Anyone bi-amp the Emotiva LPA-1?

dbaldus

I just purchased an Emotiva LPA-1 to use with my HK 247 and it should be here by the end of the week. I think that I'm probably going to have some unused terminals on the amp (depending whether or not I hook up my weaker surround sound speakers (R15's) to the amp or to my HK) so I was considering bi-amping my mains (RTi70s) and possibly my center (CSi40) as well. I have read on the Emotiva lounge that it is possible to do this, but I was just wondering what happens when I do that exactly.

1. If I split the signal at the pre-out and then run 2 separate RCAs to two input terminals on the amp, then run a set of cables to the speaker from each of those terminals, am I effectively getting 2 x 125 = 250 watts to the speaker?

2. Also, when I do that, is there any setting that I need to change on my receiver to only send low frequencies to one terminal and high frequencies to another? I know I need to remove the jumper on my speaker terminals, but other than that, are there any other sort of settings to make sure I take care of?

3. Has anyone done this on the LPA-1? I'm going to ask the same question on the Emotiva Lounge (their forum), but there isn't much activity over there so I thought it would get answered more quickly over here.

4. What has been people's experience with bi-amping in general? Is the difference noticeable? What is the difference as opposed to using one amp? Should I do it with both the mains and the center, or just the mains, or just the center, or what would make the biggest difference?

Thanks in advance...

Early B.

Forget about it. Not worth the trouble.

Besides, you'll only be able to bi-amp two speakers on the LPA-1 @ 250 wpc/speaker.

dbaldus

Why do you say it is not worth the trouble?

I understand why people say its not worth the trouble when you would have to buy another amp or something like that (when you could instead just buy a single, higher powered amp), but considering I will probably have 2 spare channels on the LPA-1, why not?

I'm assuming that by your response, the answer to my question about giving the speakers 2 channels of 125w is really like giving it 250w is a "yes", so why wouldn't giving the speakers 250w instead of 125w be better?

Just seems to me like I'm going to have spare terminals on the LPA-1, so why not use them? Just curious to hear your reasoning...

WilliamM2

It's not really like giving each speaker 250 watts. When the woofer is drawing a lot of power, say 100 watts, the tweeter will only be drawing 5 - 10 watts. With an actual 250 watt per channel amp, the power will all be used, as it can go where it's needed.

I am currently bi-amping my center channel with 150x2. Why not, doesn't cost anything. But to be honest, I did not notice any difference, if fact, I did not even have to re-calibrate the center, it still had the same output as 150x1.

Give it a try and see what you think.

polktiger

When I have toyed with bi-amping in the past, I have always removed the jumper. But as has been pointed out, your woofer frequently draws much more power than your tweeter. So, I wondered, what happens if you leave the jumper on.

Now, first thought, if it is 2 separate amps you likely ground them together and kill the amps. But what if you are running an older 4 channel amp or a seven channel amp and you only have a 5.1 set up. In this case, it is all coming off the same amp which can be tested for having a common ground. If it passes, could you then use the same amp to bi-amp? If so, would you even want to since there is likely only one power supply in the amp anyway.

I have an old 4 channel carver that I though about doing this with. I also wondered about these Emotivas. Could you get a worthwhile 250 wpc via bi-amping with the jumpers left on. (Sort of like bridging an amp without the added distortion)

BjornB17

I know this is an old thread....

but I might get an LPA-1 to use on my system in my sig (with the exception of AVR-130 , i will be using AVR-340).

Could i use the 50 W channels on the LPA to drive the tweeters in the Monitor 70s while using the high-power channels to drive the woofers? Will this create a volume inbalance? As stated earlier, the tweeter draws much less power so 50W ought to be enough, right?

Early B.

BjornB17 wrote: »

I know this is an old thread....

but I might get an LPA-1 to use on my system in my sig (with the exception of AVR-130 , i will be using AVR-340).

Could i use the 50 W channels on the LPA to drive the tweeters in the Monitor 70s while using the high-power channels to drive the woofers? Will this create a volume inbalance? As stated earlier, the tweeter draws much less power so 50W ought to be enough, right?

Should work fine. No problem. Give it a try.