bi-amping?

[mocwilson]

Hi All,

I have a question, I have a Denon x4500H, and a monolith 5x, I am wondering if it would be possible/beneficial to Bi amp my left and right using a Y splitter from the pre outs of my avr?

thanks

 

[NINaudio]

possible? yes. Beneficial? very unlikely.

 

[mocwilson]

possible? yes. Beneficial? very unlikely.

the reason im asking is, i did notice a big difference when i did this with just my avr in bi amp mode with my left and right and was thinking that it could be even better with the monolith? 300watts x2 into 4 homs. would i be getting 300 watts to each terminal [ tweeter and woofer ] since the monolith has separate amps for each channel, or does it become a moot point because each amp is using the same power supply in the monolith. as you can tell im a bit of a noob.

thanks

 

[Leemix]

The monolith will have a much bigger powersupply than the AVR so sharing that wont be much of an issue.
A couple of Y cables dont cost much so if you are curious just try it. Nobody here knows exactly how it will or if it will affect the sound you hear.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Leemix]

You wont get all that power into you speakers, usually when you play music itll only be one or a few watts for most of the time. A tweeter can only handle a few watts anyway, 100w would fry it but you probably dont run at max volume and above.

 

[mocwilson]

alright ill give it a shot. could be fun, ill keep ya posted. thanks.

 

[Huey645]

I have a Rotel 1095 amp, which I use to bi-amp the front left/right speakers, as well as running the center channel, and while I wouldn't say it's a night and day difference, there is a difference with bi-amped vs not bi-amped. If you're married, ask the wife if she can hear a difference, that was the deciding factor for me.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The purpose of bi-amping is to provide the Drivers that Need the power, which means the WOOFERS.

The midrange driver doesn't require much power and the tweeter requires even less than the midrange.

So if you have a full-range tower with dual 10" woofers or dual 12" woofers, then it might make sense to bi-amp the dual 10" or 12" woofers.

But it doesn't make much sense to me to bi-amp something like speakers with little 5.25" woofers or 6.5" woofers or even 8" woofers or speakers that are not designed to be full-range.

Speakers will not sound any better if they already have more than enough power. Everything else you THINK you might hear is called PLACEBO effect, also known as GES (Golden Ear Syndrome).

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

The purpose of bi-amping is to provide the Drivers that Need the power, which means the WOOFERS.

The midrange driver doesn't require much power and the tweeter requires even less than the midrange.

So if you have a full-range tower with dual 10" woofers or dual 12" woofers, then it might make sense to bi-amp the dual 10" or 12" woofers.

But it doesn't make much sense to me to bi-amp something like speakers with little 5.25" woofers or 6.5" woofers or even 8" woofers or speakers that are not designed to be full-range.

Speakers will not sound any better if they already have more than enough power. Everything else you THINK you might hear is called PLACEBO effect, also known as GES (Golden Ear Syndrome).

BUT, what about.....lol
Most of the time, bigger woofers are actually easier to drive and mostly leaves biamping moot. No? The ones I’ve found hard to drive are little bookshelves with 6” woofers and stupid loads. And also, isn’t it true that in most cases, the connections go through the same path through the passive XO anyway? So how could it possibly matter...

 

[PENG]

BUT, what about.....lol
Most of the time, bigger woofers are actually easier to drive and mostly leaves biamping moot. No? The ones I’ve found hard to drive are little bookshelves with 6” woofers and stupid loads. And also, isn’t it true that in most cases, the connections go through the same path through the passive XO anyway? So how could it possibly matter...

Not always true, also, little bookshelves don't typically take a lot of "power (I hate that term)" to push them to their limits. Larger woofers do, all else being equal. Regarding passive bi-amp, there is just so much misconception but it has been explained so many times but people can't seem to be able to remember how it works, likely because most don't care for it to begin with. I am just going to say its not like what you think, but either way I tend to believe it doesn't matter more often than not, but still, it depends..

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

BUT, what about.....lol
Most of the time, bigger woofers are actually easier to drive and mostly leaves biamping moot. No? The ones I’ve found hard to drive are little bookshelves with 6” woofers and stupid loads. And also, isn’t it true that in most cases, the connections go through the same path through the passive XO anyway? So how could it possibly matter...

Well, would you say that subwoofers rated for 500-2500W with 12-18” drivers need a lot more power than most small speakers that are rated for 10-150W?

If they design the small speaker to play lower Hz, that would decrease efficiency and make the speaker more difficult to drive, but the fact still remains that giving the small speaker more power will probably blow the speaker.

I am certainly no expert. But I see exactly only ONE practical reason to passive bi-amp - when you have a large a$$ tower of power with dual 10-12” woofers (like the RBH SVTR tower) and you can remove the metal jumpers and bi-amp those large woofers with an external subwoofer amp. This way, you can control the bass like you would a subwoofer - turning up the subwoofer amp gain/volume knob will increase the bass.

 

[Verdinut]

BUT, what about.....lol
Most of the time, bigger woofers are actually easier to drive and mostly leaves biamping moot. No? The ones I’ve found hard to drive are little bookshelves with 6” woofers and stupid loads. And also, isn’t it true that in most cases, the connections go through the same path through the passive XO anyway? So how could it possibly matter...

With woofers (or subwoofers) in same cabinet as the mid-range and the HF drivers, in order to avoid an inductor having a high resistance in series when crossing over to a simple or multiple mid-range drivers at a frequency below 400 Hz, active bi-amping is recommended. This avoids reducing the damping action of the amplifier and resulting impaired transient response.

