Is bi amping worth it ?


New thinking ? 
 

the subwoofer world is quite confusing . so I have  left that decision alone for a bit.  I have recently read where bi amping the khorns could give me the little more bass punch I am looking for. ?    The 601 mono-blocks certainly have enough power but I have a tube pre amp C-2300 that does not separate bass and treble signals so would need to add an external crossover.  
 

anyone have any experience with this ? Is this worth the effort ?  And if so any recommendations on the external crossover ? 
 

thanks again everyone. I greatly appreciate all input from this forum.  

hardhattg

Showing 3 responses by billpete

@hardhattg 

I'm not sure what you will accomplish after looking back to your original post. I would need 4 mono amps to do what I'm doing with mine. I don't see how yours would be any different. I use two stereo amps and use vertical bi-amping. It makes a huge difference with my speakers. As I said before, I would never go back to a single amp and I don't think that I would change that opinion even if I did have two hefty mono blocks or a single high end stereo or dual mono amp. I could be wrong but in my system, what i have done serves me the best. You may find completely different results in yours but if you are unsatisfied with your bass response, you owe it to yourself to try it........or at least try something different. Best of luck.

@hardhattg 

I am a firm believer in bi-amping speakers that are designed for it. My speakers are old and not efficient, requiring quite a lot of power. I use AR9 speakers which are rated for 400 watts of power. I'm not sure how this changes if you biamp but mine are bi-amped with 2 stereo amps rated at 385 wpc @ 4ohms. I'm not really even sure if the AR rating of 400W is at 4 or 8 ohm. The speakers are rated at 4ohms with FR of 18hz to 30khz. 

When I started with these speakers, I only had one of these amps and the bi-amp feature of the speakers was using jumpers for one amplifier. It would seem that having 385wpc, should have been plenty to produce good solid bass from these speakers but I did not hear what I was looking for at all. They sounded nice but bass was not full or strong or snappy or whatever words can be used to describe really good bass. So...........I bought another identical amp and bi-amped the speakers. The difference was night and day. The bass from these old AR9's is very impressive. I have been enjoying them this way for 25 years or so. I would never take them back to a single amp.............never.

If your speakers are set up for bi-amping, I would do it in a heartbeat. There should be absolutely zero need for another crossover, which in my opinion, would just complicate things and make synergy much more difficult to find. I'm not sure how your speakers were designed but horns are much different than what I have so I can't say but listen to the experts here. Eric_Squires for one. For me, two amps that are exactly the same, has worked extremely well. Your horns may require or work well with something completely different, I do not know. I know there are some large speakers made with a large power class D amp to run the woofers and they suggest that the top end can be run with very low powered SET types. Would not work for mine but it's all in the design. Best of luck but I'd suggest trying bi-amping for sure. You can often try components for 30 day with satisfaction guaranteed. There is no risk and I think you'd be delighted with what you hear. It will give you the best that your speakers have to offer as they were made for this.