How to biamp ??

[BabelFish]

I have a really old yamaha amp right now... I am wondering if I could plug my 100s into that receiver and then hook another speaker wire going from the A5 and hook that into the other plug on the 100s.

To sum up. The top speaker plugs would go to the receiver and the bottom two would go to the A5.. would that do anything for me or am I out of luck until I get a receiver that allows an external amp hookup?

Also, when I hook up the speakers, is there a difference between the top and bottom plugs on the speaker?

 

[Tetonmtnbiker]

"I am wondering if I could plug my 100s into that receiver and then hook another speaker wire going from the A5 and hook that into the other plug on the 100s."

You could, but unless they have the exact same power, you would have different volume levels from the Highs verses the lows. It would not be advisable. Biampable speakers have a separate input (speaker posts) for a) their highs (mids and tweets) and b) the woffer. You are bypassing the crossover in a sense. If you use different amplification sources you will not be able to give the exact same power to both inputs at the same time, and therefore will not have the speakers perform the way they were intended.

"Also, when I hook up the speakers, is there a difference between the top and bottom plugs on the speaker?"

If you do NOT biamp you can use either set. There is no difference. Make soure the jumpers are in place. If you ARE biamping make sure the jumpers are REMOVED or you will notice an unwelcome oder coming from your amp.

I have a PVA7 that runs a 5.1 system. My extra two channels of amplication are being used to biamp my fronts. I split the signal coming out of my pre/pro (you could use the pre outs of a reciever) for my front left and front right and sent the "extra" signal to the rear surround amp channels. After i removed the jumpers i biamped the fronts.

Be very careful when you biamp. When done right it sounds great.

 

[Haoleb]

I have a really old yamaha amp right now... I am wondering if I could plug my 100s into that receiver and then hook another speaker wire going from the A5 and hook that into the other plug on the 100s.

To sum up. The top speaker plugs would go to the receiver and the bottom two would go to the A5.. would that do anything for me or am I out of luck until I get a receiver that allows an external amp hookup?

Also, when I hook up the speakers, is there a difference between the top and bottom plugs on the speaker?

Refer to your Paradigm users manual as it will explain everything your asking.

The top speaker posts are for the midrange and tweeter drivers and the bottom set are for the woofers. If you are going to hook two amplifiers up to your speakers (biamp) you MUST remove the metal strap that connects the two terminals.

but, Yes you can hook up one set of the posts to one amp, and the other set to another amp.

 

[j_garcia]

.. would that do anything for me or am I out of luck until I get a receiver that allows an external amp hookup?

This is the part that concerns me. If you are saying you can't hook this amp to your current receiver, meaning it has no preamp outputs, then no you won't be able to biamp.

 

[BabelFish]

correct.. my amp is from 1994 Yamaha RX-385(??)... very old.. no pre out..

 

[billy p]

It shouldn't matter, if the two amps have equal power rating, does it? Chances are if you use your receiver and have an extra amp, more then likely their power rating would differ. Therefore, would it not be more feasible to use the higher rated power section amp for the woofer terminals & weaker amp to the tweeters.

The above post is basically a question and is there any SQ improvement with biamping or is this only beneifcial if your speakers are under powered and you have two amps on hand? J_G answers another part of my question, that it's only possible if you have pre outs on the receiver!

Thanks and Sorry Babel for using your thread for my own curiosity.

 

[zildjian]

It shouldn't matter, if the two amps have equal power rating, does it?

You have to ensure that the output levels are matched between the 2 amplifiers you use in biamping and that they remain even in regards to one another over the entire dB range of operation. In other words, if you use a much larger amp to run your mid woofers and a smaller amp to run your tweeters, there could be a level difference during playback where the mids could be way louder than the tweeters at higher volumes if the amps do not amplify their respective signals in the same linear fashion with high & low input signals alike, AKA the amps need to provide the same amount of gain per input signal. Therefore, it's preferable to use either identical amplifiers in biamping or amplifiers which will continue to linearly amplify (in relation to one another) the input signal so as to match each other in dB output at the speaker over the entire range low to high of input signal fed from the preamp / at different volume settings. IOW, you can use a smaller amp to run the high or mid frequency drivers and a larger amp to run the lower freq drivers, but you have to make sure they match each other in sound output at the speakers at both low & high volumes as the input signal increases/decreases accordingly. As long as you ensure matching output performance, biamping can yield great performance benefits in providing more & cleaner power to your speakers.
-Brad

 

[Ampdog]

Something that always bothers me in any discussion of bi-amping, is that amplifier stability with a load it is not designed for, is hardly ever considered.

The low-frequency input to the loudspeaker (woofer) normally has a low-pass filter before the driver. The impedance of this does not only go high above the cross-over point, but also reactive. Will the amplifier be happy with this? The reports I have read about how easily some amplifiers can become unstable with even a slightly capacitive speaker lead (which capacitance is extremely low compared), cause some real doubt about this.

Alternately the hf (tweeter) load only approaches say 8 ohms broadly resistive above cross-over. It can be quite high at say 30 - 50 Hz. Normally this is not so critical as with high frequency conditions, but again: Will the amplifier be happy?

One must keep in mind that amplifiers are normally designed for some reasonable load and not excessive phase shift over the whole audio spectrum. Very broadly the phase shifts in lf and hf cross-over sections cancel when connected together as with the strapped terminals at the rear; not nearly so when these inputs are viewed separately.