Is it worth Bi amping LSi15's?

Buke9

Just wondering if it was worth bi amping or not. Right now they are run from a Adcom GFA-555 from the pre outs of Denon avr-3310ci . I like this but was wondering if bi amping was worth the cost of another amp and active crossover. Just wondering since it is set up for bi amping.

hochpt21

How big is your room? How loud do you normally listen? What type of music do you listen to?

I have never bi amped personally, but the 555 is a decent power amp, and possibly the $$ could be better spent in other areas? Or sell the 555 and take that money along with the budget for a second power amp and just buy a better single amp?

I would for sure upgrade the subwoofer in the speaker if you haven't already. I did that and it made a fairly significant difference IMO..

Buke9

The room is 20 x 20. I listen to just about everything. Not too loud unless there is beer involved ; ). I was just asking if sound quality is effected with bi amping.

hochpt21

That's a decent size room.

Hopefully, someone else chimes in here soon. Bi-amping sure wouldn't hurt, but my bet would be on better SQ by taking that budget and upgrading another component in your system.

Do you have single-wire cables with a jumper? Or bi-wire cables?

F1nut

Buke9 wrote: »

The room is 20 x 20. I listen to just about everything. Not too loud unless there is beer involved ; ). I was just asking if sound quality is effected with bi amping.

Doing it with active crossovers will net improved sound. Just be aware it takes some effort to dial all that in. That said, as hochpt21 stated, an amp upgrade will too. You might also consider getting a dedicated 2 channel pre amp as that will absolutely be an improvement over the AVR.

slbenz

Having done the route you are saying but with a set of Magnepan IIIas, active biamping will definitely improve the sound. But as F1nut has said, I would replace your AVR first with a separate preamp. It would net the greatest improvement in sound for the money, even over replacing your amp. You have to start with a good foundation before even attempting to go active biamp or even replacing your current amp. You will find that your AVR will be the one component holding everything back if you were to purchase an additional amp and active crossover for your speakers. To put it in perspective, when I replaced my Pioneer Elite AVR with a separate preamp, it lifted least two layers closer to the performance while changing amps and going active each netted an additional layer closer to the performance. Hope that helps.

tonyb

Have to agree with the other guys. For the money spent, your better off with a dedicated pre amp, maybe invest in some better cabling or source piece, and a better amp before considering active bi-amping.

K_M

It would be more "worthwhile" if the terminals allowed the side mounted woofer to be run separate from the front mounted mid/woofers, instead of the configuration they use now, with the tweeter/all 3 other speakers combined set up they have now.

Buke9

Thanks for the comments all. I wasn't wanting to do this right away (the wife would kill me) as I'm heading to CanJam SoCal with an eye on a new dac. Not sure what was meant by single wire cables or bi-wire cables? Why do I need better cabling as I haven't said what my cabling is.

hochpt21

Since you have two sets of binding posts, you can have a regular set of cables run to one set of binding posts and then a "jumper" to connect.

Or you can have a bi-wire cable that has the regular connection to your amp, but then splits on the speaker side to connect to both sets of binding posts.

It looks like tonyb was just throwing out some suggestions based on all of the info we have discussed so far. It doesn't look like he necessarily said that you need new cabling.

tonyb

Correct....just a suggestion as a possible upgrade, along with all the other suggestions.

Buke9

hochpt21 wrote: »

How big is your room? How loud do you normally listen? What type of music do you listen to?

I have never bi amped personally, but the 555 is a decent power amp, and possibly the $$ could be better spent in other areas? Or sell the 555 and take that money along with the budget for a second power amp and just buy a better single amp?

I would for sure upgrade the subwoofer in the speaker if you haven't already. I did that and it made a fairly significant difference IMO..

What did you upgrade the driver with?

hochpt21

Let me double check, but off the top of my head it was a db840 dvc.

@EndersShadow was it the svc or dvc??

Is that thread still around??

hochpt21

Actually I think it was the svc...

Wait for someone to confirm.

EndersShadow

hochpt21 wrote: »

Let me double check, but off the top of my head it was a db840 dvc.

@EndersShadow was it the svc or dvc??

Is that thread still around??

It is the SVC... thread here

hochpt21

EndersShadow wrote: »

hochpt21 wrote: »

Let me double check, but off the top of my head it was a db840 dvc.

@EndersShadow was it the svc or dvc??

Is that thread still around??

It is the SVC... thread here

Thank you. On my phone.

EndersShadow

hochpt21 wrote: »

EndersShadow wrote: »

hochpt21 wrote: »

Let me double check, but off the top of my head it was a db840 dvc.

@EndersShadow was it the svc or dvc??

Is that thread still around??

It is the SVC... thread here

Thank you. On my phone.

Some pictures of the stock sub v db840 in my post on this page

K_M

Bummer! Just read that thread about the db840 woofers (which we did a fair while back) and it does sound a lot less boomy and heavy sounding now ( a great thing!), but looked thru and that guy ZEPPELIN2 made some actual measurements, but they are not showing at all on our comp.

Was curious to see the exact change they made.

Anyone else not seeing his many measurements either?