bi-amping the statements

[Coconutout]

hello, i'm thinking of bi-amping my statement monitors. tube amp for the top, ss for the woofer. i mounted the crossovers externally so it should be a quick work. i wanted to know what the sensitivity of tangband and neo3d would be without the woofer. i'd like to mate them with an entry priced SET amp if possible. the dayton will be taken care of by a vintage sansui 919-an infamous bass monster.

80% of the caps in my crossovers are jensen supreme and the speakers simply vanish into the 360 degree soundfield. it is an uncanny experience that surprise all those who audition it. my previous full sized statements were no where at this level of transparency. kudos for mr.holtz and other fine gents for making this iteration possible.

boy that was a bit of a sidetrack. anyways, SET amp for mids and the tweets, possible, hopefully?

also, what other kind of tubes do you recommend? i understand 300b is desired for bass control among other things but my need would be strictly for that treble and midrange 'magic'.
and do you think i would lose some coherency with this setup? soundstage and dynamic mismatch and such...

p.s. i do have a spare el84 amp that i wasn't using for not being an rohs compliant product. should i decide to try it out, i'm thinking of turning the volume to max to imitate a power amp. would that be potentially hazardous? thanks for your help, fellas.

[bigbardmusiq]

[B]I'm assuming you just want simply more decibals out of your statements? It wil be interesting to see what K, cjd, or one of the veterans has to say. Have you looked at some of the emotiva stuff?

[dwk]

Interesting timing on this post, as last night and this morning (triggered by the TB sale) I ordered the parts for the M/T section of the Statement Monitor intending to actively bi-amp using a PC-based dsp xover. (it's actually going to tentatively be a Franken-Statement using an Exodus EX-6.5 since I have them and the RS180-4 is out of stock until Dec)

If I understand your question correctly, you aren't going to see any change in sensitivity if all you do is leave the existing xover in place and drive the M and T sections with a 2nd amp - you're going through exactly the same network in both cases, so you'll see the same behavior.
Since both the mid and the tweet are padded, it's theoretically possible to squeeze more sensitivity out of the M/T combination than they deliver in the passive design, but
a) not much extra sensitivity
b) it would be a non-trivial xover rework since the padding is after the filter

[---k---]

[B]I'm assuming you just want simply more decibals out of your statements? It wil be interesting to see what K, cjd, or one of the veterans has to say. Have you looked at some of the emotiva stuff?

I'm no expert worth of listening too... I fear most of us are going to remain silent because we don't use tube gear.

[Coconutout]

so the crossvers for mids and the tweets are designed to handle the same wattage as the woofers? which network is the padding? how would i go about adjusting it for an 18w x2 set amp?

[Face]

I wouldn't call a 300b desirable for bass control. For that you would need EL34's or KT88's, but then you lose some transparency(IMO).

And do you mean Jantzen, not Jensen?

[naughty]

80% of the caps in my crossovers are jensen supreme and the speakers simply vanish into the 360 degree soundfield. it is an uncanny experience that surprise all those who audition it. my previous full sized statements were no where at this level of transparency. kudos for mr.holtz and other fine gents for making this iteration possible.

if they are that good - then why not just leave them as is ...... remember the old adage "if it aint broke then dont fix it"

i would be too scared of interfering with a characteristic like this

just a suggestion so you are free to ignore my comment if you like :W

[Coconutout]

jantzen. sorry. it's what i get for mindlessly obeying the spellcheck function. hehe. you're right, nuaghty. i decided to go with a diy tube preamp instead. i realized after further research that what i was trying to do is essentially bi-wiring- whichs not an optimum solution at all.

[Face]

No, you were originally correct by saying bi-amp. Bi-wiring is using a single amp but 2 pairs of wire to your speakers.

A tube pre is a MUCH simpler solution than what you were looking to do.