Bi-amping

[dudleyperkins]

My question is does bi-amping make a difference?

I have an Arcam CD17, Arcam A28 amplifier and Kef Q5 speakers.

I am currently in the process of choosing new speakers, favourite so far being Tannoy DC6TSE, a lot of speakers have 4 terminals for the possibility of bi-wiring or bi-amping.

Bi-wiring will be a relatively inexpensive experiment but an Arcam P38 power amp retails for £1200.

 

[CnoEvil]

IME. Yes, bi-amping makes a difference, which is much more significant than bi-wiring, but:

- If you sold your amp and then added that money to the £1200, would you be able to get a better sound from a different amp? (eg. Electrocompaniet, Sugden, Croft, Unison Research, Pathos etc).

- Don't make any decisions until you've sorted speakers.....have you looked at Kef R Series, Proac, PMC, Spendor, Vienna Acoustics and Sonus Faber Venere? It's possible that the right speakers would offset the need you feel to bi-amp. What speakers have you heard?

- Would you consider a good streamer?

 

[bigfish786]

if you are using an arcam amp, then i believe you can use any of their power amps, as they are all gain matched. i.e i have an arcam A70 amp paired with an P85 power amp. bi-amping my mission M35i's.

 

[ISAC69]

My question is does bi-amping make a difference?

I have an Arcam CD17, Arcam A28 amplifier and Kef Q5 speakers.

I am currently in the process of choosing new speakers, favourite so far being Tannoy DC6TSE, a lot of speakers have 4 terminals for the possibility of bi-wiring or bi-amping.

Bi-wiring will be a relatively inexpensive experiment but an Arcam P38 power amp retails for £1200.

Bi-wiring will not change nothing Bi-amp is another story more power = more control the sound should be much better .

As Cnoevil advised I should look for more serious speakers than the Tannoy such as Proac , PMC , Spendor atc.

 

[Overdose]

My question is does bi-amping make a difference?

I have an Arcam CD17, Arcam A28 amplifier and Kef Q5 speakers.

I am currently in the process of choosing new speakers, favourite so far being Tannoy DC6TSE, a lot of speakers have 4 terminals for the possibility of bi-wiring or bi-amping.

Bi-wiring will be a relatively inexpensive experiment but an Arcam P38 power amp retails for £1200.

Bi-amping can make a difference if your existing amplifier is not up to the task of driving your speakers at the levels you normally listen to. Increasing the power available to the speakers will help and a more powerful integrated amp may be just as beneficial, but passive bi-amping will only have marginal benifits anyway, whereas active bi-amping is where the real improvements lie, as any other method still incorporates the passive crossover.

Bi-wiring is a complete waste of time and money unless your speaker cable is simply not thick enough for the current drawn. Increasing the amount of cable runs will reduce the impedance and help, but this is not likely to occur unless you are already using wire totally inappropriate for use in the system.

 

[bigfish786]

does it make a difference, i'm not sure.... but i like to think it does!!

 

[Jazzman53]

I think bi amping can make a huge difference. And if you have an active crossover upstream of two identical amplifiers you can "vertically bi-amp" the system for even better performance. Firstly, it gets rid of the power robbing passive crossover components and their phasing errors. Second, the bass tightens up considerably because the amp can exert more control over the woofer without a passive inductor between them.

As opposed to "horizontal" bi-amping where one amp powers the woofers in both speakers and the second amp powers the tweeters in both speakers, "vertial" bi-amping has one amp driving each speaker independently, with the woofer on one channel and the tweeter on the opposite channel (of the same amp).

Generally, woofers draw more power than a tweeters, and if you have one amp driving both woofers and the other amp driving both tweeters, the woofer amp is over-utilized and the tweeter amp is under-utilized. Since most stereo amps draw power for both channels from a common transformer, any portion of the power not drawn by one channel is then available to the opposite channel. It follows that you want the woofer on one channel and the tweeter on the opposite channel of the same amp.

 

[KWONAD]

Hello,

i have my audio system bi-amped.

my expereance is that i have a bit better sound than normal wired.

the order of connection:

a 4 channel amplifier, a integrated amplifier, 4 speakers.

on the integrated i have a pair of speakers 3 way and

on the 4 channel i have a pair of speakers and seperated the tweeter from the crossover filter to the woofer. The sections get theire own amplification.

in the beginning i made the mistake to give the tweeters from left and right a channel apart that results in an activating protection system.

set the tweeters on the part were also the woofer is connected but goes to the tweeter connection on the speaker.

Then i played very loud, and it was clear, sonic, open, and room in the soundfield. Smiled, and my dreamed sound was forfilled.

wire diagram:

6 wires left & right.

1 speaker 1 wire. X2 (two channels)

1 speaker 2 wires. X4 (four channels)

60 meters of coppercable.

in princepal one pair of my speakers is normal connected and the second pair is bi-amped.

is a bit crazy but my integrated amp have a pre out and why i should not use it?

