Bi amping my sr6500s without frying them?

modmx

need your advice. The power ratings on the sr6500s say they can handle 125 rms and up to 250 max. So now im wondering exactly how much the tweeters can handle if I were to bi amp them. Pushing out 90 watts to each driver from my pa500.4 would be equal to giving the components 360 watts rms.

wouldnt this destroy my speakers in no time?

arun1963

My momo's, rated at 100w rms are bi-amped to the 500.4. No issues at all. The sr tweet will handle 80-90 watts comfortably. Just set the gains sensibly. With higher end comps, if the comp is rated at say 100watts, it normally implies that each driver can handle this wattage.

If I may ask, what's your objective for the bi-amp?

modmx

just taking your advice from the other thread. Trying to achieve the best SQ in my car. I will have rears in case I decide to run those, but I really want to see how the components sound bi-amped

arun1963

Bi-amping is means rather than an end. Sure it will give more power to each driver and puch each driver closer to its rated power. This will make the drivers sound more dynamic. But its also an enabling tool for tunning that allows you to build your stage and image.

What setup are you running?

cadenceclipse

your confusion lies in the fact your components are rated 250w peak per speaker system(woofer and tweeter) not 250w total. each speaker or driver(tweeter tweeter woofer woofer) can handle 125w peak(assuming your careful with gains, and their power is supposed to b divided evenly, ie my components are rated 225peak but tweeters r only 75, not 112.5, comprende) for a total of 500w peak. so 360w(probably more like 400w) will b safe as long as u r careful setting gains since their rms is only 250w total

MacLeod

Theyll be fine. Ive been bi-amping my 6500's from the 500.4 for 2 years now. No problems. Just make sure you set your gains properly.

Toxis

100w/driver and I don't think I'll have any issues. Plenty of power and my gain is very low with plenty of output.

tk421

pls remember to remove the red jumpers on the crossover before bi amping :-(

i forgot and f--ked my tweeter section up.

jay27

Is 150W to each tweeter going to be too much? Should the gain be all the way down?

arun1963

Are you talking about the sr tweets? 150w rms is prob a bit too high. 100-125 with the gains at about 10 o'clock would be just right. Which amp are u planning to bi-amp the sr's off?

cadenceclipse

arun1963 wrote: »

100-125 with the gains at about 10 o'clock would be just right.

gotta ask, how could u possibly know that w/out at least knowing the output voltage from HU and the amp itself, among other factors that i think exist?

jay27

I'm going to try out a JL HD600/4 to run the SR tweeters and mids. It makes me wish they made 4 channel amps that were rated 75W for two of the channels and 150W for the other two. It seems like the choice is too high for one or too high for the other.

arun1963

You dont need 150watts to drive the sr mid. Get a 4x100w and that will do nicely all round. You can look at the polk pa 500.4 for a start

tk421

jay27 wrote: »

I'm going to try out a JL HD600/4 to run the SR tweeters and mids. It makes me wish they made 4 channel amps that were rated 75W for two of the channels and 150W for the other two. It seems like the choice is too high for one or too high for the other.

the JL audio 500/5 is like that (plus a subwoofer channel). very very very nice amp.. a complete one-system-amp. tons of control. clean power.. jerk jerk .. ****

jay27

I already bought the HD! The goal was to go with small amps to save space. I'm not great at installing either, so I figure what better than to have amps that sit on top of each other...

cadenceclipse

jay27 wrote: »

It makes me wish they made 4 channel amps that were rated 75W for two of the channels and 150W for the other two.

they do..

jay27

cadenceclipse wrote: »

they do..

Are they the same size as the HD series?

DemonAstroth

The JL audio spoken above is

100rms x 2
25rms x 2
and
250rms x 1

I'm actually considering this amp for my SR6500's and a 8" sub, but I do not know whether 25rms is enough for the tweeters.

I used to have an Eclipse XA4000 with an Eclipse 34320, but due to space now I downsized to an 8" sub and one amp.

Does anybody think it will be enough?

cadenceclipse

i think so

pushkanak

MacLeod wrote: »

Theyll be fine. Ive been bi-amping my 6500's from the 500.4 for 2 years now. No problems. Just make sure you set your gains properly.

I just purchased exactly the same system you got now, a SR6500 and the pa500.5. I'm curious on how much do you got your gains set to. I would like the most from the amp without frying any driver.

MacLeod

Mine are set to around the 10:00 position and I control the output from my processor.

pushkanak

I'm trying to bi-amp myself the SR6500 comp with the pa500.4 amp, having the PRS800 as my HU. I have the following questions:

1) To bi-amp, is it necessary to eliminate the SR6500's passive crossover from the equation? If so, does this mean that I have to connect each of the SR6500's drivers directly to each of the 4 channels of the amp, and then connect the amp directly to the HU? I also ask this since in some websites I've seen descriptions citing that the amp must then be connected to an electronic crossover and then to a preamp, but I got no idea of this (does the PRS800 HU function as both the electronic crossover and the preamp?)

