Still very happy with my 3805/Lsi15's

RoosterD

Well, since I've been listening now for a few months, and I've never had any overheating issues, or even noticed the receiver getting hot, i decided to get a little more comfortable with the receiver. After reading a few posts about how power hungry the Lsi15's are, I decided to give Bi-Amping a shot with my 3805(Do a google search to find out how if you don't already know). To be honest, when I first got the receiver and speakers, I was completely justified and elated with my purchase. Now after a few months, my ears are adjusting to the added volume, and I'm not AS enthused. I don't think that I would have noticed when I first hooked everything up a few months back, but now that I'm a little more educated through listening and reading, I'm noticing that the speakers probably could use a little more power.
After bi amping, I can't believe the difference. Everything sounds stronger. I think the 8" sub was really taking away from the highs. I haven't done a lot of listening yet, but I immediately noticed a difference. I'm assuming that upgrading to a Parasound 5.1 amp (halo?) would be a similar experience with all the speakers or better, but may be I'll save that purchase for when I get complacent again. I do have a question though...

When I Bi Amped the Lsi15's, I thought the sub would be seperated from the 2 drivers and tweeter. In reality, I've found that the tweeter is seperate from the 2 midrange driver and 8" sub. I noticed this by turning the volume down on one or the other. With one setup, after turning down the volume, only the tweeter is playing, and with the other setup only the drivers/sub.

So my question is, which terminal should I hook the the "main" front channel to?

pjdami

Hello and welcome to the forum.

As a LSi 15 owner myself, I have never felt the need to biamp them. I've had success with NAD, Rotel, and B&K amps in the 125 X 2 @ 8 ohms (200 X 2 into LSi 4 ohms) amplification. Not to say that they would not benefit from biamplification, but I just never saw the reason to as I was satisfied with my results.

I believe you are asking about using your receiver's amps to connect to the speakers and using a separate amp too using the preouts?

My response would be that you would have a missmatch in gain unless you found an amp with the same exact gain as your Denon. In other words the highs and lows may not be in sync in volume.

If I were to biamp, I would bypass the Denon altogther and split the signal (does the Denon have dual preouts?) and use identical amps with the same gain for the highs and lows.

Some amps, like NAD, have a variable output gain that is user adjustable in the rear of the amp. You could use the Denon outputs for the highs, and the NAD using the preouts for the lows and then try to match the output using the variable gain on the NAD. However, the most ideal situation would be the biamp with the same type of amp in my opinion.

RoosterD

pjdami wrote:

Hello and welcome to the forum.

As a LSi 15 owner myself, I have never felt the need to biamp them. I've had success with NAD, Rotel, and B&K amps in the 125 X 2 @ 8 ohms (200 X 2 into LSi 4 ohms) amplification. Not to say that they would not benefit from biamplification, but I just never saw the reason to as I was satisfied with my results.

I believe you are asking about using your receiver's amps to connect to the speakers and using a separate amp too using the preouts?

My response would be that you would have a missmatch in gain unless you found an amp with the same exact gain as your Denon. In other words the highs and lows may not be in sync in volume.

If I were to biamp, I would bypass the Denon altogther and split the signal (does the Denon have dual preouts?) and use identical amps with the same gain for the highs and lows.

Some amps, like NAD, have a variable output gain that is user adjustable in the rear of the amp. You could use the Denon outputs for the highs, and the NAD using the preouts for the lows and then try to match the output using the variable gain on the NAD. However, the most ideal situation would be the biamp with the same type of amp in my opinion.

Thanks for the quick response! You probably wouldn't have the same (better) experience that I had, because of the superior amps in NAD, Rotel, and B&K to my Denon. If I do upgrade, the only use I would have for the Denon amp would possibly be the surround back. I would probably go with a decent 5.1 amp.

ohskigod

I'm not surprised you like your 15's The Lsi's across the board are great products.
I'm not sure about biamping with 2 recievers (using 2 3805's? or one, but just a and b speaker terms)

either way, not the best to get the most out of the LSi's

they crave high current amplification, that parasound Halo sould make a significant difference.

