A-B to Bi-Amplifi?

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so_cal_forever

[H]ard|Gawd
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I have an Onkyo TX-SR302 receiver. I am planning on buying a set of Fluance speakers this holiday season, and was curious if the a-b channels allow you to bi-amplifi the front speakers. I know it's probably not the case, but I thought I'd ask before considering some rack-amps to bi-amplifi.
 
I am not sure what you are asking, but I have always used mono amps for bi-amping the sound. I think with the A and B outs to 2 speakers you would just get stereo to each speaker and that would not be a Bi-Amped system. But a system with stereo coming out of 1 speaker and stereo out the other and I don't think you can use A-B at the same time.
Just my 2 cents..
 
which fluances are you getting?

what exactly are you hoping to gain by bi-amping?
 
This is from Paradigm speakers webpage, but the concept applies to all speakers not just theirs.

Q15... If I use the "A" and "B" speaker outputs of my receiver will my speakers then be bi-amped?

A... No. Both "A" and "B" terminals operate from the same receiver/amplifier. Bi-amping requires a second amplifier.

For cost effective bi-amping of a multi-channel system, I would look into multi-channel amps (duh). Getting 10 monoblock amps to power 5 speakers (not even including 2 more for your sub or even 4 if you run dual sub) would probably give you the best audio fidelity (of course depending on the amps and speakers etc) but isn't really cost effective... unless of course you're planning to drop 100k on speaker system or something, but I suspect not since you were asking a bi-amping question about a single receiver...

Anyway, I'm rambling because I'm tired... I appologize if anything in the post here-in was not helpful, or sounds (un-intentionally) sarcastic. :(
 
ccotenj said:
which fluances are you getting?

what exactly are you hoping to gain by bi-amping?
Click to expand...

The SX-HTB set most likely.

Here's the Fluance description of bi-amping, which'll explain it better than I can:

How do I use the bi-amplification connections to increase the performance of my system?
For anyone willing to take the trouble, the sonic rewards are outstanding in a bi-amp system. There will be many obvious improvements in the sound, everything will be clearer and tighter. Bi-amplification is the use of two amplifiers for both speakers. One amplifier is connected to the woofer section of a loudspeaker while the other is connected to the combined mid and tweeter section. With this arrangement each amplifier operates over a restricted frequency range. This restricted range presents each amplifier with a much simpler job and each amplifier is less likely to "influence" the sound in some way. The speaker's internal crossover consists of a LPF (low pass filter) and a HPF (high pass filter). As its name implies the LPF passes frequencies below a cutoff and rejects frequencies above the cutoff frequency. Likewise, the HPF passes frequencies above its cutoff.
Click to expand...

This is from Paradigm speakers webpage, but the concept applies to all speakers not just theirs.

Q15... If I use the "A" and "B" speaker outputs of my receiver will my speakers then be bi-amped?

A... No. Both "A" and "B" terminals operate from the same receiver/amplifier. Bi-amping requires a second amplifier.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Thats what I thought.
 
i know how bi-amping works... my question was "what do you expect to gain?"...

frankly, the "sonic rewards" would be much better realized by spending the money on better speakers...

with a passive crossover, gains (as described in the clip you posted) are minimal at best (and probably non-existent), because each amplifier is still amplifying the entire signal (to the speaker's crossovers, it really doesn't "see" any difference between one amp or two)... the paragraph that you posted from their website is deceptive at best... there's really no benefit to bi-amping unless you use an active crossover...

with an active crossover, it's possible that you'd see (hear?) some gains... of course, those might be cancelled out by the resultant noise, loss of original signal power, etc. that you would get by introducing a split into the pre-out signal from your processor to feed the active crossover... and since a good active crossover would cost more than your current receiver, it would hardly make sense...

bi-amping is WAY down the chain in terms of "sonic reward"... speakers and room treatments will make more of a difference...

click a non-technical overview of how you have to do it to truly bi-amp... and what a lot of the pitfalls are along the way... and why it's not just a simple matter of putting two amps on a signal...

imo, of course...
 
Good to know! I had heard that AV123 was going to premier the X-Empower, which is a digital 2-ch amp for only $70, so I thought I'd make an inquiry to keep the thought in mind.

Thanks man.
 
you got it. good luck... it's a jungle out there... many many claims of miracles... don't get me wrong, bi-amping has it's place... but that place probably isn't in 99.999% of home theatres...

don't even get me started on speaker wire and (shudder) power cables... :rolleyes:
 
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