Tri-amping 3.6R's; what amp for the ribbons?


I currently use a active bi-amp setup w/my 3.6R's. The pre-amp/crossover is a DEQX unit, into a pair of 1000ASP ICEPower amps for the bass panels, and a pair of Bel Canto REF500M's for the mid+ribbon. The crossover is at 200hz, 96db/octave. I'm thinking about moving to a tri-amp setup. Anyone tried this with 3.6R's? Any advice?

What amp for the ribbon, assuming I keep the current amps for the bass & mid? I'm thinking a nice Class A tube amp for the ribbons, but that's just my first instinct.

BTW, I like to crank these speakers LOUD -- as loud as you can go before the panels start farting. I guess ribbons don't require much power, but how low can I go?

Also, I'm concerned about blowing a ribbon -- I have to bypass the fuses, right?
mikeand1

Showing 1 response by jgr757

Doing some reading and looking at the components as well as the papers that the crossover is made from for the 3.6r, (I have a pair too and am in the process of trying to find the same sound as you Mikeand1, the Maggies have a4th order L-R Low pass at 280 (not 3rd order at 250) and a first order high pass at 200 which explains a lot reading through the Stereophile review of their measurements.  The quality of components is bottom rate.  A good passive crossover misses the greatest advantage of all active crossovers, there is no part of worry about over driving the entire amp into distortion and phase problems are not as serious, but these can reach 4.5 db higher than a single amp by ti-amping or even higher when it is just one channel at one side that is over driving a single amplifier.  The other is that the amplifiers can be very accurate, articulate without having to spend your life savings.

Problems with ribbons.  You must have a high pass filter one them or make sure that no DC can ever enter through the system to your speakers.  The best active crossovers died in the mid to late 1990s (they are gold with the exception of Accuphase (Kenwood/Trio Lab group).

I am at 240Hz and 1700.  The midrange panel is crossed over at 1200 and not 1700 as the impedance would drop below 2 (tweeter is 3.3 ohms and 4.0-4.2 for the midrange at 1700).  If you wanted a two way one would have to calculate a 4th order otherwise, the dip at at 1300-1600 is considerable, the ribbon being a 12db/oct high pass Butterworth.

If you want output, you will have to go solid state and that is not so bad with a good TUBE FRONT END.  Don't put a Transistor preamp in front of solid state power amplifiers as it sounds horrible and vice versa.  I've had the quicksilver 100w amps with a Threshold preamp and that was terrible.  Audio Research in front of a Bristol amp is a no go either.

The Maggie ribbon is surprisingly inefficient but at 1700Hz and above into 4 ohms (add a Dueland while you can of their best resistors of 1 ohm as everyone is cutting budgets and holding companies are buying out the best of what is the rest of reasonably priced audio (B&W really suffered component wise going to China but it is the bean counters that created their new and rotten crossovers).

I am still in search of a good amplifier that doesn't cost 3000 for a class a of 30-50w/ch.  Some retro amps are looking real good here (Marantz 7 class A, 24 or Pioneer Series 20 30watt/ch and the latter gets VERY HOT and needs a fan but heats the house in the winter.

Spectral will do nothing to refurbish anything of their products and have little idea of the nanoseconds it takes for over several instruments to start on que in classical music or improvisational jazz for just a few.

A solid 100 watt amp like Benchmark (200 w/ch in 4 ohms) is ideal for the midrange and the low end is your own taste but need.  This is where if you want slam, solid state and no passive crossover is needed so all the best the amplifiers can put out is directly to the drivers.