Bi-amping/Bi-wiring: a comparison
I'm just curious on people's thoughts or reactions. I wasn't one to believe that a large difference is possible between bi-wiring and bi-amping. Chances are I probably won't get any response, but I just wanted to share my experience.
Ok, so I was bored and decided to do some changing up of things to see how some gear mated with others. I started by moving my Acurus A200x3 into the living room to test out some things. The speakers I'm using for these comparisons are Paradigm Studio 100 v.1. Now, normally these Paradigms are bi-amped to the Pioneer VSX-82TXS and are great home theater speakers but also do fairly well with music. Today I decided to hook up the speakers to the Acurus @ 200w/ch with Signal Ultra bi-wire cables. The sound was incredible and everything about the music improved with the Acurus as it should, most noticeably the much tighter bass and instrument separation. The sound with this setup was great and I didn't think it could get much better with the gear I have.
Just for kicks, I decided to then bi-amp the Paradigms with the same Acurus amp (200w going to the tweeter and 200w going to the midrange/woofers). Now since the Acurus only has 3 100w channels, I kept one speaker bi-wired with the Signal bi-wires and hooked up the other bi-amped with some Dayton SCP-20 14 ga. single run cables.
Source for music were flac from HTPC via HDMI to the Pioneer and Signal Analog II's from the receiver to the Acurus. Setting the receiver to "bi-amp" simply makes it repeat the same signal going to the fronts to the surround back channels. From there, it's the Analog II's to the amp from both the front channels as well as one of the surround back pre-outs in order to bi-amp the one speaker.
I was expecting roughly similar results from both speakers. While one speaker was bi-amped, it was using lesser quality speaker cables (the Dayton) so I figured that any gains from bi-amping may not be as noticeable. Man, was I wrong.
I preface this by saying that it wasn't necessarily better bi-amped, just different. First off, the bi-amped speaker had even greater separation, soundstaging, low-end (obviously due to having a dedicated 200w going to the woofers), more forward midrange, and a slightly crisper high than the bi-wired speaker. The most noticeable difference was the greater presence of the bass. While both speakers had tight bass, the bi-amped speaker had more of it. I figured this was simply due to the woofers having a dedicated 200w. The thing that struck me next was the more forward midrange. However, the noticeable instrument separation gains could have accounted for this as I was possibly just hearing the midrange more clearly. The highs weren't drastically different between speakers, just slightly more crisp on the bi-amped, which could once again have been a product of other gains.
Overall, I was taken aback by the more obvious separation between every sound in all types of music. I tested for 3 hours, with everything from Vivaldi to Blues Traveler to Ludacris to Brett Dennen to Boys II Men to Count Basie. With every track, instruments could be more distinctly heard in the bi-amp speaker and everything seemed more crisp.
I'm not sure about Paradigm, but some manufacturers say to only use post connectors or to bi-wire with their speakers so that the internal crossover can work better. Here's where I need some help of some people that know more about this. Personally, I don't see the difference between feeding music through a bi-wire cable vs. feeding 2 channels of the same music through 2 different cables with bi-amping. I don't know every speaker design, but it seems that the speaker should function the same. But it didn't.
With bi-amping, I noticed a clear difference and I'm beginning to like the difference. Now I just have to resist the temptation to buy another Acurus A200 so I can bi-amp:mad:
Sorry for the length, but I thought some people may be able to get something out of it. Any comments/suggestions are welcome (except calling me an idiot).
Ok, so I was bored and decided to do some changing up of things to see how some gear mated with others. I started by moving my Acurus A200x3 into the living room to test out some things. The speakers I'm using for these comparisons are Paradigm Studio 100 v.1. Now, normally these Paradigms are bi-amped to the Pioneer VSX-82TXS and are great home theater speakers but also do fairly well with music. Today I decided to hook up the speakers to the Acurus @ 200w/ch with Signal Ultra bi-wire cables. The sound was incredible and everything about the music improved with the Acurus as it should, most noticeably the much tighter bass and instrument separation. The sound with this setup was great and I didn't think it could get much better with the gear I have.
