[Big Studly]

I have some older ('92 I think) sony tower speakers (ss-u421-av) hooked up to my new pioneer 1019ah reciever. I'm currently running it as a 5.1 system but it bugs me the their are two channels on the 7.1 reciever that are sitting there doing nothing. It just occured to me, however, that reciever supports bi amping the front main speakers with the unused surround back channels. This sounds like something I want to set up, but the speakers don't have the extra binding posts to bi-amp or bi-wire. Is there any way I can modify them to make this work, or should I just forget about it? If anyone's got some suggestions I'd be very grateful.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Waste of time with that equipment. The first step is to get a schematic of the crossover to see if it is even possible.

 

[sivadselim]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Studly /forum/post/18244248


..............but it bugs me the their are two channels on the 7.1 reciever that are sitting there doing nothing.

Why?

 

[batpig]



Quote:
it bugs me the their are two channels on the 7.1 reciever that are sitting there doing nothing

and thus, silly marketing schemes (like receiver bi-amping) are born

 

[Big Studly]

As I understand it, the reciever includes an option to use the back surround channel as an active crossover to separate the high and low frequencies. I've been told that a lot of power is lost in the passive crossover of the speakers and bi-amping will avoid that.

 

[Kal Rubinson]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Studly /forum/post/18244911


As I understand it, the reciever includes an option to use the back surround channel as an active crossover to separate the high and low frequencies.

Nope. I know of no mainstream processor or AVR with such a crossover.

Quote:
I've been told that a lot of power is lost in the passive crossover of the speakers and bi-amping will avoid that.

Some is lost but, if you remove the built in crossover, you will have to design a replacement.


As I said, the speakers are not worth this effort.

 

[batpig]

receiver bi-amping does NOT employ any active crossover, it is simply a duplicate signal sent to each speaker terminal.

 

[Big Studly]

Well that's a bit dissappointing. Oh well, it's probably for the better anyway. I don't think the girlfriend would let me get away with much more volume (small living room and all). Thanks for the info guys. Oh, I was also wondering, on these 7.1 recievers, when only 5 channels are used, does it just divide up the power to the channels you are using?

 

[sivadselim]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Studly /forum/post/18245008


Oh, I was also wondering, on these 7.1 recievers, when only 5 channels are used, does it just divide up the power to the channels you are using?

The two unused amp channels will just sit, idle. Their power is not used by the other channels. Don't sweat it. Your AVR's power supply will not be burdened with having to provide power to those two amp channels.