Bi-Amping Possibility, which direction ?


One of my audio systems thinking about biamping.
Have a pair of Pass X600.5 mono amps & Class A Threshold SA/4e stereo amp. Would like to put X600's on the bottom and SA/4e on top for biamping a pair of Sonus Faber Extrema speakers.

I would like to keep the system totally Balance XLR.

My preamp is the Marantz Reference SC-7S1 preamp whichhas (1) Balance Output. But has two Unbalance RCA outputs. I love the Marantz Reference SC-7S1 preamp. But again want to keep Balance configuration.

Should I go out and look for a Balance XLR Passive Crossover ? What direction would you go ? Or how would you set up.

Thank you to all who help.
lawyerman

Showing 1 response by ar_t

Nice speakers........a customer has a set.

Lots of dumb questions come to mind, like do you know the order, alignment, and, of course, crossover frequency of the speakers?? Simple passive balanced crossovers can be built. Emphasis on simple. Depending on the type, you may not be able to easily do it passive. In which case, balanced may be a pain to do. Tricky crossovers are best done single-ended, and you convert BAL-SE-BAL with a bunch of active components. Like Apogee did on one of their set-ups.

I think the trick with the Extrema is that it uses a coil to shunt the HF to ground for the tweeter. Could be wrong, but I seem to recall someone in the know telling me what was different about those speakers. But that was years ago.