[EDS_]

Anyone have a link that describes each in enough detail that a relative noob could understand?  My brother has a long weekend by himself, he is riding out Ike in Houston, and wants to try one or the other or both. 

I do not want to spend an hour typing out a recipe for him.


Thx,
Ed

[Charles Calkins]

I tried mono. Vertical. Horizontal  and just plain stereo amping. I'd have to give a very,very slight edge to the mono amp setup.


                                                      Cheers
                                                   Charlie

[Russell Dawkins]

If both amps are identical, then vertical biamping is usually the best way to go, especially if the amps have a single power supply feeding both channels.

In this case, one channel feeds the lows and the other feeds the mids/highs and all the muscle of the power supply is available for the channel feeding the lows, which can be quite a big advantage in terms of effective power.

Another advantage of vertical is that the speaker wires can be very short, if you wish.

With identical amps used vertically, the effective power available is slightly more than doubled unless the amps have dual mono power supplies, in which case much of the extra power available from the channels driving the high frequency section is wasted and the apparent power available is similar.

I think this is a waste of time and money - you would be better off buying a better amplifier, or an amplifier dedicated to HF duty and more suitable to it like, maybe, tubes or low power "class T".

The key point is that it takes vastly less energy to power the HF section of a speaker.

In any case, you will need 2 Y-splitters of some type for the experiment - it could be a short female RCA to 2 male RCAs if you wanted to use a single interconnect to two amps used vertically, with the split happening at the amp. They could also work to feed two amps in a horizontal set up, if the amps were stacked.
For experimental purposes any old cheap Y-cord will do the job, to be replaced by something decent once you determine whether you want to commit to a configuration.

When I was bi-amping my studio monitors a few years ago, I took the top off my amps (Sugden Au 31s) and soldered an internal jumper so that the left input was sent to both channels. This simplified wiring - I could just use a single interconnect to the amp.

The improvement was massive, by the way, and I then found out exactly how much it means to have a surplus of power, since, theoretically I already had more than enough for the levels I was listening at and the sensitivity of the speakers.

I was using Tannoy Arden speakers which are 15" dual concentrics  and run around 94dB/W/m. The amps were rated at about 120 watts per channel, I think, and I listened at 6 a foot distance, so the headroom should have been plenty and yet when I vertically bi-amped, the extra ease was very obvious at any level above about 80 - 85 dB. I sensed that I could gain further advantage by doubling the power still further.

[ctviggen]

I tried mono. Vertical. Horizontal  and just plain stereo amping. I'd have to give a very,very slight edge to the mono amp setup.


                                                      Cheers
                                                   Charlie

Everytime I've tried biamping, it's been way, way, way, way better than mono.

[Rocket]

Hi Russell,

I don't quite understand your explanation of vertical biamping.

I have 2 x N.E.W. 20.1's which are fairly lowed powered at 22 watts per channel.  I have a pair of Salk Sound HT2's on the way from the US, that will arrive next week.  The HT2's have been wired to have to enable vertical biamping.

Currently I have switched the N.E.W.'s to mono and I'm using them as monoblocks.

Can I use 2 pairs of speaker cables to connect the speakers i.e. 1 amp; 2 speaker cables going to left and right speakers to power the mid/highs and the other to left and right speakers for bass?

Thanks for the clarification.

Regards

Rod

[Rocket]

Hi Russell,

I don't quite understand your explanation of vertical biamping.

I have 2 x N.E.W. 20.1's which are fairly lowed powered at 22 watts per channel.  I have a pair of Salk Sound HT2's on the way from the US, that will arrive next week.  The HT2's have been wired to enable vertical biamping.

Currently I have switched the N.E.W.'s to mono and I'm using them as monoblocks.

Can I use 2 pairs of speaker cables to connect the speakers i.e. 1 amp; 2 speaker cables going to left and right speakers to power the mid/highs and the other to left and right speakers for bass?

Thanks for the clarification.

