Monitor60's bi-amp sub-ish

wbogart4

I've been reading through the threads and google searching like crazy but havent found the answer to my questions. Please forgive me and point me to the thread if you guys know of a pre-existing thread.

I purchased a pair of monitor 60's about a month ago. Absolutely love them. I am a complete beginner at real home theater set ups other than what I've read from these threads.

I know the monitor 60's are bi-ampable. I know that eventually I want to flesh out the system with a better receiver, sub, surround and center. Unfortunately I am cash strapped for a while. The only sub that I am able to afford is the bottom of the line Polk PSW10 which runs the same response as the monitors with roughly equivalent power.

From my understanding of bi-ampable speakers the set up is that the top terminals are separated for the mid's/highs and the bottom terminal is used for the lows/sub.

To get to the question if I set up the speakers to run the top terminals to the Front Right and Left outputs on the stereo and then connect the bottom terminals to an amplified subwoofer output on the receiver would I do any damage to the speakers? The damage part is the main worry. If I know that it wont really hurt anything then I have no issues experimenting to see what the quality is like.

Keeping in mind that the receiver is not a biampable receiver.

Receiver: Onkyo HTR330

codyc1ark

No no no! Welcome to club polk!
I'll chime in here, even though I have limited knowlage. The correct way to bi amp is to run 2 sets of speaker wire from your Onkyo (AVR) to your speakers. The only thing that should be going to your sub is an RCA cable. Does not sound like you have the option to bi amp at this point, and from what most say, bi amping is a waste of time. Unless your have already bought your PSW10 I would wait, I own one, and am gearing up to upgrade soon. For just a bit more you can get a PSW505, BIC, something along those lines of budget subs.
Good luck, keep on posting and reading, there is a lot of knowlage to found here!

EndersShadow

Techinically you could run a set of wires from your Front A to one set of binding posts and Front B to the other (I have done this with my Monitor 40's and a Harman Kardon 3490).

I have done what Cody talks about with my Integra as well and noticed no difference and actually liked the single wire sound better later on.

Technically bi-amping refers to using two totally different amplifiers (not 2 channels from the same amp/reciever). In that way you technically cant since you dont have pre-outs.

Personally I wouldnt bother with it, the 60's will be fine with just one set of speaker wires.

If you want to do it however use your front A & B connections and remember to remove the gold connectors between the two sets of plugs.

wbogart4

I FULLY understand that this technically isnt even bi-amping. And I 100% understand that this is not true or even good bi-amping technique.

However, if logic is following my Electrical Engineering training and the few random circuit diagrams I've seen: this method should work. As long as the sub is pushing enough power to the sub terminals this should work just as effectively as purchasing the PSW10.

Just to reiterate I mean to connect the top terminals of the monitor 60's to the front amplified signal out of my receiver. Then to connect the bottom terminals to the sub-woofer amplified out on the same receiver. Assuming the sub amplifier can produce 50+ watts of continuous power to each of the speakers bottom terminals then it should work. As for quality I cannot say.

EndersShadow

wbogart4 wrote: »

I FULLY understand that this technically isnt even bi-amping. And I 100% understand that this is not true or even good bi-amping technique.

However, if logic is following my Electrical Engineering training and the few random circuit diagrams I've seen: this method should work. As long as the sub is pushing enough power to the sub terminals this should work just as effectively as purchasing the PSW10.

Just to reiterate I mean to connect the top terminals of the monitor 60's to the front amplified signal out of my receiver. Then to connect the bottom terminals to the sub-woofer amplified out on the same receiver. Assuming the sub amplifier can produce 50+ watts of continuous power to each of the speakers bottom terminals then it should work. As for quality I cannot say.

It should work, but why not eliminate one run of wire and just use your Front A & B. Your adding in another set of crossovers (in the sub) in addition to the ones already in the speakers. Not sure how thats going to sound or work.

tonyb

If I was you, I'd forget about this bi-amp stuff, the weird wiring idea, and just scout the local craigslist for a cheap sub. Keeping in mind the size of the room of coarse. A small sub in a big room will leave you wondering why you spent the money. Hooking up the sub out from the receiver to your speakers is a bad idea imho. Lots of low freq. to the monitor 60's has potential to do damage to your speakers that are not designed to handle it.

codyc1ark

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the subs output will provide any power to the speakers, unless you have wires run to the subs input. The signal just passes through, and the sub takes what it needs. Am I wrong?

I also want to say again, you can find a sub that will actually be a sub for 50-100 more then what your looking at spending on the PSW10. The psw10 won't provide a very low end, I speak from personal experience. Save your money for your sub upgrade, look at the PSW505, and the BIC F12 or PL-200, I believe all three can be had for under $200.00, otherwise here in a few months, you'll have a PSW10, and find yourself ordering another more powerfull sub, and already have money wrapped up into your PSW10.

I hope this helps - One thing I've learned in my short time here is just to bite the bullet, wait, and get something decent. The waiting game SUCKS, but in the long run it will be well worth the wait!

On3s&Z3r0s

I'm with everyone else in that I think you shouldn't do that. As long as you remove the jumpers from the binding posts on the speakers I don't think you'd be risking damage to the speaker. One hole in the plan is that you have two front speakers and only one subwoofer output. Were you thinking you'd put two wire ends in each of the subwoofer spring clips? If you do that, you might be risking damage to the amp because the amp would see a lower impedance than it's probably expecting on that output.

