Bi-amping with two same stereo amps - which way?

[wwenze]

Say I have a pair of bi-ampable speaker and two stereo amps of the same model

Do I:

1) Use one amp for tweeters and one amp for woofers - so the L and R channels of each amp are loaded evenly, and L & R will sound the same in case the performance of the amps are different, or

2) Use one amp for each speaker - one channel tweeter one channel woofer - so both amps are evenly loaded, more power since each amp only needs to drive one woofer as opposed to two, and counts as dual-mono setup (?)

[chris661]

I'd agree with you, but for a differet reason - you'd be able to set the levels of woofers to tweeters much easier with amp 1 powering tweeters and amp 2 powering woofers.

[BurkettC]

Well, if you must run the same amp model for tweeters and woofers, then #1 is what I would go with. Break up in tweeters is more noticeable, so any deficiencies in the power rails wouldn't make it to the tweeters (it would in option #2).

Fwiw, I'd sell both of the amps and buy a bigger, single unit. Bi-amping is great, but a bigger/better amp is better. Not sure what the amps are, but when we talk about driving two loudspeakers with drivers producing different frequencies, two 50w/ch amps aren't the same as one 100w/ch amp (comparable technology, of course). Those woofers will take much more of the juice than the tweeters so letting a passive crossover divy up the juice is better.

Passive bi-amping is a no-brainer when that nice, new receiver has 100w/ch all the way around... and THEN has speakers A and B. If you're not using speakers B, then pull those bridge clips and jack the other half into the B set.

Now, active multi-amping w/appropriate amps for each band is a different story altogether.

- Colby

[dantheman]

I say option 2. That way you tax the power supply less. One amp doing all the bass will be working much harder than the other one. It's pretty easy to match level either way.

Dan

[Moondog55]

I'd go with option 1

The equal power setting should be around 350 hertz, but don't think crossing a little lower at 250/300 would make much difference, tweeters don't actually handle that much power in terms of watts though.

And I actively Bi / Tri-amp mostly

[Studio Au]

From what i have read it seems more logical to have one amp powering woofers L&R, and one powering the tweeters L&R. This way the amp has a more consistent load.

However have also read that increase the interconnectors, and in doing so moving the amps as close as possible to the speaker bindings so that you have an incredibly short length of speaker cable can make a huge difference.

To test my active speakers i am using my Cambridge Audio 640A V2 as pre-amp to behringer DCX2496 then two "Zero Class TA2020" chinese eBay amps direct into the two way drivers, Option 1 as XLR to RCA cables are not long enough.

What is the optimum volume setting? If i crank the t-amps up full there is noticeable hiss, if there set at the 12 O'clock and i crank up the pre-amp the 'intelligent' protection turns the volume down (I have the headphone jack in to try and cut out the speaker outputs).

I think these little amps sound amazing especially for 20 or so Watts, but it seems a shame to not be using the 4x75w output from the cambridge audio. Would a six channel power amp (like the Rotel 956ax) make a huge difference, or a pre-amp and second 640, or something else?