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Does anybody Bi-Amp there Speakers?.


joshjp

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I could see the benefit in some setups. I suppose it depends on what kind of speakers you are running. As the guy above me basically said, it seems pretty pointless to run extra power to the lower end in the fronts if you are just going to cut it off with the crossover. If I had a 9.2 receiver, I'd probably try it out and play around with the crossover points to see if I can get a little more out of the fronts tho.

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I Quad amp using a digital active crossover

The benefits are when you need to time align the drivers (such as K-horn alignment and a sub)

and you use steep slopes with particular phasing, or

you simply want to DIY and try out different drivers and horns.

I think simply by-amping using two amps,

without an active crossover, would only benefit when the power amp going to the lows, approaches clipping

leaving the highs safe from overload and clean sounding.

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Does anybody bi-amp their speakers?.Big Smile

I bi-amp my fronts (2-ways) and tri-amp my center (3-way) with digital crossovers (Dx38s). See profile pic.

I haven't gotten around to tri-amping or bi-amping the surrounds--however, this may be beyond the point of diminishing returns.

Chris

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"without an active crossover, would only benefit when the power amp going to the lows, approaches clipping eaving the highs safe from overload and clean sounding."

The HF amp will still clip as it is still amplifying the LF voltage (even though no current is flowing).

"What is your way?."

Posted Image

Crest V450, two V1500, TDM 24CX3.

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I wonder does bi-amping work because it force people to bi-wire correctly. I don't think this is the only benefit of bi-amping with an electronic x-o. With that said, I decided to bi-wire my speakers today since I had extra speaker wire and it would only cost me time. My highs and lows are more distinctive. No, I had not been drinking, lol. I don't know if it has something to do with the jumper removed and improved current flow to the woofers, the negative effect of the impedance traveling to the woofers and tweeter through the same wire, or reduced interaction between the two x-o's. It may even be a slight time delay between the drivers. Before, I always thought music sounded better with MCACC disengaged. After the bi-wiring, it sounds better using MCACC. I guess everyone has to try things for themselves and decide is it better, no difference, or worse. This one leaves me puzzled.

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Using a bi-amp or tri-amp with an outboard filter before the amp has a lot to recommend for the additional cost. Removing a large inductor from the woofer circuit. Removing any interaction of the driver impedance from the filter’s response. Significant reduction of amp distortion under high power conditions. Generally speaking though, the cost may be high for the perceived benefit. Really depends on your application and needs. Another thing is that generic filters do not allow for specific response characteristics that the original passive design either offset or compensated for. For instance the diffraction effect of narrow baffles. Or the rising response of a woofer. Or the falling response of a mid horn.

It is fun to try a different approach but I would suggest taking some time for consideration before ripping out a well designed passive network matching all drivers into a well-balanced system and replacing same with a one-size-fits all filter.

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I wonder does bi-amping work because it force people to bi-wire correctly.

Bi-Wiring is No. 7 on Peter Aczel's list of "The 10 Biggest Lies in Audio" -

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/storage/4/1367215/The%2010%20Bigggest%20Lies%20of%20Audio.pdf

Chris

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This is an outlier case (and perhaps not the most logical thing to do) but in the spirit of the thread...I've tried the fools bi-amp setup using low power tube amps for the highs and ss for the woofs. This was mainly done out of curiosity and because I have too many amps lying around. It worked, but is not the sort of thing I would recommend, unless you're also a pack rat with lots of old gear.

Also tried fully active, with individual SET amps for each compression driver, but that was using old school gear (Behr analog line level crossovers, no delay, only one slope choice) and kind of a PITA to dial in. If I ever do active again, I'll use something much more powerful like DEQX.

One thing I learned that was a real eye opener is just how much power is sucked up in passive netoworks. It's much more than I expected.

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