[Big Red Machine]

I'm bored and in my neverending tweakdom I am looking at more ways to eek out body and soul in music so I'm kicking around the idea of using a tube amp for the top frequencies and the big Pass for the woofage.

Anybody try this?  I'd like to stay under 1 grand to run this experiment if you have any suggestions.  I've been nosing around Audiogon.

[TomS]

Pete,

I have a lovely Bella Extreme 3205 you're welcome to try out for a while.  I've used it biamped on my CS2's with the Odyssey SE's on the LF.  I'm traveling 6/21 to Europe for the week and flying in and out of Detroit Metro, so if that's something you're interested in PM or email me.

Tom

[TomS]

In terms of gain matching, the Pass Labs X350.5 is set to either 26 (normal) or 30db.  Not sure what my Bella 3205 is, but I'm sure Bill could tell you.  Tom

[VW]

Hi all fellow HT3 owners - I tuned into this thread for the first time in a long time, being pre-occupied with getting an investment property on the market ( full restoration )  and being out of audio for some time.  I even have a boxed Grand Prix Audio Monaco stand  still waiting to be set up, purchased second hand over 4 months ago.

I have one of the last Supratek Dual pre-amps lined up ( Mick Maloney from Supratek is sadly closing his doors in the land down under, due to the falling U.S. dollar and increasing competition from China ) as well as one of his Malbec valve amps, so I intend to directly evaluate how the Malbecs drive the HT3's on top, with Nu Force V2 SE's on the bass.  For now, I can say that I drove the HT3's with Nu Force 9.02's on the bass and the V2 SE's on top and was very impressed with the difference versus the stand alone V2 SE's driving the HT3's full range.  It was almost downright scary, with a sense of awesome power on tap.  I wouldn't say it was altogether ' musical ' but there are stand issues leading to a tipped up response that hadn't been properly sorted, which I haven't had time to work on.  Unfortunately, on CD's with deep sustained  bass passages  that placed a bigger demand on the Nu Force 9.02's ( 160W RMS )  , on certain parts of certain tracks,  they couldn't drive the HT3's woofers without some bass break-up, swomething I hadn't expected at all.  It took me some time to trouble shoot it, suspecting faulty connections etc.   However no such problems reversing it with the V2's down the bottom (200W RMS ), however it lacked the synergy of the former combination.  The woofers driven on their own no doubt provided a bigger  load due to increased resistance ( strange how it is easier to drive a pair of speakers in parallel rather than a single set ) and at the dip below 4 OHM at somehere below 250 Hz on the HT3's,  the 9.02's simply didn't cope.   

When I have stand issues sorted I will post my impressions of the Nu Force V2's driving the Salks on their own - at this stage both very neutral components that demand exacting partnerships with other cables / components.  I have onsold the 9.02's in anticipation of the Supratek gear.   

[carusoracer]

I tried the tube Amp on top and a solid state Amp on the bottom route. So, so results...

The Tube Amp was not nearly what I thought it could be as it played well with my Gallo Ref 3's and the Ref 3 SA. The nice part about the Gallo SA is that it addresses a lot of the issues that many are posting here. Phase,two volume pots,crossover adjustment. Not saying that it is the best but it is designed for Bi Amping as you mentioned and has the subsequent ancillary controls. You would need to add something else into the chain to match impedance etc to run the big boy Pass Amp.

I would try it again but I'm happy with my combination now and looking for another good tube amp for the Gallo's in the 2ND system to bi amp.
The HT3's are singin' with Wayne's Modded 550exr  aa

Good luck.

[Philistine]

I went down this path, in theory, 18 months ago.
Using a SS amp to drive the woofers and a tube amp for the mid/ribbon on the HT3's.  I read so much stuff I became dizzy, particularly as you more than likely will need to use attenuation (I focused on the Rothwell variable attenuators) somewhere to balance the output from the two amps.  What drove me to consider this was that, as my system became more revealing, it lost some of the musical emotion, particularly as the HT3's are ruthlessly revealing and sound wonderful on well recorded tracks but compressed or bad recordings are presented as such - the HT3's do not cover up the warts.

Eventually I went in a different direction and bought one of Dan's TP's, this removes much of the harshness and graininess and presents a more analog and less clinical signal (but still wonderfully detailed) to the HT3's.  This is not a plug for the TP - just my approach to the same problem, and since introducing the TP I've forgotten the bi-amping HT3 project.   

I still resurrect the project, when I'm bored and have excess $ to spend, and consider the idea (of having a big ass SS amp to keep the woofers under control and a refined amp to run the mid/ribbon) to be well worth pursuing.  I'm happy for you to take the lead and be the 'lab rat' on this one Pete

[Stercom]

Hi, I don't own a pair of HT3s but I have listened to them for extended periods of time in other systems and at the last RMAF. I own Alon Exoticas which use a Raven ribbon with dual midwoofers so its fairly similar to the HT3s. Instead of bi-amping I would look for a high power tube amp such VTL, Manley, ARC, rebuilt Dynaco IIIs, etc. Its very hard to get the balance and tone right when you bi-amp with two different amps unless you go with an active crossover. Not that it can't be done just you will need a lot of time and patience.

[Big Red Machine]

Passing this info along I received during an inquiry if some Consonance tube amps had the right gain to match up with the Pass amp:

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-gainloss.htm

"Pete,

 

I have not been secessful in fing that spec in that form.

 

I will pass along what I find and what others say

 

Here is what one of my Friends came up with

 

Geez, I don't think that's normally spec'd for an amplifier driving speakers, is it?.  But, anyway, here's my approach.

 

Your amp specs give an input sensitivity of 600 mv.  That means if you put 600 mv in you'll get full power out.  Full power out is 40W into 8 ohms.  Power = voltage squared over resistance.  So Voltage = square root (power X resistance)  V= square root 40X8 = 17.9.

 

So with an input of 0.6 V you get 17.9V out.  Voltage Gain Ratio = 17.9 divided by 0.6 = 29.8

 

If you plug that into the calculator at this site

 http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-gainloss.htm

 

you get 29.5 db of voltage gain"