2-Way Bi-amping, vertical or horizontal, which one is better?

[plasnu]

My speaker cross-over frequency is around 800 Hz. This is about midway in the music frequency range, so it is not surprising that the low frequency amplifiers make such a difference. Having similar amplifiers both top and bottom helps a lot.

pinholer, I'm currently building all SIT SE amp stack for my horn, and crossover is also 800 Hz!

I agree with your statement. My summer amp consists of Hypex for woofers and SIT SE for horn driver. Hypex sounds super clean but it lacks class-a weight and depth. I also tested Aleph J with SIT SE, and I find woofer amp is more dominant than tweeter amp, so I decided to build impractically large SIT SE woofer amps that is very similar to my tweeter SE, while PP amp for woofer would be more practical and sensible choice.

 

[pinholer]

plasnu, I think you will be very happy with a large SIT amp for your woofers. I have THF-51S SE monoblocks for my woofers and am very happy with the bass and the overall sound. I think the bass amps make a bigger difference than the treble amps, especially if the crossover frequency is higher. Consider that middle C on a piano is 262 Hz and the highest note is 4186 Hz.

 

[mordikai]

I'm pretty sold on Bi-Amping. diy M2 on-top, mod 686 on the bottom. Right now I'm using an old nht active crossover but soon to be the 6-24 diy crossover. I do perceive an improvement, especially on dynamic bass heavy music.

 

[pelanj]

I use actively crossed 4 way horizontal multiamping. For one simple reason - I do not have enough identical amps to do that. If I had my favorite Denon PMA1500AE 4x, I would do vertical instead

 

[plasnu]

plasnu, I think you will be very happy with a large SIT amp for your woofers. I have THF-51S SE monoblocks for my woofers and am very happy with the bass and the overall sound. I think the bass amps make a bigger difference than the treble amps, especially if the crossover frequency is higher. Consider that middle C on a piano is 262 Hz and the highest note is 4186 Hz.

I'm looking forward to hear my new woofer amps. I also find even subwoofer amp can be dominant. I have heard some commercial SET+Horn systems with a digital driven subwoofer at audio shows. This combination seems to be popular these days. Those systems sound very good in a way, and I do not dislike them, but they sound nothing but a digital amp with some SET flavor on it, while the dealers were hiding digital amp in the subwoofer cabinet and place fancy looking SET at the center of the room.

 

[pinholer]

I was a big tube amp fanatic until I got onto VFETs. However, I did not have any tube amp that was powerful enough for the woofers so I used a Cyrus transistor amp until I replaced it with a Sony TAN-5550 VFET amp.

That Sony amp was a revelation. With it in place, the first thing I noticed was the the lower notes became more "musical". Until then, I had not realized what I had been missing. The THF-51S amps are another step up, with the most obvious improvement being a more powerful bass.


I no longer use my DHT amps and soon my 01A tube preamp will be replaced by a VFET preamp.

 

[ArcticBrew]

Hi ArcticBrew. Of all the systems I've seen here I find yours most interesting and promising. I'm well aware of the AMT's reputation and using 300B SE is the best. Should be a spiritual experience.

On the lows, however, I think this is the area where you can keep experimenting on. I get your choice of PP EL34 but the AMT is not just sensitive its super fast and the fast woofers need to be smaller. Maybe a couple of 8ohm 8" or 6.5" in parallel would be worth trying. They can go down to 30hz easily.

I agree. In my lab/garage I have a pair of Klipsch MTM bookshelf speakers that I am using for low frequencies with a naked AMT for the highs. Another very good combination.

I acquired 4 Altec 416Bs over the last few years and will eventually try them for the lows with the AMT for the highs. Depending on the result I may add a mid bass driver and cross the AMT above 2Khz. This project won't get on the board until next year.

Steve