2) What exactly does it mean to set the amp's gains to 10:00? If this corresponds to the watch analogy, then at 10:00 wouldn't it be just around a quarter of the amps rated power, meaning it would send very little power?

MacLeod

pushkanak wrote: »

1) To bi-amp, is it necessary to eliminate the SR6500's passive crossover from the equation? If so, does this mean that I have to connect each of the SR6500's drivers directly to each of the 4 channels of the amp, and then connect the amp directly to the HU? I also ask this since in some websites I've seen descriptions citing that the amp must then be connected to an electronic crossover and then to a preamp, but I got no idea of this (does the PRS800 HU function as both the electronic crossover and the preamp?)

If you dont have an active crossover then youll have to use the passive crossover that came with the SR's. Youll have to move the little jumper to the bi-amp position and then you can use it. If your head unit has a 3 way crossover (one for mid, one for tweet and one for sub) then you would hook the tweeters up to the amps front channels and the mids up to the amps rear channels.

2) What exactly does it mean to set the amp's gains to 10:00? If this corresponds to the watch analogy, then at 10:00 wouldn't it be just around a quarter of the amps rated power, meaning it would send very little power?

No. The gain is NOT a volume control. All it does is match the amps output with the head units input. Simply put, the gain allows you to set it to when the head unit is at 50% volume, the amp is at 50%. If you have the gain too high then the amp could be at 80% with the head unit at 50% so when you went to crank the head units volume up to 80%, your amp would be pushed to 100% which would clip the amp which sends out a very distorted signal at an output limited only by the input voltage so youre 50 watt amp could clip and shoot out a 150 watt signal! This is what blows speakers.

pushkanak

MacLeod wrote: »

If you dont have an active crossover then youll have to use the passive crossover that came with the SR's. Youll have to move the little jumper to the bi-amp position and then you can use it. If your head unit has a 3 way crossover (one for mid, one for tweet and one for sub) then you would hook the tweeters up to the amps front channels and the mids up to the amps rear channels.

1) Since the 800PRS HU has 3 way crossover and also a mini processor for active crossover, I then would do as you said on connecting the tweeters directly to the amp's front channels and the mids directly to its rear channels (completely uninstalling the SR6500's crossovers). And then I would connect the amp's corresponding front channels pair of RCAs to the HU units corresponding front RCAs. The same would apply for the rear channels's RCAs. Is all this correct?

2) I'm a bit concerned onto this since the HU's 3 pairs of RCA connectors has labels as follows: "Front/mid", "Rear/High" and "Sub/low" (not literally exact, but very similar). So I'm thinking that since the front is associated to the mids in the RCAs, then wouldn't I have to connect the mids to the amp's front channels instead of the rear channels? Or is this actually indifferent?

MacLeod wrote: »

No. The gain is NOT a volume control. All it does is match the amps output with the head units input. Simply put, the gain allows you to set it to when the head unit is at 50% volume, the amp is at 50%. If you have the gain too high then the amp could be at 80% with the head unit at 50% so when you went to crank the head units volume up to 80%, your amp would be pushed to 100% which would clip the amp which sends out a very distorted signal at an output limited only by the input voltage so youre 50 watt amp could clip and shoot out a 150 watt signal! This is what blows speakers.

3) So how can I set the gain in such a way that when the HU's volume is at 50%, the amp would be at 50% too? (if that is convenient) I'm unsure on how exactly can I set the gain at 10:00. In other words, I don't know exactly what do you mean by 10:00.

Thanks for your help so far.

cadenceclipse

right. my guess is if thats what the HU says(front for mid, not high) then try it. i think u may b able to scroll through settings like crossover and see what values it has for each (b4 connecting speakers). if front is talking 3khz u know it means high(tweet). if rear has higher values, u know thats for high. comprende?

3) like on a clock..looking at gain knob.. sounds like mac was giving u the setup for having HU maxed out at max volume(which i do, but i thought u set u're volume lower, mac). when my HU is maxed, my amp is maxed. my amp's gain is set to 0%. i have 8v preout from eclipse HU. u having about 2v preout, like mac, need to up gain. i thought mac says to set HU at like 80%, why? i think cause any higher can b bad for HU or just cause distortion. i alsways set to 100%, maxed, i think for 2 reasons, 1) in case i want to crank and not look or if sun is glaring, and 2) in case a passenger wants to crank some crappy song they hear on the radio or some lousy CD they found( u know, u have it set to 75% on HU, and they crank it 100%, ouch

MacLeod

pushkanak wrote: »

1) Since the 800PRS HU has 3 way crossover and also a mini processor for active crossover, I then would do as you said on connecting the tweeters directly to the amp's front channels and the mids directly to its rear channels (completely uninstalling the SR6500's crossovers). And then I would connect the amp's corresponding front channels pair of RCAs to the HU units corresponding front RCAs. The same would apply for the rear channels's RCAs. Is all this correct?