Regards

Rod

[Russell Dawkins]

Hi Rod,

did a Google and could not come up with much information about the N.E.W. 20.1 - particularly if it's a dual mono or a single power supply. If it's the latter, I would definitely vertically bi-amp. If it were me I would locate the amps at the speakers and make up some long interconnects and use very short speaker wires, although I know some would do the opposite. I would do it my way because it could be a little neater to have 1 cable going to each speaker. On the other hand, then you also have to have an AC cord going to the vicinity of the speaker.
Anyway, presuming you do what I would do, (for each channel/amplifier)
1] get a short Y cord (female RCA to two male RCAs, if the inputs are unbalanced).
2] switch your amps to stereo mode, not bridged mono.
3] take your usual interconnect from the preamp output and plug it into the female input of the  Y-cord. Connect the RCA males into each of the two inputs of the amplifier. It doesn't matter which - left or right.
4] connect either one of the pair of speaker outputs of the amp to the bass section of the speaker. Observe polarity i.e., red to red.
5] connect the other speaker output of the amp to the mid/hi section of the speaker again, observing polarity.
6] do the same for the other side.
7] pour a little liquid refreshment.
8] be blown away
9] turn stereo on.

[Jon L]

If your speakers use passive crossovers, I would much rather buy one amp that's much higher quality at the price you would spend to buy two amps for vertical bi-amping. 

IMO the true beauty of vertical biamping shines when you use a good active crossover with purpose-built speakers.  If the crossover point is low enough and steep enough, one *may* be able to get away with using two different amps, i.e. SET for top, Class D for bass.

[doug s.]

...IMO the true beauty of vertical biamping shines when you use a good active crossover with purpose-built speakers.  If the crossover point is low enough and steep enough, one *may* be able to get away with using two different amps, i.e. SET for top, Class D for bass.

what you have yust described is horizontal bi-amping - one amp for hi-pass of both speakers, the other amp for low pass of both speakers.  wertical bi-amping is when you have two identical stereo amps - you use one amp on one speaker, the other amp on the other speaker, w/l & r channel of each amp driving the low-pass & high-pass of each speaker... like mono blocks, except each mono block has two channels, for low-pass & high-pass of each speaker.

i wertically bi-amped w/a pair of electrocompaniet dual mono amps, it was better than using a single amp.  whether a more expensive single amp woulda been better, i dunno...  but, switching to bi-wiring w/a stereo tube amp certainly was better.   

doug s.

[TerryO]

I was going to contribute some thoughts on this based on my experience, but I find that I'm in complete agreement with Russell Dawkins on every detail. My advice: Follow his advice
Good Job Russell !!!

Best Regards,
TerryO

[Rocket]

Hi Russell,

Thanks for the information you.  I can understand what vertical biamping is now.

http://sites.thestar.com.my/audio/story.asp?file=/1996/7/25news

N.E.W. is a defunct company now but I bought these 2 amps for a good price.  I ever so slightly prefer their sound compared with my Son of Ampzilla.  Unfortunately at 22 watts per channel they will be underpowered for use with the HT2's.  I think vertical biamping will overcome this slight problem.

1] get a short Y cord (female RCA to two male RCAs, if the inputs are unbalanced).

Do you know any vendors who sells this type of rca?

Thanks for your help.

Regards

Rod

[doug s.]

Hi Russell,

Thanks for the information you.  I can understand what vertical biamping is now.

http://sites.thestar.com.my/audio/story.asp?file=/1996/7/25news

N.E.W. is a defunct company now but I bought these 2 amps for a good price.  I ever so slightly prefer their sound compared with my Son of Ampzilla.  Unfortunately at 22 watts per channel they will be underpowered for use with the HT2's.  I think vertical biamping will overcome this slight problem.

1] get a short Y cord (female RCA to two male RCAs, if the inputs are unbalanced).

Do you know any vendors who sells this type of rca?

Thanks for your help.

Regards

Rod

as an alternative to "y" interconnects, you can get something like these; plug them into the preamp, & run regular interconnects from them to each channel of your amps...

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-1045


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-510


the "y" interconnect:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=263-360


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=263-368


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=263-376


there are many other brands, awailable from other wendors.  and, if you want, you could get m/f/f "y" interconnects that do the same thing as the solid metal connectors i showed...

make sure that your impedance loading is ok - doubling up ic's effectively halves the impedance of the amp your preamp is seeing, & you wanna make sure, as a rule of thumb, that your preamp's output impedance is at least ten times smaller than the amp's input impedance.  so, if you double the ic's at the preamp, an amp w/say, 25kohm input impedance, looks like 12.5kohm input impedance to the preamp...  this is even more critical w/longer ic runs...

doug s.