I got my LSi9's on my Carver 4.0T right now 500 watts into 4 ohms, and those little bookshelves seem to crave every watt. the sound with all that power is near magical, very surprising overall, especially for a bookshelf.

power wise, swing for the fences to get everything you can out of those.
make sure the amp is stable to 4 ohms, stable to 2 would be even better since the LSi's are apparently known for impedance dips below 4 ohms.

you got quite a bit of untapped performance there, have fun getting it to come out down the road

RoosterD

ohskigod wrote:

I'm not surprised you like your 15's The Lsi's across the board are great products.
I'm not sure about biamping with 2 recievers (using 2 3805's? or one, but just a and b speaker terms)

The zone 3 on the 3805(210W all Channels 4 ohms) can be setup to play the same information as the fronts. ie, front preouts into VDP input, then zone 3 volume set to 0db while zone 3 input is on VDP. The volume scales with the rest of the speakers.

ohskigod wrote:

either way, not the best to get the most out of the LSi's

they crave high current amplification, that parasound Halo sould make a significant difference.

I got my LSi9's on my Carver 4.0T right now 500 watts into 4 ohms, and those little bookshelves seem to crave every watt. the sound with all that power is near magical, very surprising overall, especially for a bookshelf.

power wise, swing for the fences to get everything you can out of those.
make sure the amp is stable to 4 ohms, stable to 2 would be even better since the LSi's are apparently known for impedance dips below 4 ohms.

you got quite a bit of untapped performance there, have fun getting it to come out down the road

Wow 500W? I thought going over the recommended power would be bad, thnx for the info. I will swing for the fences

LessisNevermore

RoosterD wrote:

Wow 500W? I thought going over the recommended power would be bad, thnx for the info. I will swing for the fences

He most likely isn't pouring all 500W into them, but a 500W amp will push alot more power before clipping. If your speaks are rated for 150W, and you pair them with a 150W/ch. amp, it will, more often than not, clip and distort before reaching it's full rated output, and probably trash your prized cones. :eek:

ohskigod

LessisNevermore wrote:

He most likely isn't pouring all 500W into them, but a 500W amp will push alot more power before clipping.

exactly!

more power better than underpowering. I blew a pair of speakers once by underpowerring. never overpowering.

probably sounds good because the amp isnt trying that hard to drive em. barely breaks a sweat. Amps that have to try real hard can get very harsh sounding, and of course can clip. which is BAD

heiney9

ohskigod wrote:

exactly!

more power better than underpowering. I blew a pair of speakers once by underpowerring. never overpowering.

probably sounds good because the amp isnt trying that hard to drive em. barely breaks a sweat. Amps that have to try real hard can get very harsh sounding, and of course can clip. which is BAD

The reason low power amps start to sound harsh is because of clipping. Many times the clipping is induced by the built in protection circuit. In marginal amps/rec with very limited power supplies/reserves in order to protect the outputs manufacturers use crude current limiting devices that square off the sound wave well before it may naturally clip. This abrupt action casues all kinds of odd harmonics which can damamge speakers and the outputs alike. This is ONE of the MANY reasons a receiver usually sounds worse than seperates. But don't kid yourself there are many lower end seperate amps that have the same problem. Protection circuits in almost all instances can interfer with the quality of sound coming out of the amp, even if it's not activated. An amp with no current limiting circuit is always the sign of a good design and a very robust output/power reserve. Simply, fuses across the power supply rails should be enough if the extreme is met sometime.

H9

kmartin971

LessisNevermore wrote:

He most likely isn't pouring all 500W into them, but a 500W amp will push alot more power before clipping. If your speaks are rated for 150W, and you pair them with a 150W/ch. amp, it will, more often than not, clip and distort before reaching it's full rated output, and probably trash your prized cones. :eek:

Clipping does not happen at a certain level - its always there! Do you what clipping is?

LessisNevermore nice setup BTW!