Bi-amping

[wee tee cee]

Looking for a bit of advice.Iam currently running two temple audio monoblocks on my bass units and a bantum driving my tweeters.Im thinking of getting a couple of mini t amps and was wondering what the general consensus is regards wiring them up.
Should I drive the treble with one amp and use the other for bass OR use one amp each side utilising the left or right channel to drive the bass and treble.
Regards Tony.

[Barry]

Tony,

This might be of some help: http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5818.

Regards

[WAD62]

Looking for a bit of advice.Iam currently running two temple audio monoblocks on my bass units and a bantum driving my tweeters.Im thinking of getting a couple of mini t amps and was wondering what the general consensus is regards wiring them up.
Should I drive the treble with one amp and use the other for bass OR use one amp each side utilising the left or right channel to drive the bass and treble.
Regards Tony.

I believe the standard technique is to use one amp on the treble, and one on the bass, assuming your speakers are bi-wirable. Supposedly gives advantages by separating the low and high frequency amplification duties...but I'll stop there, I'm sure someone else can explain things more technically.

I use this setup with an Audiolab SX on my tweeters, and an Audiolab P on the bass.

Why don't you just get a couple more monoblocks, to complete the setup properly, or even a gold (power only) for the tweeters...;)

[Ali Tait]

I think you'd have to do it that way as I don't think you can bridge the mini t's?

[DSJR]

"The more power the tweeters have, the less likelihood of clipping and burning them out" is the generally accepted view, for what it's worth...

To Will - have you tried the SX on the bass and P on the tweeters? I only suggest this as the "X" series were supposedly directly coupled and should theoretically give a tighter and more controlled bass. The slightly looser feel of the older "P" may sweeten the treble a touch - Just a thought and it's easy to put back if you don't like it. Just keep the interconnects betwixt the two units as short and low capacitance as possible :)

[The Grand Wazoo]

If the amps are identical, the best bet is usually to bi-amp 'vertically' which gives you monoblocks rather than 'horizontally' which has an amp dedicated to the tweeters & another to the bass/mid. With the vertical way you get the benefits of proper separation of the stereo information.
If they're not identical (apart from gain), then horizontally will work best, but it's not always the case that the more powerful amp is better on the bass as is commonly thought.

[wee tee cee]

Thanks chaps,
Does that mean that letting one amp amplify left and one right is the best way to go.... as opposed to letting one do tweeter duties and the other bass.
Regards TONY.

[Ali Tait]

Try it both ways and see what sounds best to you.

[Gazjam]

In the AOS Library article linked to it speaks of a disadvantage of Vertical Biamping as "Separate channel amplifier’s bandwidth not fully utilised"
Not sure i understand this, anyone translate? :scratch:

Also, in a biamp situation like what Tony is talking about, if you had 4 mono amps is it a case of removing the crossovers from your (normal) speakers and hook them up with a Behringer DCX2496 to get the advantages of active bi-amping?
...or is it more complicated than that and you need summit like custom open baffles to do it justice?

[Ali Tait]

Well you've heard what active speakers sound like Gary. Could be done that way, though you would need to know the crossover type and points of the speaker in question.

[WAD62]

"The more power the tweeters have, the less likelihood of clipping and burning them out" is the generally accepted view, for what it's worth...

To Will - have you tried the SX on the bass and P on the tweeters? I only suggest this as the "X" series were supposedly directly coupled and should theoretically give a tighter and more controlled bass. The slightly looser feel of the older "P" may sweeten the treble a touch - Just a thought and it's easy to put back if you don't like it. Just keep the interconnects betwixt the two units as short and low capacitance as possible :)

Hi Dave, If we were talking about the PX then I'd agree, the SX was effectively a power only version of the S (to the best of my knowledge), so it's a 65wpc version of the P, well sort of.

The PX's are very expensive and hard to find, my P's been upgraded to take it closer to the PX, but I'm still keeping an eye out for a reasonably priced one ;)