Bi-amping

dholmes · December 2003

Does anyone bi-amp? Is it really worth the effort & cost?? Im considering it, all I need to do it is a stereo power amp & a bunch of splitters. Any thoughts?

PolkThug · December 2003

Looks like nobody is doing that around here.
I'd spend your money on a dedicated subwoofer instead.

Regards,
PolkThug

Ron-P · December 2003

I have my HT rig bi-amped. I have 4 Adcom 2-channel amps. Three of the amps feed the front three speakers. The fourth runs the surrounds.

I run a 'Y' splitter out of my Marantz and into the 'L' and 'R' inputs of the Adcoms. From there, the left channel feeds the lower binding posts with the right channel feeding the upper.

There is a difference in bi-amping, although it is minimal. The biggest improvement came from going with separate amps all around over the Marantz receiver.

Peace Out~:D

Fireman99 · December 2003

I'm planing on Bi Amping my power hungry 150's soon.
Dan

dholmes · December 2003

Thanks everyone, also I do have a sub it a sunfire sign.,

steveinaz · December 2003

You'll get a bunch of different views on this topic. My opinion is that for the cost involved--its not worth it. You'd be better served buying 1 very nice/powerful amplifier, rather than compromising quality/output on 2 seperate amps.

Then again, if you're a recent lottery winner, or have really deep pockets--thats up to you.

For what its worth, I bi-amped for about 5 years and finally decided to buy a single amp---The single (higher quality) amp sounded better.

Ron-P · December 2003

I will agree with Steve to a point. The more you spend, the better sound quality you can achieve. Although, there is a ceiling where the dollar amount spent vr. the improvement in sound quality narrows sharply.

I had about $600 for amps. I bought all 4 adcoms for less than that. Sure, there not the top-o-the-line, but there much better then what my Marantz receiver puts out. Could I have bought a 5 channel amp with as good a sound quality? Maybe, maybe not.

But, here is the main reason I went spearate amps for all speakers vr. one amp for all speakers. If an amp dies, I can swap things around and still be up and running. If I only had one amp and it dies, the theater is down until it's repaired.

I have a small HT room. Because it is small I did not need high out put amps to fill the room with sound and the use of these amps is for 99.5% HT. If I had a dedicated 2-channel rig, I most likely would have spent that $600 on one 2-channel amp.

But, like Steve said, it's all dependent on the depth of your pockets.

Peace Out~:D

Tour2ma · December 2003

Bi-amped mains and bi-wired center here...

Worth it? For me, yes. The Sunfire has two inputs and outputs for the front three ch's, voltage driven and current driven. Internal circuits differ for the two.

The voltage design is better suited for tighter bass. It's a typical SS design. While the current driven circuits mimics a warmer tube "sound". The rear ch's output is voltage design

You can bi-wire simply by using both outputs. Jumper a front channels input to a rear and you can bi-amp off of 2 ch's.

It's a pretty nice, flexible design.

Fireman99 · December 2003

Tour Can you E-mail me a little more detail on how you "jumper" your front Ch to your rear?
Tahnks
Dan

HBombToo · December 2003

I bi-amp my center channel and am completely amazed at the difference in dynamics. Well worth it IMO.

HBomb

Tour2ma · December 2003

Originally posted by Fireman99
Tour Can you E-mail me a little more detail on how you "jumper" your front Ch to your rear?
Tahnks
Dan

I'll post here in case anyone else is curious...

Every ch has two RCA jacks. Use one for the input from the pre-pro and the second becomes an "output" for another channel. All it takes is a standard RCA IC to make the jump...

Rear panel layout is on page 8 of this manual pdf..
http://www.sunfire.com/pdf/Cinema%20Grand%20Series%20II%205-Channel%20Power%20Amplifier%20Manual.pdf

Fireman99 · December 2003

Thank-you Tour that helped. Sometimes need that Visual look to put the words into pictures.
Dan

TheMaster · December 2003

"The biggest improvement came from going with separate amps all around over the Marantz receiver."

Ron-P,

Could you please help me hook up my 2 Adcoms to RTi70. I have 2 GFA-555s and would like to use them for the L/R front channels. I don't have Bi-wire cables yet (maybe soon) and I am using Z2 series of Monster Cable. Thanks...

Glenn

Ron-P · December 2003

Glenn, use a 'Y' splitter from your pre-amp to the adcom. Then, wire up the speaker from there.

Peace Out~:D

TheMaster · December 2003

Thank you for the quick response Ron. I will set it up per your adviced and will let you know what I think after some serious testings later today. One last thing though, do you have any preferred settings/configuration on the receiver?

Thank you,

glenn

TheMaster · December 2003

Sorry if it took me long to give you an update on this. RonP, thanks for the advice on how to bi-amp the 70s:) .
After a couple of testings, I believe that they are breathing a lot easier now. I love the out come of bi-amping the 70s. I am convince that the wife and my mini-me will have a happy Christmass this year. Happy holidays to you guys !!

Glenn

kelley · December 2003

I actually (biamp) my SRS3.1tl's with 4 Denon mono amps. I've tried running off of a single stereo amp but always come back to the monos. It sounds better to me. I have 2 CS-400's for the centers that are also biamped only because I have a 6 channel Denon amp that I needed to employ all the channels. I run the 2 centers since I sit so close to the tv in my movie room that one center either above or below the tv can be "picked out" and it just doesn't seem to come from onscreen. Once my new processor arrives I'll go back to not biamping the centers since the only advantage I saw there was not needing to increase the center level as much to match output with the front mains. Besides, I'll need 2 channels of amplification for 7.1

Bi-amping

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