useing 2 intergrated amps for biamping

[Anonymous]

Its to late ive allready bought another 640a intergrated amp, and i think ive made a big mistake.
Im going to email cambridge audio and ask them if two 640 amps sound better than one, they
should know best.

 

[Andrew Everard]

They'll probably say no. But you did seem determined to do this. What's the problem, KR?

 

[Anonymous]

Kelly,

You may or may not have made a mistake, and if you have it's quite possible that you can remedy it without too much hassle. You certainly have nothing to lose by trying, but the sooner you do it, the better.

Is the amp still properly packaged? If so, leave it as such and see if you can get your money back. Then you can have a proper think about what the problem with the sound you have is, and rethink the approach to improving it - if in fact you even need to. Don't try anything with the amp for now, give yourself some breathing space. A decent retailer should take it back IMHO especially if you explain the situation - including offering the hope of a bigger, better purchase in the near futher, look really sad and start crying loudly on the manager on a busy saturday morning. This is obviously harder for mail-order / internet but the retailer should still have a returns policy that costs you no more than your postage and packing I would hope (I am not a lawer or a consumer rights specialist).

If it isn't still in its packaging then you can still see if you can get your money back. Try exactly the same approach in fact. If they won't give you your money back they might offer an exchange - possibly if you offered to trade in the other 640 as well they might let you have something else altogether, although I get the impression that the other 640 is your dad's so possibly that's not such a great plan. However if I remember correctly, considered opinion on the board was that a 740 would be a big step up istr.

If you bought it second hand then there's no reason at all that you shouldn't get your money back by just selling it on, assuming you haven't damaged it in anyway.

I you get absolutetly no joy at all from them, tell us and we'll send the boys around... Okay maybe not, but your final option is actually to try out using it to bi-amp - and try really hard to suspend both belief and disbelief. The number of ways you can hook it all up depends partly on whether you have pre-out/power-in connections which I don't know. But if you do one possibility might be to use one amp as a pre-amp and for the treble, and the other amp for the bass. This is exactly the same as when anybody adds a power to an integrated amp and there's no reason at all why it shouldn't give you some benefits. And be realistic - the outlay is way less than pretty much any power amp on the market, don't expect a miracle, but don't expect a disaster either.

Hope this helps some and good luck.

Jim

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice jim / Andrew e
No there is no real problem,my system is all set up and biamped.Its just that i was on the internet saterday night and most of the site's about biamping seem to think that passive biamping is a waste of time, which disheartend me a bit thats all.So i emailed cambridge audio, this is what they said.
Dear sir
Ultimately the differences will be subjective.The hope with biamping is to achieve greater control over the speakers and improve performance via those means.Whether two 640a's will sound better will depend largely upon the speakers responce to being biamped.
Anyway i am going to have a good listening session with a few cd's , switching from one amp to two amps and back againe to see if there's any difference.Im hoping for magic which i dont think im going to get, yes jim i think i do expect to much,but well see. Anyway i will get back to you all when im done.
Thanks againe kelly.

 

[Anonymous]

What am i doing wrong i wrote my last post in paragraphs, why dosen't it post in paragraphs.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]

[quote user="kelly rowlands"]Thanks for the replies brianmcr and will.
But will what are these Y phone connecters, i thought i could connect my cd player via a interconnect
and then connect the 2 amps via another interconnect and away you go, am i wrong, tell me more about
these Y phone connecters and what do i connect them to.
thanks kelly.[/quote]

Yes, you can do it the way you suggest. Just connect your CD player (and any other sources) to the first amp, then run a pair of interconnects from the pre-out on that amp to one of the line inputs on the second amp. Let's say tape in.

Connect the treble inputs on your speakers to the first amp's speaker terminals, and the bass inputs to the second amp's speaker outputs. Then play music through the first amp, setting the volume control to a comfortable level, select the tape input on the second amp and use the volume control on the second amp to balance up the sound - this also gives you a way of tailoring the bass/treble balance.

Once you get the right balance, mark the volume setting on the second amp, just in case it gets unset, and then leave that amp well alone.

From then on you just control input selection and volume on the first amp, and the second one is functioning as a power amp.

[/quote]If no pre-out exists, is there another way? The amp does have an "Adaptor" terminal, which the manual says is for a graphic equaliser. This terminal has an 'In' and 'Out'.
Would appreciate any advice in case I do some damage with trial and error.

 

[Tesler]

Can I just ask something?
If your speakers are rated at 8ohms and you bi-amp by using one amp to the Tweeter terminals and another amp to the Woofer terminals, are both amps now driving a 4ohm load or is it still an 8ohm load?

Tes.