Bi-wiring can be the best of using the eight speaker outputs on an amplifier. Bi-wiring on an amplifier with only four speaker outputs and connect eight wires is something that i will not advice anybody.

The Danish speakermaker Dynaudio for example produce theire speakers without the option of bi-wiring and bi-amping (two inputs only) because they use high quality crossover filters that is the best way to connect to theire point of view.

The ohm thing. I even have different ohm ratings and gently i tested if it can life with my amplifiers. After some years i don't blow up any part of my speakers so it is safe. I say this because many audio enthousiasts ask and many speaker builders produce 6 ohm speakers today. The reason is the recommondation of the amplifier manufactorers of 8 ohm speakers and the speaker business is a 6 ohm mayhem.

The main reason that always said is that a good amplifier can handle difficult speakers and the ohm level will vary.

Stay between the lowest and highest, normaly 4 - 8 ohm. So connect 8 ohm ones on a 4 ohm recom amplifier is no problem while 4 ohm ones on a 8 ohm recommodated amplifier, the amplifier sweat a lot of heat. Humming and begging for an other set of speakers before the smoke wil leave the cooling fenders.

end.

happy bi-amping! :dance:

 

[KWONAD]

Ok, it cost more to bi-amp but the result is great.

You can look for a lower priced Arcam power amp or try a power amp from a friend or family member if your soundgoal wil be hit.

my 4 channel amp costs only a €599,-- grand. If there was no option in that pricefield i bought a €1200,-- power or more channel amp.

secondhand amplifiers can even be mentioned. :cheers:

 

[JoelSim]

Arcams work very well in a biamped set-up. But £1200 is a lot of money to spend doing it.

 

[davedotco]

Firstly it is important to realise that conventional bi-amping does not increase the power available to drive the speakers. Effectively the bass amplifier delivers the vast bulk of the power to the system, the HF amplifiers contribution, power wise is tiny.

Secondly the passive filters remain in circuit and are the dominating factor in the transfer of power from amplifier to speaker, in reality very little changes. The HF amplifier, relieved of some of the workload might exhibit slightly greater headroom but a better, more powerful amplifier would do that anyway.

In fact, in some multichannel amplifiers, bi-amping can reduce the power delivery to the critical low frequencies as there are now 4 amplifiers rather than just the 2 drawing power from the power supply.

I can see that bi-amping is a very attractive proposition, it 'just sort of makes sense', except that mostly it doesn't. I have done the dem many, many times and in my experience, the improvements, if any, are far outweighed by the cost

 

[dudleyperkins]

So far I have listened to Rega RS3 and RS5, B&W 684, Kudos X2, Kef R300 and Kef LS50. Of these the RS3, Kef R300 and Kudos X2 stood out for me until I heard some B&W PM1, though they are over my budget they really hit the spot for me. I can now imagine sitting down listening to any of the others but thinking the PM1's are better.

I haven't considered a streamer, I still play cd's though I would like to try an Arcam DAC betweem my cd player and amp.

 

[Thompsonuxb]

I think bi amping can make a huge difference. And if you have an active crossover upstream of two identical amplifiers you can "vertically bi-amp" the system for even better performance. Firstly, it gets rid of the power robbing passive crossover components and their phasing errors. Second, the bass tightens up considerably because the amp can exert more control over the woofer without a passive inductor between them.

As opposed to "horizontal" bi-amping where one amp powers the woofers in both speakers and the second amp powers the tweeters in both speakers, "vertial" bi-amping has one amp driving each speaker independently, with the woofer on one channel and the tweeter on the opposite channel (of the same amp).

Generally, woofers draw more power than a tweeters, and if you have one amp driving both woofers and the other amp driving both tweeters, the woofer amp is over-utilized and the tweeter amp is under-utilized. Since most stereo amps draw power for both channels from a common transformer, any portion of the power not drawn by one channel is then available to the opposite channel. It follows that you want the woofer on one channel and the tweeter on the opposite channel of the same amp.

after much experimentation I agree ref verticle bi-amping - if your amp has two sets of speaker outputs this method works well too. Its how I always wire my amps - would'nt buy an amp with only a single set of outputs as I agree the speakers are more controlled.... to my ears anyway.

 

[Jazzman53]

The benefits of bi-amping are lost if the passive crossover components are retained. The only way bi-amping makes sense is to toss the passive crossover components, directly couple the drivers to the amps, and use an active line-level crossover upstream of the power amps. It makes a phenomenal difference.

 

[davedotco]

The benefits of bi-amping are lost if the passive crossover components are retained. The only way bi-amping makes sense is to toss the passive crossover components, directly couple the drivers to the amps, and use an active line-level crossover upstream of the power amps. It makes a phenomenal difference.

