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B&W 800D2 - Bi-amping vs Bi-wiring

Hello folks,

I am looking for feedback on bi-amping these amazing speakers. I currently own a CA-2200 amp and it seems 200w per channel may not be adequate to realize full potential of 800D2. So i was thinking of bi-amping two classe ca-2200 for L/R speakers, thus feeding 400w each to Left and Right speakers. Or am i better off buying a pair of CA-M600 for each speaker? I would like to stick with Classe amps only... love the way they sound.

Next question is about bi-wiring. There seems to be bit of confusion (atleast in my head) on the best way to bi-wire speakers. The true shotgun cable is terminated with two split(+ and -)on amp end and 4 splits (2 + and 2 -)on speaker end. I have seen illustrations where bi-wiring is done with 2 identical runs of cables between dual binding posts on amp and speaker ends feeding seperate signal to LF and HF speaker inputs. I have read about the advantages of two single runs but my cable manufacturer doesn't seems to agree with this configuration. He is still recommending shotgun configuration.

I hope to gain some insight before i make an investment in a amp or new cables. I currently own a bi-wire cable in shotgun configuration.
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Showing 1 response by brystonuser

brystonuser
17 posts
 
I currently own both 802 Diamonds and 800 Diamonds. The 802's came 1st and were initially powered by a single Bryston 4B-SST. I had a 2nd that wasn't being used so I "bi-amped" them and if it made any difference it was slight. I bi-amped by using one 4B-SST for the woofers and the other for the mids/highs.

When I got my 800's I did the same thing but in reverse order I think. I started with the 2 amps and went to one because I needed the rack space. Again if there was a difference it was slight. Certainly not worth the cost to do. I was lucky I had the 2nd amp on hand anyways but would not spend the money on a 2nd amp to get little to no performance increase.

Later on I replaced the 4B-SST with a pair of 28B-SST2's. Now there was a difference. Much more open at all listening levels. So this was going from 340 watts to 1250 watts.

Based on my experience I say go with more power but make sure you at least double your current wattage to get minimum of 3dB more.
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