Bi-amping what does it do?

[20Glove]

Hello all,

When talking about my sapphire speakers I may came up with a question.

I have my sapphire tower speakers ST3 (150 Watts) hooked up to my Onkyo 805 (130 Watts per channel) and I have these speakers bi-amped and set on the receiver as being bi-amped.

My question is, am I sending double the power to my speakers? B/c I am getting a little distortion when I get above a certain volume. Not like crackling but distortion.

Could I be ruining my speakers? I do turn them down when I start to hear that distortion. But am I am sending too much power to these speakers by bi-amping.

Overall, what does bi-amping do? What are the positives and negatives?

Let me know.

 

[Seth=L]

Bi-amping on receivers has little affect. Some people notice an audible difference, some don't. You won't get much more power if any by bi-amping those speakers with the receiver alone.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hello all,

When talking about my sapphire speakers I may came up with a question.

I have my sapphire tower speakers ST3 (150 Watts) hooked up to my Onkyo 805 (130 Watts per channel) and I have these speakers bi-amped and set on the receiver as being bi-amped.

My question is, am I sending double the power to my speakers? B/c I am getting a little distortion when I get above a certain volume. Not like crackling but distortion.

Could I be ruining my speakers? I do turn them down when I start to hear that distortion. But am I am sending too much power to these speakers by bi-amping.

Overall, what does bi-amping do? What are the positives and negatives?

Let me know.

Does it distort if you don't biamp? If not, then don't biamp. I'm not a fan of this passive biamping. I think a lot of people when they use different amp etc, creature huge phase and level issues, and make matters worse.

If you are biamping you must make sure that the amps you are using from your receivers are set identically. Personally I would forget biamping.

In my view biamping is for individuals with high technical capability that can put together systems designed around custom electronic crossovers.

Most of the time this passive biamping just connects an amp to the tweeter high pass filter. This consumes little power, and only adds chance for error no benefit, and I bet a lot who do biamp have error.

 

[haraldo]

There's one possible benefit of bi-amping...

If you have bass/midrange drivers that's very tough on the amps and that require a lot of current and that may drive the amps very hard.... The tweeters will most likely suffer, and you may even end up blowing the tweeters... You may possibly notice distortion in the treble
With biamping, the treble will not be influenced directly by bass/midrange being run hard.

But anyways, I guess it's a much better call to buy a significantly better amplifier than two sets for bi-amping.

 

[20Glove]

Guess... I will stop bi-amping

I am going to stop bi-amping.

Now when I put the crossover brackets back on the speakers... do I hook the speaker wire into the upper speaker terminal or use the lower terminal? Or does it matter?

Let me know.

 

[haraldo]

There may be a difference, especially if the brackets are "thin"
I would put the speaker cables at the connectors for the bass/midrange drivers, at least that's what I'm doing.

Not that I'm confident that anyone would notice a difference....

 

[TLS Guy]

I am going to stop bi-amping.

Now when I put the crossover brackets back on the speakers... do I hook the speaker wire into the upper speaker terminal or use the lower terminal? Or does it matter?

Let me know.

It doesn't matter.

 

[mtrycrafts]

There's one possible benefit of bi-amping...

If you have bass/midrange drivers that's very tough on the amps and that require a lot of current and that may drive the amps very hard.... The tweeters will most likely suffer, and you may even end up blowing the tweeters... You may possibly notice distortion in the treble
With biamping, the treble will not be influenced directly by bass/midrange being run hard.

But anyways, I guess it's a much better call to buy a significantly better amplifier than two sets for bi-amping.

You may have an power issue if you exceed the continuous power limit of that amp. If not, the tweeter will get its share of the needed current.
When amps are rated 20Hz-20kHz at X watts, that 20Hz signal will get the X watts as will the tweeter, if need be. But, the tweeter will fry well before it comes remotely close to full power as many consumer tweeters are very low power capable, maybe 20 watts?

 

[mtrycrafts]

There may be a difference, especially if the brackets are "thin"
....

Yes, but... they are usually very short and has a width to it, maybe 6mm, so the resistance is insignificant at best.

 

[deedubb]

I am going to stop bi-amping.

Now when I put the crossover brackets back on the speakers... do I hook the speaker wire into the upper speaker terminal or use the lower terminal? Or does it matter?

Let me know.

I'd hook it up to the lower terminals. Also, a simple but effective trick is to replace the brackets with speaker wire.

 

[jamie2112]

Hey Glove let us know if the putting the speakers in full range worked out.

 

[TLS Guy]

You may have an power issue if you exceed the continuous power limit of that amp. If not, the tweeter will get its share of the needed current.
When amps are rated 20Hz-20kHz at X watts, that 20Hz signal will get the X watts as will the tweeter, if need be. But, the tweeter will fry well before it comes remotely close to full power as many consumer tweeters are very low power capable, maybe 20 watts?

The power consumed by a tweeter is minute. The voice coil wire is very thin indeed. There are a lot better uses for an amp than powering a tweeter. The average power will be in the milli watt range.

I can think of few endeavors more ridiculous than passive biamping to a two way speaker. Even with three ways the connection is usually to the high pass filter.

Manufacturers need to save the money of a speaker terminal, and out to better bracing or drivers.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Most of the time this passive biamping just connects an amp to the tweeter high pass filter. This consumes little power, and only adds chance for error no benefit, and I bet a lot who do biamp have error.

Great. First, you caused me to sell my amps.
Now you just caused me to stop passive-bi-amping my center speaker. Guess what I'll be doing as soon as I get home from work?

 

[TLS Guy]

Great. First, you caused me to sell my amps.
Now you just caused me to stop passive-bi-amping my center speaker. Guess what I'll be doing as soon as I get home from work?

Kiss your wife!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Kiss your wife!

Thank you!

Yes, that is true.

Kiss my wife and my 2 daughters!!!

What the heck am I thinking!

Somebody please slap me silly.

 

[rnatalli]

I bi-amped using my Emotiva LPA-1; didn't notice a thing.

 

[mtrycrafts]

....Manufacturers need to save the money of a speaker terminal, ....

Yes, but then the poor, gullible 'golden ears' will not buy those speakers as they know they need it
So, the marketeers direct the engineers to put in another terminal so they can sell the speakers to more customers

 

[jsantos615]

I bi-amped using my Emotiva LPA-1; didn't notice a thing.

Out of curiosity, what speakers are you bi-amping with your LPA-1?

I was going to buy another LPA-1 to add more zones to my house and thought that If I have 2 more channels left-over, then I'd bi-amp my Monitor Audio BR4s. however, after reading this thread, I'm thinking of getting a less expensive amp to power the new zones.