hi all , looking to fine tune my system and am going to be demoing a few new cables. i have rotel rc03 pre amp and 2 x rb03 power amps with rotel rcd06 and b&w cm1 speakers . i see on the front of my power amps an indicator with bridged mono written under it, inthe manual it says what to do to convert the amps to do this, all i want to know is what is the advantage/benefit of doing it? simple terms please or i get confused.
bridged mono, whats the benefit ?
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Hi Paul - basically bridging takes a stereo power amp and uses both amp modules to become a doubly powerful mono amp - twice the current, twice the power (probably not exactly twice, but that's the principle). Obviously a more powerful amp exerts better control over the speakers.
It's something you can experiment with - is the sound better bi-amping like you do now, or by using doubly powerful mono amps 1 for each channel?
Hope that helps.
It's something you can experiment with - is the sound better bi-amping like you do now, or by using doubly powerful mono amps 1 for each channel?
Hope that helps.
John Duncan
Well-known member
You have a vertical passive bi-amp set-up at the mo. If you are looking to fine tune, try horizontal - one amp for lows and one amp for highs. You may find that the stereo imaging is reduced (crosstalk) but the separation should jump up.
Another advantage of horizontal is that you are driving each side of the same amp an equal amount. With vertical, the LF side of the amp will be consistently driving significantly harder than the HF side.
If you listen at moderate volumes you should seriously consider active crossovers, as the woofers create back emf when moving hard, which muddies up the crossovers. Amps have circuitry to combat this, so putting the crossovers between the pre and powers eliminates the negative effects.
You can actually experiment with this without having to do any major surgery on your speakers. The crossovers will probably be connected to the drivers with spade connectors, so you can very easily bypass them, and binding posts can be found with screw clamps, making the whole enterprise easily reversible.
I have just gone down this route, and I have to say that the gains have been suprising. My poorly performing 602.5's actually sound like you would expect something that costs twice the price. Although be careful...as far as 'tweaks' go this is bordering on hi-fi hobbyist. It'll get you thinking about all sorts of things like building your own speakers and interconnects...but it will also make you much more of a stakeholder in the sound that your system produces - which is priceless.
Another advantage of horizontal is that you are driving each side of the same amp an equal amount. With vertical, the LF side of the amp will be consistently driving significantly harder than the HF side.
If you listen at moderate volumes you should seriously consider active crossovers, as the woofers create back emf when moving hard, which muddies up the crossovers. Amps have circuitry to combat this, so putting the crossovers between the pre and powers eliminates the negative effects.
You can actually experiment with this without having to do any major surgery on your speakers. The crossovers will probably be connected to the drivers with spade connectors, so you can very easily bypass them, and binding posts can be found with screw clamps, making the whole enterprise easily reversible.
I have just gone down this route, and I have to say that the gains have been suprising. My poorly performing 602.5's actually sound like you would expect something that costs twice the price. Although be careful...as far as 'tweaks' go this is bordering on hi-fi hobbyist. It'll get you thinking about all sorts of things like building your own speakers and interconnects...but it will also make you much more of a stakeholder in the sound that your system produces - which is priceless.
paulpj:bi amped , with 1 amps for each speaker and bi wired,
well, whether you bridge your amps or not I'd change that so that one stereo amp deals with your bass half and the other stereo amp deals with your treble half.
Anyway, bridging is exactly that: You have two sets of outputs for your speakers, left and right. There will be a switch of some description to switch into bridged mode. This will conect two of the speaker binding posts together internally and you run your speaker off the other two. Exactly which posts you use should be clearly marked on the amp.
You are basically connecting your amplifiers in series to increase their power in the exact same way you put two 1.5v batteries in series to get 3v.
Do you want to do it? depends. I'd rather the bi-amp system myself - unless you are using big phat speakers and puny amplifiers in which case the extra power is gonna make more of a difference I'd expect. So what amp and speakers are we talking about anyway?
well, whether you bridge your amps or not I'd change that so that one stereo amp deals with your bass half and the other stereo amp deals with your treble half.
Anyway, bridging is exactly that: You have two sets of outputs for your speakers, left and right. There will be a switch of some description to switch into bridged mode. This will conect two of the speaker binding posts together internally and you run your speaker off the other two. Exactly which posts you use should be clearly marked on the amp.
You are basically connecting your amplifiers in series to increase their power in the exact same way you put two 1.5v batteries in series to get 3v.
Do you want to do it? depends. I'd rather the bi-amp system myself - unless you are using big phat speakers and puny amplifiers in which case the extra power is gonna make more of a difference I'd expect. So what amp and speakers are we talking about anyway?
paulpj:hi all , looking to fine tune my system and am going to be demoing a few new cables. i have rotel rc03 pre amp and 2 x rb03 power amps with rotel rcd06 and b&w cm1 speakers . i see on the front of my power amps an indicator with bridged mono written under it, inthe manual it says what to do to convert the amps to do this, all i want to know is what is the advantage/benefit of doing it? simple terms please or i get confused.
would there be anywhere i could get a diagram of this set up ie; cabling and interconnects or some very easy to follow step by step guides on connecting it all up so i dont blow it all up.cheers.
daveh75
Well-known member
have you not got any of the rotel instructions manuals, they normally have the diagrams in, if not i'd go to there website and see if there available to download
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