B&W Matrix 800: Bi-amping thoughts?

From what I can find, the woofer crosses over to the midbass at around 300hz, which is smack in the middle of both male and female vocals, which will make it more critical to blend well between two amps. 

If done well, it could help improve the clarity of the midbass/tweeter amps by relieving it of low bass duties, but will require a woofer amp with not only ample power and the ability to handle large woofer excursions, it’ll also need to have good lower midrange sonics to get it blend well.  You’ll likely want the ability to blend the gain of the two amps to match.  

Please keep us posted on your progress.  

I can only speak about my own experience.  My N801s are 91db.  The recommended power range is 50 to 1000 watts.  Using my 300 watt amp, volume levels would go high (SPL) but the bass just didn't keep up.  I think a high power high current amp is what will bring those woofers to life.  However, YMMV.

Bill

And, I was surprised to find that when the monoblocks were in play, even lower volumes sounded more filled out.

sorry for the double posts, but I'm kind of a slow thinker.

Bill

@knotscott You said: "From what I can find, the woofer crosses over to the midbass at around 300hz".

Would you direct me to where you found that please? Thank you.

Happy listening.

@musicfan2349 It was initially Meta AI. 

"what are the crossover points on the B&W Matrix 800 speakers

The B&W Matrix 800 speakers have separate crossovers housed in the three separate cabinets. Each woofer enclosure has a low-pass crossover dedicated to the driver inside, and the central cabinet houses the mid/high crossover boards. The crossover points are approximately at ¹:

• Low-Frequency Crossover (Woofer to Midrange): around 300 Hz, where the woofer’s output transitions to the midrange units.

• Midrange to Tweeter Crossover: approximately 3 kHz, where the midrange units’ output transitions to the tweeter.

It’s worth noting that some users have modified their B&W Matrix 800 speakers to use active crossovers, allowing for bi-amping. One option for this modification is the KBX crossover designed by Dan D’Agostino, which includes custom crossover points and a bass alignment filter ² ³."

I found that Aurel Hifi as well as hifiwiki.com called them "transitional ranges" of 300hz and 3,000hz.

https://auralhifi.com/products/vintage-bowers-wilkins-matrix-800-rosewood-speakers-installed-new-satori-beryllium-tweeters-refinished-cabinets-na-matrix

https://hifi-wiki.com/index.php/B%26W_Matrix_800

I also saw another AI blurb on Google that stated 380hz and 3,000hz that referenced DIYAudio.com and Stereophile.