bi amping question

kquail

I have a pair of RTI-A1polks I have a adcom amp gfa-555 2x200 watts and a nad c272 amp 2x150 watts I know the polks are rated for 150 watts per , if I use these amps to bi amp the speakers will they handle it ? not to extreme volumes but listening volumes these are very clean sounding amps and you should be able to send more clean power to speakers than rated ? correct? as long as not cranked up to max will they be ok ?

pitdogg2

Oh good grief its one driver and a tweeter. Why do you think you need one amp per driver?
More "clean power" yet not to "extreme volumes" do you really think a pair of tweeters need 90-150 watts each?

I smell roasted tweeters and resistors in your future.

DaveHo

In addition to biamping being pointless with those speakers, what you are proposing simply won't work. The two amps will have different input sensitivities. One driver will be playing louder than the other throwing the balance off.

ZLTFUL

invalid

It takes a lot of knowledge and money to properly bi-amp, I've been studying this for a few years, so I can bi-amp my apogee duetta 2 speakers. The two comments above are correct, you will definitely ruin the sound you have now. It makes no sense with the speakers you have.

kquail

only reason i was asking is watched youtube video and they said it would open the sound stage tremendously but they were using amps slightly lower in power so i will stick with just my adcom gfa-555 running these in regular wiring configure sounds great now but i thought i would ask not sure about bi amping so it never hurts to ask questions

pitdogg2

Not everything on YT is a good idea.
Even if you use two amps it's all still going through the same crossover. To do bi-amping correctly you really need an active external crossover.

invalid

kquail wrote: »

only reason i was asking is watched youtube video and they said it would open the sound stage tremendously but they were using amps slightly lower in power so i will stick with just my adcom gfa-555 running these in regular wiring configure sounds great now but i thought i would ask not sure about bi amping so it never hurts to ask questions

I don't think those speakers warrant a bi-amp configuration. If you had speakers that did you would need a line level crossover that splits the signal right after the preamp, then you bypass the crossover in the speaker, and the line level crossover can also gain match the amps.

soundfreak1

Biamping without external crossover is mental masterbation.

marvda1

the best way to bi-amp without the headache is to have two identical amps.

invalid

soundfreak1 wrote: »

Biamping without external crossover is mental masterbation.

With two identical amps you can get better channel separation even in a passive bi-amp setup, but of course it would be better to have a line level crossover.

soundfreak1

Very seldom have I found one amp that does everything perfect. Some amps do real good bass others mids and highs. As long as the xover has output gain control you can balance any amp or combo of amps.

mhardy6647

Hmm... there is absolutely a case to be made for biamping a two-way loudspeaker (IMO)... but (and this is a big but)* the 'right way' to do it is with an active crossover (either a purpose-built analog electronic crossover, or via DSP) and appropriate & empathetic amplification.

In the "high sensitivity/compression driver" world, e.g., one might use a big, bodacious solid state amplification for the bass driver, an electronic crossover, and a high quality vacuum tube amplifier as the amplifier for the treble driver.

__________
* As opposed to a big but*, if you will, which is a different matter altogether.

invalid

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Hmm... there is absolutely a case to be made for biamping a two-way loudspeaker (IMO)... but (and this is a big but)* the 'right way' to do it is with an active crossover (either a purpose-built analog electronic crossover, or via DSP) and appropriate & empathetic amplification.

In the "high sensitivity/compression driver" world, e.g., one might use a big, bodacious solid state amplification for the bass driver, an electronic crossover, and a high quality vacuum tube amplifier as the amplifier for the treble driver.

__________
* As opposed to a big but*, if you will, which is a different matter altogether.

The apogee full range came with an active crossover and a passive line level crossover, some prefer the passive to the active. Just something to think about.

mhardy6647

In principle, the idea of crossovers that have to dissipate (relatively) high power at the loudspeaker seems pretty foolish. It puts huge demands on the components and wastes amplifier power. In principle, it makes far more sense, to me, to separate, filter,and contour frequency bands at line level and feed those signals to the power amplifier and thence to the loudspeaker(s) that respond to each band.

That said, I've spent most of my hifi time listenin' to and fiddlin' with loudspeakers with high-level, passive XOs -- probably because that has for so long been the most common way to handle the "problem" in consumer audio.

I suspect that's probably changing fairly rapidly now, for better or worse, particularly with the rise of powered loudpseaker systems with their own DSP and contouring on board.

invalid

Mhardy6647 have you ever used a passive line level crossover?

joecoulson

Another thing to consider is that when jumpers are removed from said loudspeaker for bi-amping, there is no guarantee that the impedance will be the same from hi to low connections. Making it a level matching game on top of everything else mentioned above.

invalid

joecoulson wrote: »

Another thing to consider is that when jumpers are removed from said loudspeaker for bi-amping, there is no guarantee that the impedance will be the same from hi to low connections. Making it a level matching game on top of everything else mentioned above.

Don't most line level crossovers take care of that issue?

mhardy6647

invalid wrote: »

Mhardy6647 have you ever used a passive line level crossover?

Sort of

I did some slightly embarrassing experiments with a two way system consisting of (get ready for this...) the LF section of an (unsuffixed) AR-2, an Altec 511B loaded with a modern 1" compression driver (I'd really rather not say which one, since folks might Pyle onto me if I confessed ) and a first order XO.



Appearances to the contrary, this was a biamp application - the HF and LF units were each driven by one channel of that little h/k receiver, and balanced via, umm, the balance control.

I also once had, for a while, one of these truly odd late 1960s Onkyo receivers with three separate outputs for W, M, and T -- meant to be used with a specific (and, of course, crossoverless) Onkyo loudspeaker. I believe/assume the XOs were passive -- but I don't know that for a fact.

Onkyomultiac602_zps2e7f5a6e by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Onkyomultiac604_zps1d10c3af by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

invalid

Believe it or not, Marchand makes a 4th order passive line level crossover and it's signal to noise ratio is better than their active crossovers. They use high quality potted inductors.