Can a Magnepan 1.6 be BI AMPED?


Was wondering if anyone who owns the Mag 1.6 speakers knows if the speaker can be BI AMPEDped? I know it can be bi wired, but looking at the rear connection panel has me wondering if both terminals arent hard wired to the top terminal, allowing the two lower terminals to touch internally causing possible issues with bi amping.

Please dont respond the following receiver wont drive them, because I fully know it will. My concern is ONLY on bi amping on the speaker end. Ive bi amped so seriously hard to drive speakers and the Onkyo is more then up to the task. Specially considering I will be crossing the 1.6 over to ease the demands, and I only prefer a sub to do the grunt work. But for reference sake, here is my intentions with the Onkyo:

Im using a Onkyo nr906 right now on a pair off mmg's set to 4ohm, and they sound fantastic with a sub crossed over at 80hz. I have the ability to use the rear channels from the Onkyo in a bi amp configuration to drive a pair of 1.6's in bi amp config in a dual 4 ohm load. Should be 200 watts aprox to top and 200 watts aprox to bottom, and allow me to use the full potential of the nr906 if bi amping works in this speaker.

Thanks to anyone that has knowledge of if the 1.6 accepts bi amp config or just bi wire(which if they in fact touch internally to the top terminal, isnt worth bi wiring anyway, as its one big loop either way).
sthomas12321

Showing 4 responses by lightminer

I was told by someone who should know if anyone knows that the 1.6 dual inputs are just there because people kept asking to be able to biwire, but they are not actually separate inputs and internally go to the same place. The 3.6 and above can be actually bi-amped w/active crossover and other configurations, but from what I was told the dual input on the 1.6 is just for those that believe in biwiring.
Eldartford - I have 3.6s so haven't taken apart the 1.6s myself, but that info was from the horses mouth! I was talking to, I think it was Wendel or someone else from Magnepan :). It was about 3 or 4 years ago, however, not sure if anything has changed.
Yeah - that is definitely what they said. Don't know how to reconcile. I believe you - perhaps it was added at some point or electrically there is some technical way that both can be true and/or he was speaking in a more general way - certainly the 3.6 and 20.1 are wired very differently when coming in along the 2 separate inputs... Don't know!
Right, that is what we are talking about, no? Who is on first? I was saying that I was told the separate inputs behind the panel don't really do much (and were just there for biwiring) compared to the 3.6 and 20.1 which have totally separate electrical paths if you use the dual inputs, and you were saying the opposite.