If you Bi-Amp a 4 ohm speaker = Ohms????


If you bi-amp a 4 ohm speaker what is the amp seeing? In other words is the non-bi-amped 4 ohms the result of two 2 ohm speaker sets in series, two 8 ohm speaker sets in parallel, or could it be anything? Or would the resulting resistence be 4 ohms on both the high and low pass? Or could it be all different combinations? Is there a way to tell? I plan on running the left signal on one amp, the right on another. If there is a difference between the high and low pass could that be a problem if the amp sees 2 ohms on the left (my low pass signal) and 8 ohms on the right (high pass)???? Also consider I have an active crossover before the amps so only the low signal will be seen by the left side of each amp, the high on the right. But I guess my main question is just what should I expect the amps to see once the 4 ohm speakers are bi-amped. Maybe it is a dumb question, I don't know.......
a71spud

Showing 2 responses by abstract7

Sedond is right about the active cross-over. Only use this if the internal cross-over has been disabled (bipassed). I'm using an active cross-over, but my speakers were designed to use an active cross-over--in fact, if bi-amped they must use an active cross-over.

Using one stereo amp for left and right is not a bad idea at all. There is less cross talk in this set-up because one amp is seeing the left channel--rather than two different channels. There will be differences due to the high pass vs low pass, but they will be harmonious and I would not see cross talk as being much of an issue--if any. I presume you are doing this to get each amp very close to the speaker and run as short a speaker cable as possible--if that's the case--good choice.

Lastly, ohm rating. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you have a nominal impedance speaker (4 ohms), but I'm guessing you are asking this question because it has a tendancy to go very low in impedance, and you think bi-amping will help this problem. As previously posted, only the manufacturer of the speaker can give you this information. It will be different for the high end and low end. I have a pair of Martin Logan Monolith IIs. They have very low impedance from the panel. The bass has a reasonable impedance--4 ohms and probably doesn't dip much below that, but the problem with single amps on this speaker is the impedance drops from the panel, then a bass drum kicks in and there's no umpf left in the amp (umpf is a technical term). By bi-amping you isolate the demands of the woofer vs the low imedance from the panel. I don't know if you own MLs or other speakers with similar characteristics--but I said I was going on on a limb here. If this is the issue you are trying to address--it should work very well--it did for me.
You don't really need to put the cross-over before the amps if your speakers have an internal cross-over designed for bi-amping. You pointed out that you don't want the amp to see the load (reduce the load), but the load is generated by the speaker, not by the incoming information. So, if the speaker only draws high pass information from one channel, that is the only load the amp sees. The additional low pass information you have sent the amp is just extra information and should really have no effect on the load of the amp (or it's performance). I don't know very much about your specific speakers, so I can't make specific comments, but perhaps someone else with those speakers can be of some help.