Should I Bi-amp?

[cwall99]

I was pretty certain that my AVR doesn't have an active crossover for the main speakers (but, like you said, there is one for the subwoofer).

I just thought I'd axe to hear what people who know this stuff more deeply than I do would say.

So, if I want to do true bi-amping, I'd need to get seven channels of external amplifiers in whatever configuration makes the most sense, the external active crossovers, and use my receiver as the pre/pro.

Yeah, I'm thinking the wife ain't gonna go for that. We have other things to spend our money on. Food. House payment. Gas.

Sheesh.

 

[walter duque]

I was pretty certain that my AVR doesn't have an active crossover for the main speakers (but, like you said, there is one for the subwoofer).

I just thought I'd axe to hear what people who know this stuff more deeply than I do would say.

So, if I want to do true bi-amping, I'd need to get seven channels of external amplifiers in whatever configuration makes the most sense, the external active crossovers, and use my receiver as the pre/pro.

Yeah, I'm thinking the wife ain't gonna go for that. We have other things to spend our money on. Food. House payment. Gas.

Sheesh.

For 7.1 you would need 14 channels if you bi-amp all 7 speakers. I would say save your money.

 

[cwall99]

Good point. If I were to do it, though, only three of my speakers can be bi-amped, so 6 amps for that (6 monoblocks???) and a stereo pair for the surrounds.

It'd look pretty cool having a massive stack of amps, though.

Wonder if I could heat my family room in the winter just by playing loud music or loud movies.

 

[TLS Guy]

Good point. If I were to do it, though, only three of my speakers can be bi-amped, so 6 amps for that (6 monoblocks???) and a stereo pair for the surrounds.

It'd look pretty cool having a massive stack of amps, though.

Wonder if I could heat my family room in the winter just by playing loud music or loud movies.

You have not understood my post. When you remove the straps from your speaker terminals, the top terminals connect to your high pass filter which just supplies the tweeter, which I believe in your speakers is crossed over at 4 KHz. At those frequencies your tweeter will take less than a watt of power. So if you biamped with your receiver your would add at the most two watts of power!

Take a look at this crossover circuit. This is for a 2.5 way speaker like yours, but a different circuit for different drivers.

Now if you passively biamped the speaker when you remove the straps, you break the connection between C1 and the positive terminal of the lower terminal block. The upper positive terminal would the connect to C1.

Likewise the lower negative terminal connection is broken to L1 and the upper negative terminal connects to L1.

So using you receiver to passively biamp those speakers is not even worth the cost of the wire.

Now if you wanted to use an active crossover, you would actually require three amps per speaker, (three, 2 channel amps). The internal passive crossovers would be removed. The active crossovers would be connected to the amps inputs, and the amps directly connected to the correct drivers.

The active crossover would require the same electrical slopes and cut offs as the passive crossovers they replaced.

I hope you understand now, and anyone else thinking about biamping.

 

[lsiberian]

You have not understood my post. When you remove the straps from your speaker terminals, the top terminals connect to your high pass filter which just supplies the tweeter, which I believe in your speakers is crossed over at 4 KHz. At those frequencies your tweeter will take less than a watt of power. So if you biamped with your receiver your would add at the most two watts of power!

Take a look at this crossover circuit. This is for a 2.5 way speaker like yours, but a different circuit for different drivers.

Now if you passively biamped the speaker when you remove the straps, you break the connection between C1 and the positive terminal of the lower terminal block. The upper positive terminal would the connect to C1.

Likewise the lower negative terminal connection is broken to L1 and the upper negative terminal connects to L1.

So using you receiver to passively biamp those speakers is not even worth the cost of the wire.

Now if you wanted to use an active crossover, you would actually require three amps per speaker, (three, 2 channel amps). The internal passive crossovers would be removed. The active crossovers would be connected to the amps inputs, and the amps directly connected to the correct drivers.

The active crossover would require the same electrical slopes and cut offs as the passive crossovers they replaced.

I hope you understand now, and anyone else thinking about biamping.

I plan to, but my situation is unique. And it won't be between the tweeter and midrange. Only the Bass driver and the midrange. I still need to design the passive part, but I'm in no hurry at the moment.

 

[TLS Guy]

I plan to, but my situation is unique. And it won't be between the tweeter and midrange. Only the Bass driver and the midrange. I still need to design the passive part, but I'm in no hurry at the moment.

That situation is not unique, but common practice, and what I do with any reference system.

 

[Mmo]

i know this is an olde thread, but relative to my recent (yet proven pointless) bi amp adventure, i'd like to clarify for the mid knowledge audiophile:

the question usually arrises with one amp, with multi channels. my marantz AVR is set up similar to the posters. as the on screen option allows utilising channel 6 and 7, i bi-amped them into my front mains, running two sets of 12 AWG wire to the double binding posts.

i always thought the power source could only supply power to individual channels, with no ability for spare power to be utilised by only the channels in use. i thought a 5 channel 500 watt amp would put 100 watts into each channel. so using this amp in a 2 channel system powering 2 speakers would only supply 200 watts of power, 100 per speaker; i was wrong. the available volts of the single power amp would all get used up by the 2 speakers, as the amperage draw would take all it needs.

so then i thought if power is not increased, perhaps fidelity would be? each channel would be responsible for a narrower frequency range. Again, i was wrong. the power is still being taken up by the 2 speakers in the same manner, and does not get divided by the speaker's passive crossover network until afterwards.

the last hope for bi-amping in this config, is less resistance from 2 pairs of speaker wire. again, pointless as good quality 12 AWG or so, run at reasonable lengths, is already very low.

i even bought proper four colour, 4 x 12 AWG speaker wire twisted and wrapped together within a single wrap. but, appears all is for naught.

i've just acquired the ubiquitous emotiva XP-A 5 gen 2, to be used as the power source, and my marantz SR 7007 reduced to a pre/pro.
no more amp shut down and ridiculous volume, which is initially why the bi-amping experiment. oddly, i'm happy i did try, as no real time or money expense.

so, sniff, the spare wire sets dangle unpowered and the jumpers have been reinstalled.

cheers,
Mmo