That is how my three front loudspeakers are designed for a crossover frequency at 200 Hz between the subs and the mid-bass drivers.

Here is one of the good articles on bi-amping by Rod Elliott:

BiAmp (Bi-Amplification - Not Quite Magic, But Close) - Part 1

ESP - The Audio Pages. How to biamp or triamp your hi-hi speaker system for greatly improved sound, and higher sound levels with less distortion.

sound-au.com

 

[lovinthehd]

Since you heard a difference with just an avr, may as well give it a shot. I'd just use a more powerful amp myself....

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Not always true, also, little bookshelves don't typically take a lot of "power (I hate that term)" to push them to their limits. Larger woofers do, all else being equal. Regarding passive bi-amp, there is just so much misconception but it has been explained so many times but people can't seem to be able to remember how it works, likely because most don't care for it to begin with. I am just going to say its not like what you think, but either way I tend to believe it doesn't matter more often than not, but still, it depends..

Not always true is exactly right. But it seems to me, more often than not, bigger higher sensitivity speakers are easier to drive and wouldn’t likely have any benefit with passive biamping, while many times the smaller ones present a greater load.(notice I didn’t say require more power)
As you said, it may NOT be what I think, and I’m happy to say so. I also think like usual, it depends. And please correct me if I’m wrong. But don’t both sets of terminals usually pass through the same path in the passive XO? Wouldn’t that negate any possible advantages?
Thanks for sharing!

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

With woofers (or subwoofers) in same cabinet as the mid-range and the HF drivers, in order to avoid an inductor having a high resistance in series when crossing over to a simple or multiple mid-range drivers at a frequency below 400 Hz, active bi-amping is recommended. This avoids reducing the damping action of the amplifier and resulting impaired transient response.

That is how my three front loudspeakers are designed for a crossover frequency at 200 Hz between the subs and the mid-bass drivers.

Here is one of the good articles on bi-amping by Rod Elliott:

BiAmp (Bi-Amplification - Not Quite Magic, But Close) - Part 1

ESP - The Audio Pages. How to biamp or triamp your hi-hi speaker system for greatly improved sound, and higher sound levels with less distortion.

sound-au.com

These are good points. But I was talking about passive biamping. Active is a whole different ball of wax.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Well, would you say that subwoofers rated for 500-2500W with 12-18” drivers need a lot more power than most small speakers that are rated for 10-150W?

If they design the small speaker to play lower Hz, that would decrease efficiency and make the speaker more difficult to drive, but the fact still remains that giving the small speaker more power will probably blow the speaker.

I am certainly no expert. But I see exactly only ONE practical reason to passive bi-amp - when you have a large a$$ tower of power with dual 10-12” woofers (like the RBH SVTR tower) and you can remove the metal jumpers and bi-amp those large woofers with an external subwoofer amp. This way, you can control the bass like you would a subwoofer - turning up the subwoofer amp gain/volume knob will increase the bass.

Well yeah, but I wasn’t talking about subwoofers lol.
I have 12’s in my mains at 92db. Even if I could passively biamp them. What would I gain?
I’m also no expert. But afaik, the RBH towers you cited, are definitely NOT normal lol.

 

[lovinthehd]

Well, if using such "subs" for LFE the additional spl level could chew up the power some....

...or if boosting/eq.

 

[ParleyW]

Hi All,

I have a question, I have a Denon x4500H, and a monolith 5x, I am wondering if it would be possible/beneficial to Bi amp my left and right using a Y splitter from the pre outs of my avr?

thanks

Careful with that talk around here. You will have a hissy going on before you know it.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Well yeah, but I wasn’t talking about subwoofers lol.
I have 12’s in my mains at 92db. Even if I could passively biamp them. What would I gain?
I’m also no expert. But afaik, the RBH towers you cited, are definitely NOT normal lol.

So you're thinking that a 12" woofer in a "subwoofer cabinet" needs a lot more power than a 12" woofer in "speaker cabinet" even though both have similar 92dB/w/m sensitivity? Which I can see, unless you want the same amount of bass from both.

I don't want to theorize potential benefits from bi-amp b/c that's just a guessing game.

But if your tower is designed (XO, Bi-amp, material, power rating, excursion, etc) so you could bi-amp the 12" woofer with a subwoofer amp, then the benefit is being able to control that 12" woofer like you would a subwoofer. You could easily adjust the gain/volume level of the bass according to the content w/o having to mess around with tones or EQ.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

So you're thinking that a 12" woofer in a "subwoofer cabinet" needs a lot more power than a 12" woofer in "speaker cabinet" to produce the same amount of bass even though both have similar 92dB/w/m sensitivity?

I don't want to theorize potential benefits from bi-amp b/c that's just a guessing game.

But if your tower is designed (XO, Bi-amp, material, power rating, excursion, etc) so you could bi-amp the 12" woofer with a subwoofer amp, then the benefit is being able to control that 12" woofer like you would a subwoofer. You could easily adjust the gain/volume level of the bass according to the content w/o having to mess around with tones or EQ.

No.
A 12” driver in a sub cab vs. a 12” in a regular speaker doesn’t require more power because it’s in a sub cab. It’s because it’s a subwoofer driver. Usually not very efficient, and heavy to reproduce lower bass. That’s why it needs more power. The 12’s in my mains on the other hand while still rated to 35hz would be IMO more of a pro driver. Doesn’t play super deep, but is very sensitive. Controlling that particular driver with a sub amp as you suggested would be useless since it doesn’t play that deep anyway. Using an active XO and amp could be useful possibly.
I think we might be on different paths here, but still enjoy the conversation.