benefits of biamping

kismetcapitan

I'm thinking of getting rid of my rear speakers and then dedicating my C400.4 to just my front separates - two channels for tweeters, two channels for woofers. I'll be driving half the speakers with my amp, but what are the upsides to biamping?

hondahirny

I belive the main benefit is control, but you get added power as well. Instead of splitting your X watts per speaker, you're effectively getting all the channel's power to the woofer, and all the other channel's power to the tweeter. You can balance your gains on the amp to get the tweeters at the right levels.

I've been playing with setting my fader all the way forward and just playing through the fronts and through my subs. Sounds good, but the only trouble is my best speakers are in the rear! Now i gotta get the MMC6500 for the front, to make the fronts up to par.

MacLeod really knows this stuff, so hopefully he'll chime in with his far more experienced opinion.

MacLeod

The benefit to bi-amping is control like was mentioned above.

Bi-amping will allow you a lot more flexibility in tuning the output of the tweeters as opposed to the -3 and -6 db attenuator on the crossovers.

Also if you use time alignment you can add delay seperately to the tweeters which more than likely you wont but its nice that you could.

And bi-amping will let you use those badass crossovers on the 400.4 so you can try different settings and see if any of them sound better.

Bi-amping is the only way to go as far as Im concerned, especially if youre a tuning freak.

kismetcapitan

so the gains of biamping the fronts are clear - are there any real losses by eliminating the rear speakers? Logic says that they're not required in any real way, but years and years of having rear speakers...it's a hard paradigm to break!

MacLeod

The only thing that will suffer by losing the rear speakers is the soundstage for your back seat passengers.

So if youre wanting them to have the best sound possible, then you should keep them. If not, the best sound for you will be to lose em.

killerb

amen.

1996blackmax

Some people prefer to run their system with rear fill. Depends on what your ears like. In a system with rear fill that is properly setup, you should not really be able to tell that the rears speakers are on.

iworkfortweeter

just read the first section, it gets really technical from that point onward. basically, it eliminates dropouts in the frequency spectrum of the crossover. so..you get more clarity. there are actually more pluses than negative aspects of bi-amping. everyone should do it if at all possible.

http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm:)

MacLeod

iworkfortweeter wrote:

just read the first section, it gets really technical from that point onward. basically, it eliminates dropouts in the frequency spectrum of the crossover. so..you get more clarity. there are actually more pluses than negative aspects of bi-amping. everyone should do it if at all possible.

http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm:)

Link doesnt work brother.

The only real negative I can think of is having to buy and run an extra set of RCA's and speaker wires......which can be a big deal to a lazy person.....like me.

exalted512

http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm

ilikesound

there ya go...that's the right one.