Just for kicks, I decided to then bi-amp the Paradigms with the same Acurus amp (200w going to the tweeter and 200w going to the midrange/woofers). Now since the Acurus only has 3 100w channels, I kept one speaker bi-wired with the Signal bi-wires and hooked up the other bi-amped with some Dayton SCP-20 14 ga. single run cables.
Source for music were flac from HTPC via HDMI to the Pioneer and Signal Analog II's from the receiver to the Acurus. Setting the receiver to "bi-amp" simply makes it repeat the same signal going to the fronts to the surround back channels. From there, it's the Analog II's to the amp from both the front channels as well as one of the surround back pre-outs in order to bi-amp the one speaker.
I was expecting roughly similar results from both speakers. While one speaker was bi-amped, it was using lesser quality speaker cables (the Dayton) so I figured that any gains from bi-amping may not be as noticeable. Man, was I wrong.
I preface this by saying that it wasn't necessarily better bi-amped, just different. First off, the bi-amped speaker had even greater separation, soundstaging, low-end (obviously due to having a dedicated 200w going to the woofers), more forward midrange, and a slightly crisper high than the bi-wired speaker. The most noticeable difference was the greater presence of the bass. While both speakers had tight bass, the bi-amped speaker had more of it. I figured this was simply due to the woofers having a dedicated 200w. The thing that struck me next was the more forward midrange. However, the noticeable instrument separation gains could have accounted for this as I was possibly just hearing the midrange more clearly. The highs weren't drastically different between speakers, just slightly more crisp on the bi-amped, which could once again have been a product of other gains.
Overall, I was taken aback by the more obvious separation between every sound in all types of music. I tested for 3 hours, with everything from Vivaldi to Blues Traveler to Ludacris to Brett Dennen to Boys II Men to Count Basie. With every track, instruments could be more distinctly heard in the bi-amp speaker and everything seemed more crisp.
I'm not sure about Paradigm, but some manufacturers say to only use post connectors or to bi-wire with their speakers so that the internal crossover can work better. Here's where I need some help of some people that know more about this. Personally, I don't see the difference between feeding music through a bi-wire cable vs. feeding 2 channels of the same music through 2 different cables with bi-amping. I don't know every speaker design, but it seems that the speaker should function the same. But it didn't.
With bi-amping, I noticed a clear difference and I'm beginning to like the difference. Now I just have to resist the temptation to buy another Acurus A200 so I can bi-amp:mad:
Sorry for the length, but I thought some people may be able to get something out of it. Any comments/suggestions are welcome (except calling me an idiot).
Post edited by GEBBY44 on
Comments
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I don't know much about bi-amping, but here's what I do know.
1) You need a preamp with 2 sets of preouts.
2) You need 2 identical amps.
3) Preout set A going to amp A going to the high frequency binding posts
4) Preout set B going to amp B going to the low frequency binding posts
The only thing I can't figure out is, with this setup, are you sending too much power to the tweeter section?
I ask this because with mono-amping, you send the power to both the tweeter and the woofer section, and the speaker's internal crossover takes care of how much power is distributed to the tweeter and how much power is distributed to the woofer.
Now you are sending two equal amounts of power, one to the tweeter, and one to the woofer. The tweeter section is receiving the same amount of power as the woofer section. I don't know much about speaker design. Is the tweeter section supposed to receive the same amount of power as the woofer section? I always thought that tweeters require less power than woofers. -
I know, I was thinking that same thing and meant to include it in my post. I have a feeling that the 200w to the tweeter is causing some type of problem, though I can't pinpoint it. I wonder if I stepped down to something like an Acurus 125w/ch for the tweeters would the sound change much. The fact that no tweeter will presumably ever use a terribly high amount of current makes me wonder if having such a large amp section devoted to the tweeters will ever gain much benefit with bi-amping.
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Put about 20-25 watts of tubes on the tweeters.Check your lips at the door woman. Shake your hips like battleships. Yeah, all the white girls trip when I sing at Sunday service.
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tubes would look pretty in that room...
