LSi15 - Bi-amping

knownalien

I just realized that if you take off the bridge and bi-amp, one set of posts is ONLY for the tweeter and the other is for the other 3 drivers. I have read a poster say that the reason had to do with phasing. I can dig it, but it you bi-amp the LSi15's, how much is REALLY useable by the tweeter??

Sherardp

Im biamping my 12s, I heard the max was like 140 watts or something, it maybe in the manual for your 15s then again I could be wrong.

knownalien

for a fact I know that the LSi15's are rated at 250 max, but that is not my issue.

Emlyn

I never found that pumping a whole lot of power into the LSi15's by biamplification helped any. The best results came from using a single 200 watt into 4 ohms two channel amp with a high damping factor (1000 or better). The tweeter should be able to handle a 250 watt amp input by itself with no problem within reasonable volume levels. I ran 350 watts into the top part of mine in biamp mode with no problem.

knownalien

Emlyn wrote:

I never found that pumping a whole lot of power into the LSi15's by biamplification helped any. The best results came from using a single 200 watt into 4 ohms two channel amp with a high damping factor (1000 or better). The tweeter should be able to handle a 250 watt amp input by itself with no problem within reasonable volume levels. I ran 350 watts into the top part of mine in biamp mode with no problem.

I am just shocked that a tweeter could NEED more than 50 watts. Thing is, I am trying to isolate a hum in my system and one thing I do not know is what does it sound like when you have blown a crossover??

Emlyn

A damaged crossover would normally present no sound, or crackling sound from a driver or drivers, not a hum. My point with the amplification was that the LSi15's don't need huge amounts of power, but can handle it if presented with it. A hum coming from a speaker is usually caused by a grounding problem, commonly with an inadequately shielded or defective interconnect cable, but sometimes caused by something else on the electrical circuit the audio gear is on, even something simple like a light fixture or lamp. The solution to finding the source of a hum is to disconnect everything in the audio system, then reconnect each piece of gear to isolate what's causing the problem. Start with just the preamp and 5 channel amp connected to the speakers. If you have a hum with nothing but those two components connected to the speakers, you'll need to be able to lift the grounding on the amp with a three to two prong power cord adapter, or a power cord like one from PS Audio with a removable ground prong. If your amp/preamp is quiet, add each component in turn to see what's causing the problem.