Bi-amping worth it?

[efarstad]

Hey all...can you believe I'm actuallly considering spending more money!! Of course you can, but want to see what your experiences are with bi-amping your speakers.

I have Martin Logan SL3's that I currently run with a Musical Fidelity A3cr bi-wired, but thinking about getting an integrated amp and having that run the base module and the A3cr run the panel....

Any experiences you've had will help, and I know it comes down to my ears but I'd love your takes.

Thanks all, E





The Norwegian A/V Nut!
E-Cinema

[Crimson]

E,
If done properly taking into account the crosover slopes and cutoff frequencies, it can make your system really shine, especially with ESL's and planars. I'm currently in the process of doing so (for about a month now!) with my Maggies and the FIRST thing I noticed was more presence in the mids and highs because they are being powered by an amp that is not being strained by the lows. I'm still in the process of fine tuning it, but to me its a definite improvement. At the same time, a dedicated amp for the lows seems to really bring out chest-thumping, tight, articulate bass (chest-thumping with Maggies you say?). Worth trying out.




Q.

[efarstad]

Thanks Crimson, I've heard the base module really sucks the juice as well, that's why I'm thinking about it! I don't think my wife will like to see (two) sets of speaker wire though...do they make cable that splits into fours at each end (ya know what I mean?)? I thought I saw some somewhere once....





The Norwegian A/V Nut!
E-Cinema

[Crimson]

E,
Yes, I know for a fact that Kimber makes biwire and biamp cables, as well as others probably.




Q.

[efarstad]

Cool, I thought so...Thnx!

E





The Norwegian A/V Nut!
E-Cinema

[Lex]

I have always heard it said that passive bi-amping really doesn't accomplish that much over just having 1 larger power source bi-wired.

To really achieve the benefits of bi-amping, you have to separate the crossovers of your speakers, and utilize separate crossovers for each amp. Then you have no bleeding of your amplified signal. You focus each crossover on the correct frequencies to the bass and high modules. But it's very true that bass is a hog, and swipes much of your available power reserves. For Planer's that's the critical part as the electrostatic panels like much power!

Someday CAT hopes to do some speaker runs. Just need to get the head cat off his butt and to work in product development, lol.

Lex




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