Quote:
Originally Posted by
aquaphile 
hey all,
im getting ready to upgrade almost every piece of my HT system. im looking at Towers or larger bookshelf speakers for the fronts.
my receiver will most likely be a Denon AVR589 or 689, which are rated at 75 and 80 watts a channel.
one of the speakers im looking at for the front is the Jamo S606, which can be bi-wired and are rated at 130W and a 210W peak. if i choose to bi-wire, which would be either 150W or 160W, i should be ok as long as i dont crank them all the way up, correct? im in an apartment, so i wont be going super loud. plus, my living/dining room area, is only about 12X19
thanks in advance for any and all input!
If you are talking about b-wiring, then, as stated, there will be no benefit in terms of additional wattage to your speakers. You *might* get a slightly better signal to your speakers, especially if you use cheap, small-gauge wire, but it's unlikely you'll hear any difference.
If you are talking about bi-amping using the "leftover" amp channels in a 7.1 receiver, it's doubtful you'll realize much difference either. Receiver's power outputs are limited by the power supply. No matter how many channels are running, the power supply can only supply a limited amount of current. Adding two more amps to the power supply will only cause you to hit the limits of the power supply earlier.
The *correct* way to bi-amplify is to remove the crossover from the speaker. Then take the pre-amp outputs and run them to an active crossover, which will divide the frequency spectrum *before* the power amps. Then run the separate signals to separate power amps, each with their own power supplies; one power amp to drive the tweeter(s) and one power amp to driver the woofer(s). This is an expensive and complicated design to accomplish, but it is the only way to appropriately "bi-amplify".
The speakers you are considering have a separate, powered woofer in the base. You can *effectively* bi-amplify your system by using the Bass Management in the receiver to cross the upper speakers over. You would then be using the receiver's power amps to drive the speakers and the powered woofer's amps to driver the woofers. However, you would give up the ability to have true, subwoofers in the system.
IMO, you would be better off forgetting about either bi-wiring or bi-amping, and about getting speakers with built-in powered "woofers" for an HT system. Get speakers to handle the frequencies from 80 Hz or so on up. Get subwoofer(s) to handle the frequencies from 80 Hz down. Use Bass Management to divide the frequency spectrums accordingly. Use one, good quality speaker cable per speaker, (note that "good quality" doesn't necessarily mean "expensive".) Then look to get as much amp power as possible within your budget to drive the speakers.
Craig
