passive biamping any worth?

[h_a]

Dear folks,

as I feel the urgent need to build the beautiful F3 and some time later a clone of the X-series, I'm running into the "more amps than ears", err "more amps than needed" situation.

So I read biamplification. Sure, probably best thing is reduced intermodulation distortion when used with an active crossover, but I'm really not keen on fiddling with crossovers.

I like my speakers very much and feel fine with their crossovers.

Since these 2.5 way thingies offer dual binding posts that can be separated, I thought of passive biamping.

What do you guys think about that?

I found a lot on active biamping, but only subjective opinions about passives. Rod Elliott says it's a waste of money - would you all agree? Is it really that worse?

I thought of using the 10W F3 for mid-heights and the 100W+ X for the bass.

All the best, Hannes

[jupiterjune]

IMHO-

There is great value in passive biamping.
You can use a PP amp for bass, and an Aleph for the mids and highs.....
If you build your own speakers, you can use a lower efficiency bass driver (plays deeper in a small box) with a higher gain amp to make up the difference in level.....

I am sure there are many more.

Mr Elliot has written many excellent and some very amusing articles. In fact, his ELF subwoofer project was sort of the basis for my sub.....But he only recently emerged from the Mosfet Haze to design what he believes to be a great sounding Mosfet amp.
There are many other varying points of view........

JJ

[Nelson Pass]

Originally posted by jupiterjune
But he only recently emerged from the Mosfet Haze to design what he believes to be a great sounding Mosfet amp.

[paulb]

I hope it's great sounding. I just bought the boards for it.

[Blues]

Originally posted by jupiterjune
IMHO-

.....But he only recently emerged from the Mosfet Haze...

JJ

We should have known...he was under the influence when he designed the Death of Zen.

[lordvader]

I love my DoZ !!!!!

... and an F3 is next on my list !!!!

[Nelson Pass]

Originally posted by h_a
Since these 2.5 way thingies offer dual binding posts that can be separated, I thought of passive biamping.

What do you guys think about that?

I found a lot on active biamping, but only subjective opinions about passives. Rod Elliott says it's a waste of money - would you all agree? Is it really that worse?

If you have a surfeit of amplifiers already, how can it be a waste
of money? I recommend a setup where you can trim the gain
of the high vs low amplifiers.



surfeit: your vocabulary word for the day.

useage: "He died of a surfeit of opinions" - John Le Carre

[h_a]

Naah, of course for me it's not a waste of money!

I stated Elliott since waste of money equals completely useless and that's what I want to know if it's really that worse.

Sure, everybody here has a surfeit of amps (thanks Nelson for a new word in my vocabulary ;-) and of course for all the nice amps!), probably except me since I just started getting addicted to DIY.

If space wasn't an issue

Nelson, how do you quint amp your fullranges? Sure one amp or two for your big boom boxes, another one for your Kleinhorns and then?

All the best, Hannes

[h_a]

Oh and I forgot: thanks for the hint about the different gains! Only me could overlook that.

Well, there will be certainly some solution for this. Plenty of time until I get both amps up and running.

Cheers, Hannes

[Ren]

Hannes,

My experience with passive bi-amping isn't real DIY but it is real-world.

I recently bought a Proceed AMP2 (150 wpc) on Audiogon to complement the AMP2 I already owned for 6 years or so. I passively bi-amped my speakers, hoping that the gain of two production examples of a single model would be very close.

I was expecting to hear more dynamics and perhaps a little more solid bass. I was wrong.

What I got was:

much improved left-to-right imaging (on well recorded albums the vocalists is now solidly in the center between the speakers; instruments are locked into place between the speakers)

more mid-range clarity (especially noticed on female vocals)

greater sense of the timing of musical notes (more silence between the notes)

I don't know whether this experience can be generalized. Would different amp designs show the same benefit? Would different speaker cross-over designs affect the result? Don't know.

But I was very impressed with this experiment.

Now if I could find time to actually build the 4 Aleph-X monoblocks I have boards for...

BR,

Ren