Moving from a stereo amp to a dual mono set up

You are reminding me of wanting to get my component stack moved from between the speakers to off to the side. It used to be that way, and it improved imaging; but the stack has much more stuff than it used to.

Space or the lack thereof can be the most ticklish part of home music playback.

I hate it when something that appears to be simple spirals into a major project. I’ll be interested to hear what you think of the sound differences when complete. 
 

Bill,  you forgot a step.  Walking into the backyard at 2 in the morning, staring at the stars, and cursing the stereo gods for tempting you into this hobby!

I feel your pain.  I recently moved into a new house and was psyched that I could finally setup a dedicated listening room in a spare bedroom!  A year later, I'm to the point of starting over.  The room is too small, the seating position is too close, too many windows, the equipment rack is too big, I can't get the bass issues under control, and the electrical circuit is undersized and unstable.

So, now I'm going to build a dedicated listening room in the basement. (more $$$)  Damn those gods on Mount Audiophile!

Keep us appraised on how things go.  

- Jeff

I feel your pain.

I would suggest you watch the original 1948 version of the movie, "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House", starring Cary Grant and Myra Loy.

Suffice to say, you will know exactly how Cary feels about how simple projects can turn into a nightmare of complications.

sometimes I ask my wife: do you want some music or silence is fine and more often than not she says silence is fine. Imagine the costs and setup needs of that options.

Thanks for sharing your experience.  We’ve probably all been there.  It’s why this hobby is a journey and not a destination.  Enjoy the journey.  If not it’s like taking the kids on a long car ride on vacation with shouts of, Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Please keep us updated on your progress and as Hans says, enjoy the music! 

Funny thing - I actually started this hobby years ago with dual mono blocks. After years of moving around the country and setting up the system, I finally decided to go stereo. Haven’t looked back! 

@bill_peloquin 

Before you drop some big money on redo’s, etc., why not try DSP to correct some of the shortcomings your’e experiencing. Until recently I was totally against it, feeling I was cheating or something, but it came down to weather I wanted great sound or not so I gave it a try… It may not be morally right for everybody, but I gotta tell ya… Fixed the issues I was experiencing allowing me to enjoy my set up and room again. Just a recommendation.   

If you are running two separate electrical circuits for each amp, you may want to tell your electrician to take them off the same phase. I've had issues with ground loops when I went off opposite phases.

Congratulations plinius are very good.I own SA100 for more than 25 yrs now. The cost of electrician doing your project depends on how mow much work and he will spend to install it and how greedy he is?This hobby when you add gear or cables it change the sound.With mono beside they are heavy you need extra space to accommodate them? And maybe longer cables. Lots of work needed .At the end of you do it right , you will be happy enjoying music.

Every facet of change always meets with frustration. I don't understand the connections you're making on the back of the Mono.  Is this A biamp exercise? Kind of confusing to my tiny mind.

get listening to some dynamic stuff now, with instant peak needs, so you can hear the difference, if any, when you double your power for peaks.

or, I guess you need to wait till when the speaker wires come back, listen to the single stereo unit before you go dual mono

@61falcon 

I thought you're supposed to keep all the circuits in the same phase for your system.

As long as you don't have components Sharing different circuits ground loops should go away. 

@emergingsoul 

I probably should have said to keep them on the same busbar in the panel e.g. if you're on the L1 bus, ensure both breakers are on the L1 bus. I had a ground loop issue until I put both circuits on the same bus.

I'm certain there are a lot of other possibilities for ground loops though.

@61falcon  yes you are correct thar makes  big difference  more than just ground  loops. I would also suggest  12 3 wire not just 14 3 wire. As long as it is being  rewired heavy wire is a good thing. Make the wires in the wall identical  length  as well. . I changed the feed wire to my house from aluminum  to copper. That was a good improvement  acr9ss the board. Went to a 200 amp service  and when I needed the wire going to the house to be heavier I paid the extra for copper. It was well worth it. Also you might want to have better receptacles put in as well. Furutech  I have been very happy with. Lol power is a slippery  slope. As the improvement is hard to believe.  But much cheaper  than most other items 

Regarding setting on the Plinius.

The amp is a designed with a switch on the rear of the unit to run in Stereo, or Mono and which inputs I am using. I am using the XLR inputs. SO I move the switch to the Mono position with XLR Inputs.   So my connection is to connect to the right channel input. The speaker connection is  Positive speaker wire to the Positive Right channel, Negative speaker wire to the POSITIVE left channel.   There is a distance of 9" to those 2 binding posts on the back of the amp.  That is why I sent my cables to be altered, the speaker wire leads could not stretch that far apart. 

Shipped them on Thursday. Straight Wire will be getting them tomorrow. They should be back in UPS by Friday. I might have them by the 19th of this month. 

Bu then I hope the electrician is done. I should only take about 4 hours max for them.  And I am sure I will have to move my system off the back wall to give them some room to work. So, I can then reposition everything so things reach. 

Good thing I have a second system in the same room to use for my birthday and the holiday weekends we have coming up. 

The wiring of the speaker to the back of the amplifier is kind of weird. So I guess it's not doing bi amp

No, 2 separate amps. I per speaker. 

So why are they connecting positive and positive from speaker wires supposed to be connected to positive and negative? Why would they internally wire it this way when it’s to be used for mono after being bridged over from a stereo amplifier?

Why not use the four individual amps in a biamp configuration?

I do not know. All I do know is the main Plinius man here in the USA told me how to do it. And I have all i can do to hook up 2 amps and not 4 of these beasts.

i wondered if you could use each of the amps within the stereo amp to biamp one of the speakers and do the same thing on the other side.  Not adding two more dual amplifiers.  Although that might be kind of fun.

Any home that one considers to buy ought to have it's wiring checked for aluminum wiring prior to a signature on the documents.  It can function fine if kept within it's limits.  Lights and lighting are typically fine, but any circuit posed with a varying amp load ought to be replaced; however, if one circuit is being swapped out, it's better to bite the bullet and change everything and ignore the 'grandfathering' option.

We had a house that was all knob and tube next to live gas lines, the latter got disconnected and vented.  A latter one has one continuous ground for all the circuits, making 'short circuit searches' a real bug chase....

Know ahead of what you want to upgrade....copper and alum wiring together in one installation is considered a real hazard...

"Know thyself....Then, know everything else in close proximity to you and ;oved ones....." ;)

You really haven’t experienced the full benefit of “true” dual mono amplifier set up as you are using 2 stereo amplifiers “bridged”  where amplifier phase of one channel has been inverted - that is why you are now using the positive L and R terminals for a single speaker.  Bridging typically halves the minimum impedance the amplifier can safely handle, lowers the damping factor, and increases THD and noise.  Bridged amplifiers are typical limited to speakers with a nominal 8 ohm impedance with no significant dips below 6 ohms.  

No need to reinvent the wheel my friend. Everything that you’re wanting to do has already been done many times before.