Of course you could get an expert designer with years of experience to do this for you, purpose buit active crossover, suitable amplifiers and then put it all into a single pair of cabinets.

One of my current favourites......

 

[Jazzman53]

Short run for the speaker cables too!

 

[channella]

I've used bi-amping for years, first with Arcam alpha9 integrated and power amps, and then with an Arcam AV250 and now an Arcam AV400. The AV receivers have a setting for using the L+R rear channels ( 6&7) for bi-amping. Personally I think it opens up the sound, and I'd have 2 redundant amps in the recievers if I didn't...

The other day I was looking at the Chord Co. website. They have stopped doing bi-wire/bi-amp cable, on the basis that for the same money spent per meter, you'll get a better quality single run cable (frankly seems a bit obvious based on simple £/m). However they do advocate bi-amping (incidently I do use the now discontinued Chord Rumour bi-wire cable), and suggest that there is more coherence to the music if the speakers are wired "diagonally". This means the +ve from one speaker output is connected to the HF speaker input and the -ve from the same speaker output to the LF speaker input, and vice versa. There is no mixing of L&R channels here, it is just the HF and LF for each channel that is wired like this.

I tried it and I thought there was a difference. However, not being an electronics engineer I am not comfortable with one amp being connected across two drivers in this way. I know both L&R channels are amplifying the same signal, and the cross-over is doing the work to seperate HF and LF and although I think things like impeadance vary with frequency so the +ve and -ve will see different profiles (?), I can't articulate why following the recommendation concerns me.

Does anyone understand this better, and can you explain whether there is any affect on the amplifier?

Thanks

 

[AlbaBrown]

If you haven't already upgraded from the KEFs (I had Q3s at one point - pile of junk that I foolishly didn't audition), I'd strongly suggest trying a pair of Focal Aria 906 (or 926 if busget and room space allows).

They will be a real ear-opener compared to what you have demoed so far!

Plus being single wire you can avoid the whole bi-amping dilemma!

Incidentally when bi-amping with an integrated/poweramp combo - despite what has been said before - the power amp should drive the tweeters.

Unless the integrated is a truly weedy specimen you'll get greater sense of space and timing by having the better amp on the tweeters. If you've ever listened to your speakers with the tweeters disconnected you'll notice how much influence they have over how your ear percieves the whole frequency range. It's the reason why Pioneer used to push Legato Link technology for CD (granted not always successfully) as they realised even frequencies you can't technically hear does affect what you do hear.

P.S stay away from buying amps that offer the facility to become Bridged Mono amps. Whenever you bridge an amp the damping factor is dramatically reduced. You end up with loads of power but timing becomes slower and loose.

 

[abacus]

I've used bi-amping for years, first with Arcam alpha9 integrated and power amps, and then with an Arcam AV250 and now an Arcam AV400. The AV receivers have a setting for using the L+R rear channels ( 6&7) for bi-amping. Personally I think it opens up the sound, and I'd have 2 redundant amps in the recievers if I didn't...

The other day I was looking at the Chord Co. website. They have stopped doing bi-wire/bi-amp cable, on the basis that for the same money spent per meter, you'll get a better quality single run cable (frankly seems a bit obvious based on simple £/m). However they do advocate bi-amping (incidently I do use the now discontinued Chord Rumour bi-wire cable), and suggest that there is more coherence to the music if the speakers are wired "diagonally". This means the +ve from one speaker output is connected to the HF speaker input and the -ve from the same speaker output to the LF speaker input, and vice versa. There is no mixing of L&R channels here, it is just the HF and LF for each channel that is wired like this.

I tried it and I thought there was a difference. However, not being an electronics engineer I am not comfortable with one amp being connected across two drivers in this way. I know both L&R channels are amplifying the same signal, and the cross-over is doing the work to seperate HF and LF and although I think things like impeadance vary with frequency so the +ve and -ve will see different profiles (?), I can't articulate why following the recommendation concerns me.

Does anyone understand this better, and can you explain whether there is any affect on the amplifier?

Thanks

Assuming I understand your description correctly?

If you are bi-wiring than the way you have connected them will make absolutely no difference to the sound (Even though you may think it does) likewise conning to the HF terminal rather than the LF terminal using single wire with the links left in will make absolutely no difference to the sound. (If you hear a difference it’s a 100% guarantee it is imaginary)

If you make the connections mentioned while bi-amping, then it will not work at all unless you have the links in, in which that case it will blow up the amp. (Depending on what type of protection the amp has)

Hope this helps

Bill

 

[the record spot]

From what I can tell, Tannoy have made serious speakers for a while now, so our earlier contributor was talking out of his hat, not for the first time.

Do by all means bi-amp. Did it on my, presumably also not serious, speakers and it works a treat.

Give it a spin, enjoy!