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What is overkill for Vandersteens?

Hi, I recently came into 2 McIntosh mc2500 amps, and I just bought a pair of Vandersteen 3a's. I was going to sell one of the amps, but should I just keep them and run them mono, or is that just ridiculous. How much power do most 3a owner use? I know I can put them in and listen, but they are heavy, and I've already hurt my back, and my 4 year old is no help. It would also bring up other issues (ie. another power cord, explaining to my wife where the chair went to?) I would rather not have to deal with unless everyone tells me I have to do it.

Thanks,
Mike
hanaleimike
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
06-06-09: Tvad
Truth is, at 500wpc, one is plenty...
Anything 500 can do, 1,000 can do better. ;)
racamuti's avatar
racamuti
362 posts
 
Hey, why not try passive biampng? You could hook up one amp to power the woofers and the other amp to power the tweeters.The specs on the 3a's say that they drop to 4 ohms and if you bridge the Macs to mono they will see 2 ohms, I'm wondering if the Macs will sound good when faced with a 2 ohm load? You could also biamp using one amp per side and run the woofers on one channel and the tweeters on the other channel of each amp.If your preamp does not have dual outputs you can use a Y connector. Good Luck!!
nickword
49 posts
 
I had a pair of 3A signatures that I vertically bi-amped with a pair of Counterpoint SA-220s. The difference vs. one amp was more than just power. Sonically there was a huge improvement in every aspect of the sound.

Try it. You'll love running both.
bungelow_ed
1 posts
 
Hi all, I've been an occasional lurker for a while and thought I might be able to add to this thread.

My listening room currently is setup with a pair of 3A Sigs driven with a Carver M500t. In previous setups I've used an M1.0t and either 2 or 4 M200t's. The M200t's were either used in tandem in a horizontal bi-amp configuration or in a moment of madness 4 monoblocks driving each input.

To my ears, the best overall sound is the M500t in bi-wire configuration. Two hundred-fifty watts/channel is more than enough in my 20'x15'x7'6" room and results in the best balance and detail.

Hope this helps
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