View Full Version : Bi-amping experiment
wee tee cee
16-05-2011, 15:50
I have been really suprised by the ability of the temple audio bantum I am running,however.....I have ordered 2 x rca splitters and a run of belkin speaker cable.
I am going to power the midrange/tweeter in my kef iq50s with the bantum and drive the low range with my naim nait5i.
My proposal is to keep my tellurium black on the bantum and run the belkin on the naim.
Will this work.....OR will there be a mushroom cloud over the southside of glasgow for a wee while.
Any advice would be greatly received.
The Grand Wazoo
16-05-2011, 15:55
The voltage gain of the two amps must be identical or you will get overemphasis on one arm or another of the crossover (ie bass/mid too loud in relation to treble or vice versa).
You can match the levels with volume controls, but you'll have to do this every time you change volume.
Reid Malenfant
16-05-2011, 16:07
As Chris says, but you can get round that problem quite easily ;) What you need to do is make a simple resistor divider using 4 resistors (two per channel). You then use one amplifier as the master, this is the amp that you'll control the volume with. The second amp gets connected via the resistor divider network to the left & right speaker outputs of the master amplifier.
At this point you match the volume on the slave amp & once that's done you don't touch the slave (except to turn it on & off :lol:), you just adjust the volume of the master & everything follows suit :cool:
wee tee cee
16-05-2011, 16:40
Thanks chaps...I am running the bantum at 75% and using the volume control on the lap top as the pre amp so to speak.My thoughts were once I find some kind of balance between the two amps sound wise to use the lap top to control it.
My main concern was grenading the back room....
Many thanks....
Tony.
Reid Malenfant
16-05-2011, 16:52
That'll work fine then, just use the RCA splitters & balance them up to each other & only use the lappy as volume control...
Have fun, oh make sure you remove anything shorting the two positive connections & two negative connections on each speaker! Or there might be smoke :eyebrows:
I run a bi-amp setup, all audiolab, a Q pre-amp, an SX on my tweeters, and a P on the bass, all gain matched etc.
I bought some of the Belkin speaker wire, initially I tried it on the bass whilst retaining my original solid core copper wire on the tweeters...eugh!!! Perhaps because the Belkin was burning in, or just a bad match, the treble seemed harsh and disconnected :doh:
I very quickly bought a second Belkin set and the sound quality it is vastly improved :)
Perhaps my original cable was a bad match for the Belkin, hopefully your original cable will be a better one...:)
wee tee cee
17-05-2011, 18:17
I run a bi-amp setup, all audiolab, a Q pre-amp, an SX on my tweeters, and a P on the bass, all gain matched etc.
I bought some of the Belkin speaker wire, initially I tried it on the bass whilst retaining my original solid core copper wire on the tweeters...eugh!!! Perhaps because the Belkin was burning in, or just a bad match, the treble seemed harsh and disconnected :doh:
I very quickly bought a second Belkin set and the sound quality it is vastly improved :)
Perhaps my original cable was a bad match for the Belkin, hopefully your original cable will be a better one...:)
Will,
I am half hoping the belkin stuff will sound as good as the interconnects. If so then I will buy another set and my son will inherit more bloody expensive cast offs......
I've experimented with bi-amping a couple of times but, to be honest, I found there were more gains to be had in just buying a better power amp.
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