Biamping vs. Bridging Platinum Solo, Soliloquy

Bridging typically gives you quantity whereas ACTIVE bi-amping gives you quality. Passive bi-amping can be beneficial, but not anywhere near the extent as going active.

I'm not familiar with either speaker, but with 86 dB speakers, you'll need at least 400 - 600 wpc @ 8 ohms ( 2 to 3 times that at 4 ohms ) to do things right ( in my opinion ). That is, if you plan on listening at any type of volume in a decent sized room. Otherwise, you can expect clipping and dynamic compression to take place. My mains in the HT system are rated at 88 dB's ( more like 86 - 87 ) and i was running 400+ wpc from 200 Hz & up and 500+ wpc from 200 Hz and down. Both of these power measurements are based on a 4 ohm load, as that is what the speakers are rated at. When cranking things up, i could easily drive the amps into compression. I ended up having to move into an amp that was rated for 1200 wpc @ 4 ohms and could produce appr 1450 wpc at clipping before i could really "jam" cleanly. Whether or not you'll run into the same situation will depend on your amps, size of the room and your listening preferences, etc...

When it comes to speakers with low sensitivities like that, you literally can NOT have enough power. Sean
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Thanks, Sean
How to go ACTIVE biamping without pissing off speaker designer? I assume speaker crossover should be bypassed completely.
Alex

IMO, Bi-Amping (even passive) can definatly yield an improvement sonically. Bridging can yield more volume but always diminishes the quality, in my experience.

Alex: Bypassing most ( if not all ) of the internal crossover parts can do wonders in terms of clarity, detail and dynamics. The exceptions to bypassing would be if the designer has built in zobel networks and / or notch filters. One would have to experiment to see if these were truly necessary after switching to an external active crossover.

As such, going "active" with an unknown commodity such as store-bought speakers can be a real learning experience. Obviously, the first thing that one should do in that type of situation would be to consult the designer of the speaker being used and discuss the variables with them. Quite honestly though, my experience is that many designers of passive speaker systems have very little first-hand experience with an active array. Finding speakers that have a very simple passive crossover would be easiest to "disect" and convert to full active models. Sean
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