Vertical or Horizontal Bi-Amping for MWM/402?

[mikebse2a3]

50 minutes ago, Islander said:

In regards to the horizontal/vertical thing, one amp doing bass and the other one doing treble is horizontal, right?  I can safely say that this kind of thing never ever comes up in any conversations with my non-audio fan friends, which is most of them.

 

 

 

 

Check out KEF’s comments on Bi-amping

 

https://www.kefdirect.com/blog/bi-amping-101

 

miketn

[Islander]

Well, that clears it up.  Thanks, Mike!

[glens]

I, too, would be inclined toward "horizontal" as depicted above; reasons are a few.

[Chris A]

14 hours ago, mikebse2a3 said:

Actually the K402/K69 and K402/TAD4002 are up to 10db more efficient than the Jubilee LF and this is reflected in the reduction in power requirements demanded of the HF amplifier. 

I'm currently running a -8 dB gain on the HF channel for TAD TD-4002s.  This is a pretty typical value in my experience for other 2" compression drivers EQed flat and matched to the bass bin that's been EQed flat separately, and crossed at ~450-500 Hz.

___________________________________________________

I'm not sure that one obvious point in this discussion has been stated clearly yet:

 

If you're thinking in terms of stereo only (i.e., some setups have more than two-channel stereo), then you can avoid paying for two expensive amplifiers using horizontal bi-amping, since it's been my experience that only the HF amplifier is really the audible one in terms of the differences in transients, etc.  If you use vertical bi-amping, then you've really got to buy two instead of one of the same amplifier brand and model.  (Tube/valve amplifiers already present a time-dependent challenge in terms of matching left and right channel characteristics--but that's likely outside the scope of the original question.)  I'm really not an amplifier aficionado/tinkerer, so that's a pretty big cost savings using horizontal bi-amping--which alone can easily mean a cost differential equal to getting a better DSP crossover or a dedicated PC (of some higher-end computing capability) running JRiver and perhaps a good sound card--if not using a preamp having HDMI input capability. 

 

With horizontal bi-amping, you can mix and match amplifiers to your heart's delight--subject to subsequent dialing them in using a DSP crossover after amplifier swap out to check and adjust channel gains...and perhaps EQ out any frequency response effects of higher or lower output impedance change of the newly inserted amplifier.

 

Chris

[Ziggurat]

1 hour ago, Chris A said:

I'm currently running a -8 dB gain on the HF channel for TAD TD-4002s.  This is a pretty typical value in my experience for other 2" compression drivers EQed flat and matched to the bass bin that's been EQed flat separately, and crossed at ~450-500 Hz.

___________________________________________________

I'm not sure that one obvious point in this discussion has been stated clearly yet:

 

If you're thinking in terms of stereo only (i.e., some setups have more than two-channel stereo), then you can avoid paying for two expensive amplifiers using horizontal bi-amping, since it's been my experience that only the HF amplifier is really the audible one in terms of the differences in transients, etc.  If you use vertical bi-amping, then you've really got to buy two instead of one of the same amplifier brand and model.  (Tube/valve amplifiers already present a time-dependent challenge in terms of matching left and right channel characteristics--but that's likely outside the scope of the original question.)  I'm really not an amplifier aficionado/tinkerer, so that's a pretty big cost savings using horizontal bi-amping--which alone can easily mean a cost differential equal to getting a better DSP crossover or a dedicated PC (of some higher-end computing capability) running JRiver and perhaps a good sound card--if not using a preamp having HDMI input capability. 

 

With horizontal bi-amping, you can mix and match amplifiers to your heart's delight--subject to subsequent dialing them in using a DSP crossover after amplifier swap out to check and adjust channel gains...and perhaps EQ out any frequency response effects of higher or lower output impedance change of the newly inserted amplifier.

 

Chris

Chris, thanks for this. Very much what I was originally thinking - using the classy amp up top with more of a workhorse down below certainly frees up cash for other areas. 

 

I've never had an issue per-se with horizontal bi-amping, but have heard that vertical is 'better' if you have 4 identical channels of amplification of high quality. Therein lies the rub. 

 

Personally, after what has been said here - I will look for a Crown or similar for the grunt work and stick to the El34 amp for the K402s.