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First time bi-amping


Alexander

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Well we final drug out some gear and decided to give bi-amping a go on the KLF-30's. So with our regular setup of all silver trim version  Emotiva - xsp-1, xda-2, erc-2 & xpa-1 mono blocks we added a pair of Denon poa-4400 mono blocks. The xpa-1's are working on the LF side while the poa-4400's get the HF duties. We have a set of xlr splinters so we took the signal out of the xda-2 and ran separate xlr's to each amp.


So after listening to some Adam Hurst, London Grammar and Aquilo there is a stark difference. The bottom is is much stronger and tighter and the highs are defined and airy, more subtle details.  Wonder if it would be worth the work to hook up our second pair of poa-4400's and go tri-amping.

 

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All you need to do is drive one speaker full-range, with them side-by-side playing the same signal, and compare the overall tonal balance to set the bi-amped differential gains.  Of course you can salt and pepper a bit to taste, but initially I'm sure you want to be comparing two apples.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/22/2020 at 7:02 PM, Thaddeus Smith said:

 

Yep, REW was planed, I have to wait for about a month for funds. But partsexpress is out of stock at the moment so I guess the wait was meant to be.

 

 

 

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On 3/22/2020 at 4:13 PM, Alexander said:

 


Well we final drug out some gear and decided to give bi-amping a go on the KLF-30's. So with our regular setup of all silver trim version  Emotiva - xsp-1, xda-2, erc-2 & xpa-1 mono blocks we added a pair of Denon poa-4400 mono blocks. The xpa-1's are working on the LF side while the poa-4400's get the HF duties. We have a set of xlr splinters so we took the signal out of the xda-2 and ran separate xlr's to each amp.


So after listening to some Adam Hurst, London Grammar and Aquilo there is a stark difference. The bottom is is much stronger and tighter and the highs are defined and airy, more subtle details.  Wonder if it would be worth the work to hook up our second pair of poa-4400's and go tri-amping.

 

This is what happened to me with my khorns, the difference was staggering to the point I went ahead and tri amped. i am never going back!!!

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On 3/22/2020 at 4:13 PM, Alexander said:

So after listening to some Adam Hurst, London Grammar and Aquilo there is a stark difference. The bottom is is much stronger and tighter and the highs are defined and airy, more subtle details.

This is pretty key with multi-amping.  When listening to more delicate musical textures and instrumentation, especially when listening to tracks that haven't been limited (clipped) and heavily post processed, the SPL and phase information of the original acoustic instruments and voices come through--if our setups are hi-fi enough to let us hear it. 

 

Multi-amping is one step in the process of increasing fidelity to the original recording, other steps being flattening the SPL response and then phase response of the loudspeakers in-room (like using those little speakers on stands out in the middle of a listening room, except you also get bass response with Klipsch).  This can easily be accomplished using DSP crossovers, such as a miniDSP "HD" series crossover and REW/calibrated microphone.  (If you need assistance dialing in the crossover, just PM me for help.)  Adding some acoustic treatments--absorption, diffusion--near the loudspeakers only in-room also increases this effect that you mentioned above.

 

Klipsch loudspeakers categorically give you directivity (at least at higher frequencies)--otherwise called "clarity".  This largely preserves phase response in-room to your ears.  If listening to horn-loaded bass bins...Khorns, La Scalas, Belles, Jubilees, MWMs, etc...you also get directivity below 1 kHz all the way down to 100 Hz, which is below the transition to the room mode regime (commonly called the Schroeder frequency of the room) at which point "directivity" loses its meaning, i.e., the sound wavelengths are bigger than the maximum dimensions of the room. 

 

BTW: if you're adventurous using Audacity, you can use Clip Fix, then Normalize on each track (this can be setup to run in a macro without having to watch it while it runs).  The de-clipped music tracks will be in a folder named "cleaned" under the directory where the original music tracks are located.  You will notice that the new tracks are:

 

1) less loud, and

2) less strident and harsh in the loud sections

 

...on your bi-amped or tri-amped loudspeakers.  This will especially be true for your London Grammar recordings that you mentioned above. This process is removing the artificial odd-order harmonics during the fast occurring peaks that are added when the tracks are clipped during mastering--as almost all popular music tracks have nowadays.  Those having non-Klipsch loudspeakers, i.e., direct radiating drivers instead of horn loaded, will generally not be able to discern the difference because of the early reflections from around the loudspeakers in-room, within 4-6 feet, destroy the phase fidelity of the reproduction. 

 

Chris

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