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Amping speakers for 2 channel audio listening.

post #1 of 9
2/8/13 at 4:17pm
Thread Starter 
Is there much difference in sound quality between bi-amping or tri-amping a speaker or is the basic configuration good enough? I would like to here from any user out there who performs this task with their speakers. Thanks. wink.gif
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post #2 of 9
2/8/13 at 4:34pm
Gee, hard to say, never been discussed here before...

All IMO:
  • Passive bi-amping as implemented in AVRs is not worth the effort, no significant gain.
  • Adding a line-level crossover and amplifiers, then connecting the amplifiers directly to the drivers (bypassing the speakers' internal crossovers) can provide significant benefit, but how audible depends upon what you had before and how good you are at designing crossover networks.

YMMV - Don
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post #3 of 9
2/8/13 at 5:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DonH50 View Post

Gee, hard to say, never been discussed here before...

All IMO:
  • Passive bi-amping as implemented in AVRs is not worth the effort, no significant gain.
  • Adding a line-level crossover and amplifiers, then connecting the amplifiers directly to the drivers (bypassing the speakers' internal crossovers) can provide significant benefit, but how audible depends upon what you had before and how good you are at designing crossover networks.

YMMV - Don

+1 and to do what Don describes (active biamping or triamping) requires you to remove or otherwise bypass the crossovers built into your speakers or you end up with weird holes in your frequency response.

also, despite the absense of a smiley, his "never been discussed" comment is facetious and a search will reveal at least weekly discussions of the issues .. .
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post #4 of 9
2/8/13 at 11:12pm
Thread Starter 
I thought, say for an example. I have a speaker that is bi-amp. I just get two amps say 500 watts x 2 and connect one amp say the left amp to the left and right tweeter and the right amp to the left and right woofers. Then run just the left output from the pre-amp to the left amp and the right output of the pre-amp to the right amp. So two 500 watts should be divided into 250 watts per driver. Will that work?

Cause what you guys are telling me about crossover stuff is way over my head. LIke Wooooshhhhhh!!!!!!
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post #5 of 9
2/8/13 at 11:22pm
To improve your sound quality, get some room Tx's, cheaper and not as much of a learning curve and most likely yeild better results than just bi-amping.
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post #6 of 9
2/9/13 at 11:51am
If you connect the amps without some sort of crossover you'll either gain nothing if you retain the crossovers in the speakers or you'll blow up them up if you bypass the crossovers. If you do not understand crossovers (Google, Wikipedia, etc.or pick up an audio reference book) then you should not waste your time and money. Instead, look to room treatments as stated above, or just spend the money on movies and music. Or send it to me. smile.gif
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post #7 of 9
2/9/13 at 12:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DonH50 View Post

Gee, hard to say, never been discussed here before...

All IMO:
  • Passive bi-amping as implemented in AVRs is not worth the effort, no significant gain.
  • Adding a line-level crossover and amplifiers, then connecting the amplifiers directly to the drivers (bypassing the speakers' internal crossovers) can provide significant benefit, but how audible depends upon what you had before and how good you are at designing crossover networks.

YMMV - Don

The key point for most people is the first one - Passive bi-amping as implemented in AVRs is not worth the effort, and provides no significant gain.

There is no YMMV about it, nobody gets an audible benefit out of passive biamping.

Passive biamping only benefits people who sell amplifiers.

As applied to AVRs, it is a lame attempt to add another feature to the blurb sheet.
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post #8 of 9
2/9/13 at 12:23pm
Thread Starter 
Okay, I want to thank everyone for clearing this up for me. My last question is that I have two McIntosh MC275 tubed amps at 75watts x 2 channels. Would it be okay to dedicate each amp to each of my speakers and bridge each amp so I can get at least 150 watts going to each speaker.
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post #9 of 9
2/9/13 at 1:20pm
According to the McIntosh site you cannot "bridge" but can run "mono-parallel" to attain 150 W/ch as desired.
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