Vladimir said:
Benedict_Arnold said:
Contrary to what you might think, it's actually the higher frequencies that demand the most power. Think of it like this, the mid and high frequencies are where the music, the guitars, the vocals, the cybals, etc. are, whereas the bass is mainly for the thump-thump-thump of the bass drum etc.
That part is inaccurate. Low frequencies demand more
power, typically over 2/3 from what the amp delivers. It's true that most of the music and speech
information is in the midrange, but even simple thumpadithump eats up 80% of the watts.
I have also heard it said that high frequencies demand more power as musical peaks tend to be at higher frequencies so require more power, this too is nonsense.
Passive bi-amping is largely a waste of time, the effective total power available in this setup is the output of the smallest amplifier being used.
The suggestion that bi-amping offers more control is only valid if a better power amplifier is used on the bass, but overall this will sound no different to using the better amplifier in normal, full range mode.
Bi-amping sounds like a good idea, so people want it to work, but unless you use different types of amplifier as Vlad suggested, the sound really is not going to change.
This however is fraught with complications, you need 2 power amplifer sections with exactly the same input sensitivity and gain, difficult enough with amplifiers from the same manufacturer, let alone from different sources.
Even 'vertical biamping' as described by DocG does not have the effect he describes, all the power is not available to the bass channel as the capacitors tha supply the 'raw' power are split between the two channels, so no real advantage.