A Bi-Amping experiment?

Tesler

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Can I please have anyone’s thoughts on this experiment?

I’m trying a bi-amping experiment, I think it’s called Vertical Bi-amping,
I’m connecting a Cambridge Audio 740a to the bass driver terminals of my B&W DM602 s2 speakers and a Rega Brio to the tweeter terminals, both with QED Silver anniversary speaker cables.

Everything plugs in to the Cambridge and I’m using the pre outs to connect to the line input on the Brio.

I was trying this last night and the results were not bad. I’m doing this because I have the HiFi in a conservatory which has difficult acoustics, I find the Brio on it’s own has a light Bass weight but superb treble and clarity. The Cambridge however I find a little gritty sounding at the top end but lovely and warm in the Bass, so I thought of combining the two together.

So I have tried it and the results are not bad, the sound is not as open and detailed as just with the Brio but definitely more richness and warmth and a bit more musical.

Can anyone tell me what impedance the amps are seeing?
My B&W’s are rated as 8ohms, are the amps seeing 8ohms or are the seeing 4ohms?

I’m just wondering if this is a good idea or not to carry on with this, Are the B&W’s designed to be BI-amped or not. I welcome your thoughts from who is experienced with Bi-amping in this way.

Thanks
 

d_a_n1979

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Yes; they're designed to be bi-amped and bi-wred. They really do come to life when the'yre bi-amped though (I've had them with previous systems inc Arcam Alpha 9 and 10 integrateds along with their power amp).

IMO I think you could bd best to sell the C/A amp and buy yourself a Rega power amp. That'll give you plenty of power then to bi-amp the speakers as the intergrated alone isnt that powerful and in past experience; amps with 70wpc plus drive the B&W 602 S2's to their best.
 

MattSPL

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The combined impedance of the bass/mid driver and tweeter is 8ohm's nominal.
Therefore, in theory, each driver will be 16ohm's but its possible that each is different for example 1 driver being 40ohm's and the other 10ohm's would also equate to a combined 8ohm load.
 

drummerman

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Many speakers these days use 4ohm bass units and 8ohm tweeters, nominal. You have to check with B&W.

If you like the result, why not though it seems a rather awkward way of going about it, visually and sonically.
 
A

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bi amping or pre and power is the way to go, lets the speakers sing.
 

Tesler

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d_a_n1979:

IMO I think you could bd best to sell the C/A amp and buy yourself a Rega power amp. That'll give you plenty of power then to bi-amp the speakers as the intergrated alone isnt that powerful and in past experience; amps with 70wpc plus drive the B&W 602 S2's to their best.

MMM yes but I have a cassette deck which I use a lot, this ties up the tape out socket on the Brio so I can't connect a power amp to it at the same time?

Oh can I?
 

Tesler

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Oh Forgot to mention that I also took my Marantz CD6002 out of the system and put my Marantz CD63SE back in, that creates a bit more clout too!

I was just worried as there is a guy on U-tube explaining about Bi-Amping, and he says that not all speakers can be Bi-Amped even if they do have 2 sets of binding posts on each speaker, some are just there to be Bi-Wired?
something to do with the way the crossovers are designed?

That was why I was worried really, thats all.
 

d_a_n1979

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Yes you can still bi-amp as you use the pre-outs on the Rega Brio to pair up with the power amp; the tape deck can stay put
emotion-2.gif
 

smuggs

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which one of the volume knobs do you use and what happens if you turn the other one, do they clash having 2 intergated amps.
 

Tesler

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d_a_n1979:Yes you can still bi-amp as you use the pre-outs on the Rega Brio to pair up with the power amp; the tape deck can stay put
emotion-2.gif


MMMMM I've looked twice, and checked it again, there are no preouts on my Rega Brio 3. The only line level output is the tape out.
 

Tesler

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smuggs:which one of the volume knobs do you use and what happens if you turn the other one, do they clash having 2 intergated amps.

No what happenes if you turn the Brio up you only hear sound from the tweeters. You turn these up to a not too loud level then add the rest of the sound with the volume on the cambridge.

If you turn the Brio down, you just get sound from the bass cone.

I guess you could say its a bit like having an gloryfied tone control, one amp dedicated to treble and one dedicated to Bass.
 

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