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Too much power for tweeter?

698 views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  dstr212 
#1 ·
I have a pair of KLIPSCH KF-26 speakers that are bi-amped to 2 Emotiva XPA-3s, my question is with that tweeter in particular running on its own crossover to the amp, am I risking blowing the tweeter with too much power or will the crossover be able to handle that? The Emotivas output 200w per channel.
 
#2 ·
You aren't gaining a thing with what you have done. You're really not bi amping power to separate parts of the speaker. To accomplish what you think you have done you need to remove the crossovers from inside the speaker. Then you need to use external crossovers all while controlling the gain supplied from each amp channel. This is complicated and not recommended. It's a huge engineering experiment and very expensive. To answer your first question about your tweeter. If you where indeed using a single external crossover with your tweeter and put 200w to it the tweeter would blow.


Your Klipsch speakers are very efficient and the best thing you can do is don't mess with any bi wiring or bi amping gimicks. Doing so will not have any proven scientific audio improvements. The 200w provided by one XPA-3 is already not needed for you speakers.
 
#3 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel  /t/1458106/too-much-power-for-tweeter#post_22962146


You aren't gaining a thing with what you have done. You're really not bi amping power to separate parts of the speaker. To accomplish what you think you have done you need to remove the crossovers from inside the speaker. Then you need to use external crossovers all while controlling the gain supplied from each amp channel. This is complicated and not recommended. It's a huge engineering experiment and very expensive. To answer your first question about your tweeter. If you where indeed using a single external crossover with your tweeter and put 200w to it the tweeter would blow.


Your Klipsch speakers are very efficient and the best thing you can do is don't mess with any bi wiring or bi amping gimicks. Doing so will not have any proven scientific audio improvements. The 200w provided by one XPA-3 is already not needed for you speakers.

So you are saying even with the jumper removed, the seperate amps I have feeding the speakers arent bi-amping like I think?
 
#5 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by dstr212  /t/1458106/too-much-power-for-tweeter#post_22962460


So you are saying even with the jumper removed, the seperate amps I have feeding the speakers arent bi-amping like I think?

You are bi-amping, but its passive and not active.


The two amps will be amplifying the entire frequency range given by the source and outputting it to the speaker, then the speaker filters those frequency's in the crossover for the appropriate dirver. Problem is that those frequency's is just wasted power as it is all thrown out in the end.

For eg. The low pass filter will have wasted power amplifying all frequency's roughly above 2khz, the high pass filter is wasted the same way with all frequency's below 2khz. (all depends on crossover but its just a example).

Active bi amp has that same filter but before the amplifier stage so to ensure the hi pass and low pass amplification only does its job in the required frequency range, thus the need to remove the internal crossover from the speaker.


People believe that doing a passive bi amp is not worth the trouble and i believe they are right but it still can improve on a single amplifier but there is a lot of wasted power to answer for and would easily be better to just buy a single more powerful amplifier.
 
#7 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by [DANGERDAN]  /t/1458106/too-much-power-for-tweeter#post_22962620


You are bi-amping, but its passive and not active.


The two amps will be amplifying the entire frequency range given by the source and outputting it to the speaker, then the speaker filters those frequency's in the crossover for the appropriate dirver. Problem is that those frequency's is just wasted power as it is all thrown out in the end.

For eg. The low pass filter will have wasted power amplifying all frequency's roughly above 2khz, the high pass filter is wasted the same way with all frequency's below 2khz. (all depends on crossover but its just a example).

Active bi amp has that same filter but before the amplifier stage so to ensure the hi pass and low pass amplification only does its job in the required frequency range, thus the need to remove the internal crossover from the speaker.


People believe that doing a passive bi amp is not worth the trouble and i believe they are right but it still can improve on a single amplifier but there is a lot of wasted power to answer for and would easily be better to just buy a single more powerful amplifier.

Ok makes sense.
 
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