Bi-Amping with a receiver, is it worth it?

[Cos]

Newbie question of the day.

I have a 30.5 Integra, hopefully comming in tomorrow and I am only going to be driving it with two speakers to start: Golden Ear Aon 2

The DHC-30.5 has the capability to bi-amp FL/FR with SBL/SBR. (corrected this)

Is their really a performance gain by doing it? The AON 2s are not capable of bi-wire, so is it even possible then?

 

[RichB]

This is one of those subjects that gets hot.
Here is my opinion for what it is worth.

Bi-amping will not gain volume but if your amps are independent, then it can help by isolating the high-frequency drivers from the low frequency ones.
Let's say you had mono-amps driving the highs and lows and you crank it up.
It will not get louder but the bass is the most likely to clip creating harsh distortion in the high-frequencies.
However, in this case, the tweeter will remain unaffected as it has its own amp will not be clipping.

Multi-channel amps with separate power supplies will act in a similar manner.
However, a receiver is not usually as robust so clipping one amp can affect power available to the other channels.
So, I doubt it is going to be that effective.

I did bi-amp my Revel Salons for a while, but it was just much easier to get a bigger amp.
The ATI3005 drove them very well so I did not find the need.
I am now using a Parasound A51 which is also ample for my needs.

I also found that the Onkyo 5509 has a Bi-amp setting but it also has the effect of enabling additional processing.
So I preferred the sound using an XLR Y-Cable with Pure Direct mode.

- Rich

 

[PENG]

Short answer to your specific question: Not worth it..and you can't do it anyway as you said your speakers are not capable.. There are theoretical benefits and those have nothing to do with clipping that Rich mentioned, and are not significant unless you do "active" biamping. Practically speaking I doubt those benefits would translate into audible improvements but like the claims of Pass Lab, Bounder, McIntosh sounding better than Parasound, Bryston or ATI, it is hard to prove one way or another. You can try it, I have enough amps and speakers to try but too lazy to do so I biwired, that's easy to do. If your speakers don't have provision for biwire then you can't do either biwire or biamp without modifying them. Biwire is not the same as biamp but with a big amp it can come close to "passive" biamping in terms of the theoretical benefits. I heard no difference.

Rich: Your example of bass clipping won't affect the treble sounds good but don't you think the preamp may clip anyway in some of those scenarios?

 

[RichB]

Rich: Your example of bass clipping won't affect the treble sounds good but don't you think the preamp may clip anyway in some of those scenarios?

I asked Parasound, ATI, and Marantz that question when looking into it with the AV8801 and they all said that any with 10k or above is no problem.

- Rich

 

[3db]

Really short answer ..NO. One is still getting all the juice from one power supply. You will NOT hear a difference that can be validated with single blind testing.

 

[Cos]

Thanks for the feedback, I was curious. While 95w is more than enough for my bedroom I was curious about the benefits that they discussed in the Integra user guide.

 

[fmw]

You have to be an audiophile to believe in passive bi-amping the way I think you imagine it because technical people understand that it does nothing in the same manner that biwiring does nothing. Besides, Bi-amping has to be done in front of the power amps, not behind them. Activie bi-amping does all kinds of things, some good and some bad, but you don't want to go there. Trust me. Just connect each speaker to an amplifier and enjoy the music.

 

[Irvrobinson]

You have to be an audiophile to believe in passive bi-amping the way I think you imagine it because technical people understand that it does nothing in the same manner that biwiring does nothing.

This isn't always correct, though I suspect it is 99% of the time. I owned a set a set of speakers, the original Legacy Focus, which fell below 2 ohms in the bass octaves, and they sounded better in the upper octaves when passively bi-amped, even though I was using beefy amplifiers. Passive bi-amping is usually ineffective, but it is definitely different than bi-wiring, and sometimes passive bi-amping is better. Not very often, but sometimes.

 

[3db]

This isn't always correct, though I suspect it is 99% of the time. I owned a set a set of speakers, the original Legacy Focus, which fell below 2 ohms in the bass octaves, and they sounded better in the upper octaves when passively bi-amped, even though I was using beefy amplifiers. Passive bi-amping is usually ineffective, but it is definitely different than bi-wiring, and sometimes passive bi-amping is better. Not very often, but sometimes.

