Tri-Amping Integrated Cambridge Azur

[spenny]

Right... bi-amping two intergrated amps is easy-enough.
how do i tri-amp? i can't run it off the slave because the output will be too-high and i can't run it off the master because i only have one pre-out...

any ideas?

 

[barend]

Triamping

I found triamping not worth the trouble.
Have 2 KEF Reference 203 as fronts, a 202c as center and 2 201's as rears. Triamped them all with a HK 5-channel final, only to find the sound was rather fuzzy in the mids and the soundstaging was not firm, not even in stereo using just the two fronts.
I think the reason may be you must use identical amps which would mean 10 Amps for a 5.1 setup!
Barend

 

[spenny]

i suppose the other option would be to *shudders* use the second outputs on one of my amps...

If i did go with that option, which would be the best setup?
* Master amp driving only treble with Slave amp driving mid and bass
* Master amp driving mid and treble with Slave amp driving only bass

basically i've got my eyes on a set of KEF Reference 201 speakers and the three terminals would dictate three amps for the best sound.
but that's me.

either that or I get the B&W705's/805's that I'd originally planned...

 

[djoxygen]

Check out "Bi-Amping the Denon 3805" and "Tripp Lite Isolation Transformer" threads for more discussion on bi-amping.

In a nutshell, the truly "correct" (i.e. pro audio) way to bi- or tri- amp is with an active crossover upstream from your amps and bypassing the passive crossovers in your speakers. Unfortunately that probably means opening up your speaker cabinets to disable the passive x-over (check w/ your speaker mfr for more info).

You can do it with full-range amps and the passive x-overs in your speakers, but you won't get the full benefit of bi-/tri-amping, which is to let each amp channel work with only one driver on a limited range of frequencies. As far as the amps can tell, they're each trying to drive the whole speaker from 20 to 20k and the passive x-over is dissipating the power to the frequencies outside the range of each driver.

 

[Tons of Fun]

The tape loop would provide another output but the best suggestion (from Cambridge) is "don't."