Horizontal bi-amping advice with Croft amplification

[loonytunes]

I thought I would bypass the crossover in the speakers completely and cleanly but utilizing their bi-wire terminals, and then a dedicated Croft stereo power amp for the treble and dedicated Croft stereo power amp for the bass - using a Croft 7 and Croft 7R respectively to achieve this task.

Has anyone tried anything similar?

It seems logical to me that by eliminating the x-over in the speakers that would be a very effective way to remove a filter in the path of the sound.

My Croft pre-amp does not (I think) facilitate this configuration - but I have an NVA P50A without enough outputs that can accommodate the two stereo power amps.

Does this plan have a flaw?

Both Croft power amps are standard builds - and I thought the R version should control the bass.

[Macca]

What are the speakers?

[Barry]

How would you arrange for the frequency division between the two drive units?

[Firebottle]

Surely if the speakers have 'bi-wire' terminals the filtering is still acheived in the crossover.

As described it will just be a vertical bi-wire setup, not horizontal?

[Barry]

Ah, yes you are quite correct - bi-wireable speakers have the connections to the internal crossover network brought out to two pairs of terminals on the back of the speaker. I was mislead by Chris stating he wanted to eliminate the crossover network from the speaker.

What Chris is suggesting is passive horizontal bi-amplification, in which he intends using a Croft 7A amplifier to drive the bass units in each speaker, and a Croft 7 amplifier to drive the tweeters.

The pros and cons of this arrangement is covered in an article I wrote for the Technical section of the Knowledge titled: "Bi-amping and Bi-wiring". https://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?5818-Basics-amp-General-Bi-amping-and-Bi-wiring

[Stranraer]

Many moons ago I bi-amped a pair of Arcam amps with, I think, Monitor Audio Gold Ref 10s, though it may have been Neat SXs.
I really enjoyed the set up and experimented with one amp in mono mode per speaker then one amp stereo mode, one for treble, one for bass.
I can't remember which I favoured but either way bi-amping really opened up the sound and I've never gone back.
With my current Crofts I have one 7R per speaker as there's no stereo option so I can't try splitting them by bass /treble, only by left / right channel.

[Lawrence001]

Surely if the speakers have 'bi-wire' terminals the filtering is still acheived in the crossover.

As described it will just be a vertical bi-wire setup, not horizontal?I read it as he intends to bypass the crossover and therefore wire the drive units directly to the terminals which would of course quickly lead to blown tweeters if not bass units and a likely imbalance between the bass and treble due to the differing sensitivities of the drive units.

Well if there's no tweeter then clearly there'll be an imbalance but hopefully you know what I mean.

[Barry]

Chris can't bypass the crossover network as it is internal to the speaker.
What he wants to do is to horizontal bi-amplify the speakers using one stereo Croft amplifier to feed the tweeter/mid drive units of each speaker, via the appropriate terminals, and a second Croft amplifier to drive the bass units of each speaker via their appropriate terminals.

[loonytunes]

Chris can't bypass the crossover network as it is internal to the speaker.
What he wants to do is to horizontal bi-amplify the speakers using one stereo Croft amplifier to feed the tweeter/mid drive units of each speaker, via the appropriate terminals, and a second Croft amplifier to drive the bass units of each speaker via their appropriate terminals.

In that case I was mistaken with my thoughts - I thought that by taking off the jumpers between the bi-wire terminals and then using a stereo power amp for the tweeters only and a stereo power amp for the bass only that this bypassed the internal crossover. If it doesn't then there's probably little gain by adding in this complication.

[loonytunes]

Many moons ago I bi-amped a pair of Arcam amps with, I think, Monitor Audio Gold Ref 10s, though it may have been Neat SXs.
I really enjoyed the set up and experimented with one amp in mono mode per speaker then one amp stereo mode, one for treble, one for bass.
I can't remember which I favoured but either way bi-amping really opened up the sound and I've never gone back.
With my current Crofts I have one 7R per speaker as there's no stereo option so I can't try splitting them by bass /treble, only by left / right channel.

I assume the 7R monos still perform admirably in that configuration even though you have previously heard the advantages of bi-amping.

[Stranraer]

Yep, they sound amazing to these ears.
Can't see myself going back to a lone stereo amp though there's plenty of good uns out there of course.