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Bi-amp befuddlement

Newbie in midst of modest upgrades to old system and wondering if I am getting best benefit from bi-amping:

Having read about it, I acquired an Arcam 8 power amp to pair with my Arcam 8 Integrated.

Speakers are B&W 601 S2, about 20 years old, which sounded quite warm and nice bi-wired with Monster cables. For the bi-amping effort, I bought Anti-cables.

I followed the Arcam instructions and wired the power amp to low end, the integrated to high end. Frankly, not sure I noticed a difference - except maybe when I crank it up. The sounds seems clearer, with less distortion, or maybe that's wishful hearing.

I am questioning things in part because the other day, I shut down the power amp and the music nstantly went tinny, like some tranmission from space. Put on the power amp, and all richness floods back. Clearly, I expect a change but not such a massive one.

Is that normal? Is that all I am getting out of the intergrated? I have looked at Audiogon forums and read about vertical bi-amping - one amp per speaker. Is that a better use of two amps for somebody who is not going to mess with speaker cross-overs?
maverick18

Showing 1 response by bdgregory

bdgregory
1,726 posts
 
I had always been told that to get any real benefit from bi-amping you need to disable the speakers internal crossover and use an active external crossover. Yet the posts here suggest otherwise. Can anyone enlighten me on this point?
Benefits can definitely be gained without an active crossover. It depends greatly on the design of the speaker, and the amps. The best (and most authoritative) info I've read is in the thread referenced in Almarg's post above.
My experience has been mixed, with multiple amps, horizontal and vertical, and multiple speakers. In some cases the results were significant improvement, in some a degradation. If your amps aren't identical it's a pain to get them adjusted, and probably not worth the effort IME unless you use an active crossover. And, though I haven't tried an active crossover I suspect it's hard to set that up and have confidence you've optimized everything - sort of like setting up a home theater.
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