2. amps-preamps
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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
kofibaffour
497 posts
 

Been there. Don't that. Not worth it

fthompson251's avatar
fthompson251
625 posts
 

My speakers are designed to be bi_amped. They have an internal ice power750 watt amp that can be configured to drive just the bass. The external wavelet II crossover has DSP as well. I run a small 50watt class A amp for the top registers and it works really well. I don’t know how it would work on theK horns. They seem rather efficient to bi amp JMHO.

glennewdick's avatar
glennewdick
1,814 posts
 

 

601 mono-blocks, that’s supper over kill for K-horns. I would not bother trying to bi-amp with that much power available. Unless you're considering moving to low power amps then maybe splitting the mid-tweeter and bass would help. That said if you’re not getting punchy bass from your K-horns I’d look at set up issue and speaker location room interaction first.

From my experience with Klipsch speakers (LaScala’s in my case) you’re better off with lower power amps, you are never using more than a few watts at best with 105bd speakers. I ran mine on 2.5watt SETs, 8wpc SET’s and some really nice 25wpc SS class A amps, and it was glorious. 600wpc is so over kill you’re barely getting that amp out of idle no reason to add more power IMO.

Subwoofers are hard to match to K-Horns but it’s possible with good quality sealed units. I would think that’s a better direction if you wanted more bass, after you address any set up issues and room interactions. You do have them in corners, right?

secretguy
1,874 posts
 

Unless you live in 1950, no.

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
2,247 posts
 

No, it really was not worth it in the end. 

Tried it several times and a few ways, with the same of each amp. Vertical and horizontal configs. It could sound "exciting" at first, but never convinced me to stick that way for longn. Seemed less musically coherent somehow (there can be slight differences in units of even the same model of an amp). Not good results with bridging SS amps to mono, either. What I didn't try is biamping with disparate amps (like tubes up top) - but honestly the coherence issue when biamping with the same SS amp turned me off that idea.

What CAN make a big positive difference is taking two stereo tube amps that can be switched (paralleled) into mono, and running them as monos. 

This was done with Tannoys that are relatively efficient. 

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