Bi-Amping Gains ??

LovingLife69

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Hi
I have just purchased a second hand Arcam 550 and Arcam PV 777 Power Amp .... I was going to use the 550 amp for the tweeter and the power amp for the lower frequencies... is this the best thing to do and what kind of gains will i notice. The speakers I will be using are B&W 603 S3 (Left & Right) B&W 600 (Centre)
Many Thanks
J
 
Try it- I think you are taking the right approach. Makes sense to use the beefier power amp for the low end drivers.

You might wish to look into adding DSP to your audio chain. Perhaps bypass the crossovers in the speakers and do DSP crossover. Food for thought for the future.

I recommend 6mm Copper interconnects, terminated 4mm pins for ease of use. Be aware that the link is 40cm cables, probably too short for your use (though not necessarily), just to give you a Van Damme 6mm link.
 
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In an old experiment with the Arcam Rep many years ago, we tried a pre/power solution and found that the power was better with the tweeter/mid-range part of the speaker and the pre was better at the low frequencies, so experiment.

I doubt you will be driving just the tweeter unless your speakers are tri-wired. Usually the mid-range and tweeters are one section of speaker with the bass driver as the other section.

What ever you do, make sure you remove whatever is joining the two parts of the speakers. Also ensure you connect the pre-out channels on the AVR550 to the correct inputs on the AP 777. Also ensure you do not get any speaker cables crossed either as this would be very bad
 
Try it- I think you are taking the right approach. Makes sense to use the beefier power amp for the low end drivers.

You might wish to look into adding DSP to your audio chain. Perhaps bypass the crossovers in the speakers and do DSP crossover. Food for thought for the future.

I recommend 6mm Copper interconnects, terminated 4mm pins for ease of use. Be aware that the link is 40cm cables, probably too short for your use (though not necessarily), just to give you a Van Damme 6mm link.

Thanks for your comments i’ll Have a look at the DSP on the Arcam...
 
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Hi ya ... it’s going to be a week before I try however I did it with my stereo system in made the mid range clearer....and it seems to have more punch .....
 
We did a LOT of blind a/b testing back in the day when bi-amping became popular.

There was no real solid rules which worked. It was very very dependant on both amp and speakers. For example, when we tried some 3 way Ruarks they always sounded worse when bi/tri-amped than just off a single amp. NAIM amps never seemed to like bi amping anything and sounded better single.

I think it really depends on the crossover design and the amp design. For some combos it worked a bit, for some it made no difference, for some it sounded worse.

The biggest difference was when we did a custom set of Accoustic Energy AE5s (have a google!) , removed the crossover and went full active with 6 x Audiolab 8000M driving them. That was startlingly better.
 
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We did a LOT of blind a/b testing back in the day when bi-amping became popular.

There was no real solid rules which worked. It was very very dependant on both amp and speakers. For example, when we tried some 3 way Ruarks they always sounded worse when bi/tri-amped than just off a single amp. NAIM amps never seemed to like bi amping anything and sounded better single.

I think it really depends on the crossover design and the amp design. For some combos it worked a bit, for some it made no difference, for some it sounded worse.

The biggest difference was when we did a custom set of Accoustic Energy AE5s (have a google!) , removed the crossover and went full active with 6 x Audiolab 8000M driving them. That was startlingly better.

Thanks for the recommendation. I think when I can all the cable sorted out I'll give taking the cross overs out a go....

Also you work in your lounge looks amazing.... How good are your M&K Fronts as they look really nice and slim...
 
Thanks for the recommendation. I think when I can all the cable sorted out I'll give taking the cross overs out a go....

Also you work in your lounge looks amazing.... How good are your M&K Fronts as they look really nice and slim...

You'd need to have something in front of the power amps to do the crossover there else you'll destroy your tweeters.

Thank you for the kind words. The MK150s are excellent I think. They're not perfect with music as they sound a bit 'dry' to my ears but they're superb with movies. They play incredibly loud with no distortion whatsoever. They're 100mm deep I believe, so it gives a nice slim look.
 

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