between the Parasound and the Denon you will have different things going on.

In absolute honesty, Passive Bi-Amping will not do anything that one single good Amp will do for you.

Run your Pre-out to the Amp, and connect your Amp to the Speakers in conventional manner. This is all you need to do. It is that simple.

 

[lovinthehd]

Got it. Thanks. I was trying to do what this guy described in youtube but he didn't explain. what I thought is setting AVR to 7.1 bi-amp and using pre-out of AVR to Parasound and Parasound output to low-frequency connection in KEF and bi-amp out from AVR to connect to high frequency connection in KEF

Curious what makes this youtuber particularly expert or worth following? I find most are useless....

 

[john20182050]

I advise completely against this. You need to use matching amps to do this successfully. Between the Parasound and the Denon you will have different things going on.

In absolute honesty, Passive Bi-Amping will not do anything that one single good Amp will do for you.

Run your Pre-out to the Amp, and connect your Amp to the Speakers in conventional manner. This is all you need to do. It is that simple.

Okay, got it. Thanks. One question, what should I set the gain level in Parasound halo A21+ and run the denon Audyssey setup? The Parasound halo A21+ manual doesn't say what gain level I should set by default. Also, I'm not sure whether I should run Audyssey setup first without worrying about the gain level Parasound or should I first gain level in Parasound first and then run Audyssey setup?

 

[ryanosaur]

Got it. Thanks. I was trying to do what this guy described in youtube but he didn't explain. what I thought is setting AVR to 7.1 bi-amp and using pre-out of AVR to Parasound and Parasound output to low-frequency connection in KEF and bi-amp out from AVR to connect to high frequency connection in KEF

Who the hell is this guy? Everybody wants to game the system and fool around. He's a schmuck. I made it 15 seconds before I turned that video off.
Blech.

 

[lovinthehd]

As to setting gain on external amp, can be a bit of an experiment but what are the output spec and input spec involved particularly? Don't make me look it up for you (and the avr pre-out spec could well be nominal rather than actual useful)

 

[Pandaman617]

My entire 7 channel bed layer is “bi amp and bi wire capable” in the passive sense. It literally makes no difference and everyone is absolutely correct that you would need identical power amps. Active bi-amping is quite different and would involve bypassing the internal crossover, however you would need in depth knowledge of the speaker driver and tweeters performance to choose a correct slope and frequency. That being said I got a great deal on a ton of 8TC cable and I don’t even bother with bi-wiring or passive bi-amping. If you read deeper into the subject you’ll find that no one in the industry has any empirical evidence that doing it in the passive manner yields cost efficient results when you could just get yourself an exponentially more powerful single amp and run them with the jumpers in place.