If it did work at all and didn't damage the amp, you'd probably just get really weak bass out of your speakers. Newegg has the PSW 10 right now for $80. I'd imagine that would improve the bass in HT applications. I'm sure not all the bass you might like, but it might tide you over until you can swing a bigger sub.

On3s&Z3r0s

codyc1ark wrote: »

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the subs output will provide any power to the speakers, unless you have wires run to the subs input. The signal just passes through, and the sub takes what it needs. Am I wrong?

Yeah, it's pretty weird that this receiver has spring clips for speaker cable as a sub output instead of a line level / RCA output. I'm not sure exactly what is supposed to be coming out of sub outputs on the receiver. I'd imagine it would have to be a speaker level signal. You're right that Polk subs allow you to use the speaker level signals from the receiver L/R front speaker posts, and they'll take the low part of the signal and pass through the rest.

tonyb wrote: »

... Lots of low freq. to the monitor 60's has potential to do damage to your speakers that are not designed to handle it.

I'm definitely not an expert myself, but I don't think this is a big concern. Just sending a low frequency signal to a speaker that can't reproduce low frequencies shouldn't hurt the speaker, you just won't hear anything down there. I've played lots of stuff on Monitor 40's where the bass goes down much lower than the speaker can play, and I don't think that hurts the speaker any.

wbogart4

I can get that this is not an optimal set up by any means. The only reason I came up with it was due to money constraints, the fact that the sub out is supposed to be driving an unpowered sub, and sheer curiosity.

I got a pretty good concensus that this is obviously not the way to go for an decent amount of time but shouldnt cause any real harm to the speakers.

I figure I'll look around the internet some more to try to find a circuit diagram of the speakers and that should put the finishing touches on whether or not this will hurt my speaker.

I still have every intention to include a sub when I can afford it. Hopefully tax return?

Thanks all for viewpoints and knowledge.

On3s&Z3r0s

Ah... I should have looked at the manual more closely. It makes sense that the receiver is designed to be paired with a passive sub. Kinda duh on my part. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I would say again that I think trying to hook both speakers to the subwoofer terminals could potentially cause issues for the amp because of the lower impedance presented (the specs for the receiver say it wants to operate speakers in the 8-16 ohm range). What you could do is try to bi-amp one speaker at a time and see what happens just as an experiement... but I'm not buying you new speakers or a new receiver if something goes south.

There are a lot of guys on the forums with far greater knowledge of how this stuff works in EE terms. You might check back here later to see if one of them has chimed in. Good luck!

tonyb

On3s&Z3r0s wrote: »

I'm definitely not an expert myself, but I don't think this is a big concern. Just sending a low frequency signal to a speaker that can't reproduce low frequencies shouldn't hurt the speaker, you just won't hear anything down there. I've played lots of stuff on Monitor 40's where the bass goes down much lower than the speaker can play, and I don't think that hurts the speaker any.

Don't kid yourself....

I'm talking in DD or DTS....the low freq can be brutal for a speaker not designed to handle it. Were not talking a few octaves below what the speaker can handle either. What happens when a speaker is fed a signal it simply can't produce ? Does the word "distortion" come to mind ? What's probably the number one killer of speakers ? Distortion...
Think about it, would you run a computer speaker at full range in a HT setup ?
Would it be safe to say you'd blow that puppy up ? Your asking the speaker to do way more than it's capable of, and the M40's are not capable of taking the place of a subwoofer.

SpartanStang14

if there is no sub connected, won't the low frequencies be sent to the 60's anyway since there would be no crossover? essentially, the speakers would be set to Large, so the receiver would treat them as full range. or even just set the crossover as low as possible if you can't set the fronts to Large. this would sound the same as sending the subwoofer signal to the fronts, I imagine.

On3s&Z3r0s

SpartanStang14 wrote: »

if there is no sub connected, won't the low frequencies be sent to the 60's anyway since there would be no crossover? essentially, the speakers would be set to Large, so the receiver would treat them as full range. or even just set the crossover as low as possible if you can't set the fronts to Large. this would sound the same as sending the subwoofer signal to the fronts, I imagine.

Yep, this is true. Well, there maybe some LFE material on movie soundtracks that doesn't get sent to the fronts even if they are set to large, but that wouldn't be reproducible on the 60's anyway. The only possible benefit, since there is juice on the sub channel instead of being just a line level signal, is that you'd maybe get more power from the receiver into the speakers.

All that said... I can think of a ton of reasons why this just won't work and shouldn't be attempted. If it was purely with throwaway gear I would maybe try it just as an experiment. But if the OP can't afford a decent sub, then he can't afford to be replacing any of this stuff, so it's definitely not worth whatever risk there is in trying it. It's interesting but just really not a good idea.

wbogart4

To expand on On3s&Z3r0s post. I did try this on some throw away speakers that a buddy had laying around. Turns out it does actually make a difference though I'm thoroughly convinced that its not worth it at all.

By running the bottom channel to the subwoofer channel on my receiver I was able to notice more power being pushed through the "sub" portion of the speaker. It was an obvious difference but not worth the effort, cable, or time.

On3s&Z3r0s is correct in that the speaker response range is not nearly enough to make the speaker worth acting as a subwoofer.

Definitely a fun little exercise though.

On a side note I was able to patch together a 100 dollar gift card and 50 bucks of my own to purchase a BIC V1220 that was on crazy sale. Arriving today, very excited.