Bi-Amping with Crossover - which crossover to use?

[wsu99999]

I have an AVR-745 (HK) and an Adcom GFA-555. The 745 is currently being used as a preamp to my RF-35's and RC-62 (powered by the 745) And RS-62's (powered by an Adcom-GFA-2).

I have heard distortions using the Gfa-555 in my horns on the RF-35. It's not bad distortion but the treble just doesn't sound right. It's too bright, and if you put your ear directly to the horn, you can hear little breaks in the treble.

My thought was that i may benefit from some bi'amping - using my AVR-745 to power the Horn on the 35, and using the GFA-555 to power the woofers.

I guess I actually have several questions. First, would this be too much power for the 35's? It would be 200 watts to the woofers, and another 85 watts to the horn for 285 watts into 125watts max speakers! I've heard that you can really never have too much wattage, and that it's low watts that damage speakers - is this true?

Secondly!!! What crossover should I use in between the amps and the speaker? Do I have to open up the RF-35 to remove the Klipsch crossover?

My last question is - if the RF-35 already has an internal crossover, then why should I need to take it out? If all of the high's are already directed to the horn and the low's directed to the woofer, then why should an external crossover be needed for bi-amping. This is something I've never understood.

Thanks in advance!!

[Trey Cannon]

No need to remove the crossover in the speaker. Just remove the gold straps between the HF and LF binding post, then hook up the amps. Connect them both to the preamp. Your done. This will tell you what you want to know.

[Islander]

There are two kinds of bi-amping, passive and active. What you have in mind is passive bi-amping, using the crossover in the speaker, which seems to be designed with that possibility in mind.

Active bi-amping calls for external electronic crossovers, with a bass and treble channel for each speaker, for a stereo two-way system. In that case, the speaker's' internal crossover would be bypassed or disconnected.

Active bi-amping offers certain advantages, but is somewhat more expensive.

[SWL]

I "passive" bi-amp with multiple amps and an active crossover. To me, the active crossover is basically allowing you to use tone controls to tweak your sound the way you want it in addition to the benefits of "passively" bi-amping. It works very well for my tastes, some will argue that isn't worth it because it has nothing scientific to back it up. All I know is that I've gone back and forth and always go back to this method. I wish I didn't because I could use the extra amps elsewhere in my house......oh well.[]

If you try this, I'd be curious to hear your impressions.

[wsu99999]

to my other question. Is this too many watts?

[SWL]

to my other question. Is this too many watts?

No........Klipsch are tuff[8o|]

[JBryan]

The (excess) wattage won't be a problem - you will hear most amps distorting badly on Klipsch speakers long before they reach their maximum output. One concern you should address with bi-amping is that you'll have to control the gain on one or both of the amps in order to balance the output. If you want to use the internal xover, then it'd be best to use 2 identical amps. If that's not an option, then you can disconnect the internal xover and build a simple low-pass filter with a variable resistor or L-pad to adjust the amount of gain to the woofers. In most cases, it is easier to use an active xover that allows you to adjust gain to each driver and in some cases, even the cut-off points.