Any Advantage to Bi-Amp Onkyo 607?

dvran

I just bought an Onkyo 607 and in the manual it says the speakers can be bi-amp'd in 5.1 mode since I'm not using the side channels. I believe my center channel and 1000p speakers have dual posts, I'm not sure on the rears.

Is there real advantage to doing this and has anyone tried this?

Is it only for the front L and R speakers?

Thanks,

vc69

Short answer is no, there is nothing to be gained from bi-amping with your receiver. Try it and see, after all, it's your system and your ears.

dvran

Thanks. It was listed in the manual as an option so I wasn't sure.

vc69

I have a 606.

There is a technical reason it is pointless but I get tired of explaining it. Just give it a pass.

anhchungdoan

vc69 wrote: »

Short answer is no, there is nothing to be gained from bi-amping with your receiver. Try it and see, after all, it's your system and your ears.

Cannot be stated better than that.

comfortablycurt

Bi-amping with an AVR doesn't really have any advantages in my experience. You're not even really driving your speakers with any extra power using that method.

The power for all the channels is drawn from one common power block, so it's not as if hooking a speaker up to an extra pair of outputs is going to give it additional power output. The speaker is still only going to be drawing as much power as it needs. The exception to this is AVR's that use separate mono-block amplifiers on each channel...but not many of them do.

A more proper term for it would be bi-wiring, rather than bi-amping. Some people have reported improvements from bi-wiring, but I've never found any myself. I tried bi-amping my RTi8's with my Onkyo 606, and found no improvements. If anything, the mid-range seemed a little bit more withdrawn, and drier...which is hardly a good thing.

Give it a shot though if you've got the extra speaker cables laying around. Some people have reported improvements from it...the only way you'll know is by trying it.

vc69

comfortablycurt wrote: »

Bi-amping with an AVR doesn't really have any advantages in my experience. You're not even really driving your speakers with any extra power using that method.

The power for all the channels is drawn from one common power block, so it's not as if hooking a speaker up to an extra pair of outputs is going to give it additional power output. The speaker is still only going to be drawing as much power as it needs. The exception to this is AVR's that use separate mono-block amplifiers on each channel...but not many of them do.

A more proper term for it would be bi-wiring, rather than bi-amping. Some people have reported improvements from bi-wiring, but I've never found any myself. I tried bi-amping my RTi8's with my Onkyo 606, and found no improvements. If anything, the mid-range seemed a little bit more withdrawn, and drier...which is hardly a good thing.

Give it a shot though if you've got the extra speaker cables laying around. Some people have reported improvements from it...the only way you'll know is by trying it.

Zackly.

wutadumsn23

Curt does it again, good advice guys. I agree 100% No matter what you call it, it probably won't make any diff. at all.


-Jeff

dvran

Thanks guys, great advice.

Porscha

You should read this article. There is a reason speaker and hifi manufactures do indeed build their products with this capability. http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm

nguyendot

Porscha wrote: »

You should read this article. There is a reason speaker and hifi manufactures do indeed build their products with this capability. http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm

This article does not apply to this thread, at all.
You should probably go read up on passive biamping. Your article did not address that all. It assumed a few things (as did you):

1) Two separately powered amplifiers
2) Active crossovers prior to the amplifier
3) Not using a receiver as a power source

This is what we're talking about:
1) using a single power source (Onkyo 607)
2) This requires using the PASSIVE crossovers in the speakers still
3) no power amps....

The "reason" is marketing. Not what you posted.