What the OP Is doing is bi-wiring, not bi-amping. In the OP's case, it won't make a difference. I could see under certain circumstances where passive bi-amping may help.

 

[Irvrobinson]

What the OP Is doing is bi-wiring, not bi-amping. In the OP's case, it won't make a difference. I could see under certain circumstances where passive bi-amping may help.

I know, I was just reacting to a blanket statement, which I believe to occasionally be untrue. If the speakers aren't bi-wire or bi-amp capable trying to connect them that way is foolish, and I do agree with fmw that bi-wiring is always silly regardless.

 

[j_garcia]

AH already has articles discussing this. We have probably HUNDREDS of threads discussing it just on this forum alone. IMO, it isn't necessary to discuss it at length yet again. This one IS the definition of marketing gimmick in my book.

 

[PENG]

I asked Parasound, ATI, and Marantz that question when looking into it with the AV8801 and they all said that any with 10k or above is no problem.

- Rich

They may be wrong, the preamp has to amplify the complete signal, unless you do active bi-amping with the preamp also, i.e. active bi preamping if there is such a thing.

 

[PENG]

AH already has articles discussing this. We have probably HUNDREDS of threads discussing it just on this forum alone. IMO, it isn't necessary to discuss it at length yet again. This one IS the definition of marketing gimmick in my book.

Agree, but can we just have some fun after a long day of hard work??

 

[fmw]

I know, I was just reacting to a blanket statement, which I believe to occasionally be untrue. If the speakers aren't bi-wire or bi-amp capable trying to connect them that way is foolish, and I do agree with fmw that bi-wiring is always silly regardless.

It wasn't a blanket statement. I said "biamping the way I think you imagine it." Passive biamping is done between the preamp and the power amp. 3db is correct. What the op proposes is really biwiring which is certainly a good thing for wire manufacturers and copper miners.

 

[RichB]

They may be wrong, the preamp has to amplify the complete signal, unless you do active bi-amping with the preamp also, i.e. active bi preamping if there is such a thing.

I asked Marantz tech support I can use an XLR Y-splitter to Bi-Amp to a 10K ohm input impedance amp.

Here is the Marantz tech support response:

I received a fairly quick response from Engineering stating that the output impedance of the Balanced out is 220 ohms. That should be low enough where it won't cause any frequency drop.

- Rich

 

[PENG]

I asked Marantz tech support I can use an XLR Y-splitter to Bi-Amp to a 10K ohm input impedance amp.

Here is the Marantz tech support response:



- Rich

I never doubted that at all but it has nothing to do with my question in post #3.

 

[RichB]

I never doubted that at all but it has nothing to do with my question in post #3.

Because of the reasons above, then the answer is no ,
since the preamp should not have a problem driving both amps proving they have a decent input impedance.

Of course, I would not be surpised if I did not understand your question

- Rich

 

[little wing]

Interesting (Objective) piece on bi-wiring.

What effect does Bi-wiring have? : Empirical Audio

 

[markw]

Interesting (Objective) piece on bi-wiring.

What effect does Bi-wiring have? : Empirical Audio

I'm not too sure how "ojective" that article is.

From that article: " Then the two ZIP cables were independently wired in a bi-wire configuration, one to the tweeter, which has a 20 ohm load and one to the woofer, which has a 3.5 ohm load."

Is that a typical situation? A 20 ohm tweeter and a 3.5 ohm woofer?

That seems to me like the Monster demonstration booths where they use a coil of wire to "simulate" the competition.

Seriously, I look with a aundiced eye any "objective" blurbs on these matters when they come from a cable manufacturer.

 

[j_garcia]

"Forces" the current type to flow only through those wires that are hooked up? Pretty sure doesn't work like that. That would be like saying you could control the type of water that went through each of two different hoses hooked up via Y connector at the faucet. Regardless of what the tweeter is "using", the amp is still amplifying the whole signal that was sent to it.

At least they did not claim there was any proven audible difference.