Yes.

2) I'm a bit concerned onto this since the HU's 3 pairs of RCA connectors has labels as follows: "Front/mid", "Rear/High" and "Sub/low" (not literally exact, but very similar). So I'm thinking that since the front is associated to the mids in the RCAs, then wouldn't I have to connect the mids to the amp's front channels instead of the rear channels? Or is this actually indifferent?

Read the manual. If it says to hook up tweeters to the rear channels do so, however that sounds weird as its almost universal to hook up tweets to front channels.

3) So how can I set the gain in such a way that when the HU's volume is at 50%, the amp would be at 50% too? (if that is convenient) I'm unsure on how exactly can I set the gain at 10:00. In other words, I don't know exactly what do you mean by 10:00.

Thanks for your help so far.

10:00 as in corresponds to a clock. Noon would be straight up.

Find a CD that best represents the bulk of the music you listen to and make sure its a well recorded and produced. Disconnect the tweeters and sub and turn the gain all the way down on the mids and the head unit volume down to about 80%. Now turn up the gains til you hear distortion. When you hear distortion, back the gain down a bit til the distortion is gone. Youre done. Now set the tweeters gain either at the same point if you want to control the output with the head unit, or adjust it til it blends with the mids. Set the sub til it blends well.

arun1963

pushkanak wrote: »

1) Since the 800PRS HU has 3 way crossover and also a mini processor for active crossover, I then would do as you said on connecting the tweeters directly to the amp's front channels and the mids directly to its rear channels (completely uninstalling the SR6500's crossovers). And then I would connect the amp's corresponding front channels pair of RCAs to the HU units corresponding front RCAs. The same would apply for the rear channels's RCAs. Is all this correct?

2) I'm a bit concerned onto this since the HU's 3 pairs of RCA connectors has labels as follows: "Front/mid", "Rear/High" and "Sub/low" (not literally exact, but very similar). So I'm thinking that since the front is associated to the mids in the RCAs, then wouldn't I have to connect the mids to the amp's front channels instead of the rear channels? Or is this actually indifferent?


Thanks for your help so far.

The pio HU is a little quirky on this front. Your tweets will run off your amps rear ch's and the mids will be on the front ch's. Thats how I have have it in my active setup.

You would connect the preout "Front/mid" to your amps front ch's and the preout "Rears/Highs" to your amps rear ch (assuming you're going to bi-amp). The sub preout would then be connected to the mono amp.

You can discard the xovers that come with the speakers and set a 3way network from the HU. This would make your network an 'active' one. You would connect the drivers directly to the amp ch's. Tweets to rear and mids to amps front ch's.

If you're doing the install your self, take as much help from guys like mac, cody, john so that the important points are covered. I would collect the info even if I was getting the install done from a shop.

Don't know about Venezuela, but most installers (specially the ones here in India) suck and thats putting it mildly. I have seen some crazy installs here. Rear 6x9's stuck to the parcel self with double sided duct tape, mids of front comp screwed to the plastic door panel......the horror stories are endless. In this situation you must know exactly what you want.

You may want to start a seperate thread for your install help.

Cpyder

Just a word from the wise, or dumb however you want to look at my story. Once you get setup, play the hardest music you'll listen too. Hardest meaning heaviest treble and loudest recording. Turn it up and watch the crossovers. When the tweeter protection circuits start to glow, turn it down until they don't anymore and remember that volume setting on your head unit. Don't turn it up past this point unless you're playing a very quiet recording.

Let's just say that even though the tweeter protection circuit is brilliant - converting excess power sent to your tweeters into light energy - they can only dissipate so much energy. The tweeters will blow if you aren't careful. I've done it before. Twice! SR6500s and PA500.4 (Not biamped) Now, I am very careful with my system and very knowledgeable of when the tweeters are getting too much power.

An idea I came up with (if you can't see your crossovers from the driver's seat) is to run an optical cable (TOSLINK) to the crossover facing the fuse and then run it up to the driver's area with the end facing me. That way I could see if I'm pushing my tweeters too hard without folding down my rear seat. Haven't implemented it yet. Just a thought.

tk421

i love this forum :'-)

audiofiend

Just a question to clarify the bi-amp setting for the SR6500 x-over:

I think the owners manual says to remove the jumpers.

If I were to use the passive x-overs instead of an active X-over from say the HU, would I just remove all jumpers?

tk421

once u are bi-amping u will need to remove the jumpers. else u will fry a capacitor like i did.