BI-AMPING CONFUSION

[Ant8519]

Hi all

Now I would appreciate a little help regarding bi-amping. I have an arcam alpha 8r/8p combo, with which I am happy.

I also have a rotel ra-02 in another room and was thinking of getting a used rb-03 from ebay in order to bi-amp it.

I was under the impression that I could wire it up in the same way as the arcam, that is the power amp feeding l + r low and the integrated amp feeing l r high. However the manual for the rotel power amp does not suggest this set up and seems to imply that using the pre-outs from the ra-02 will efectively turn it into a pre-amp only, with the power amp powering the speakers in a conventional fashion. (see http://www.rotel.com/content/manuals/rb06_multi.pdf)

Am I missing something here? I thought that the idea of bi-amping was to isolate high from low frequency.

This raises another question. As I see it now my bi-amped arcam sends lf from my power amp and hf from the intergrated to the lf and hf terminals on my speakers. So are the speakers internal crossovers somehow disabled by this wiring setup? If not then what is the point really?

Thought I understood this and now am most confused! Any enlightening replies most welcome...

thx, Ant

 

[Dan Turner]

You did understand just fine. As long as the links are removed from the speaker terminals then the HF and LF sections of the cross over are physically separate, but there is still a cross over filtering out low frequencies from going to the HF drivers and vice versa (the speakers have a 'split' cross over).

Rotel may just not be anticipating a bi-amp configuration and may be assuming that the natural upgrade path for their users is going to be to a pre-power configuration.

 

[nads]

from the Ra-02 manual

The RA-02 has a set of preamp outputs. The
signal from the source selected with the Function
Selector is always available from these
outputs. Typically these outputs are used to
provide a signal to another integrated amplifier
or power amplifier, which is used to drive
remote speakers

so yes you can connect as you are expecting to do.