2. speakers
  3. 1284411550

Two pairs of spkrs in tandem

I need the help of the technically minded and capable folks on this great audiophile panel.
I am running B&W original 80 series 802's as my primary spkrs. rated at at 8 ohms..... tweaked..re-wired and all inards hard wired, soldered with cardas, great solid copper binding posts & Sand filled and tensionized side dampers to control box resonance in this (pre- matrix) design.

I have attempted to intigrate my other pair of favorite spkrs, 1996 Sound Dynamics 300ti's rated at 4 ohms, with their propietary titanium dome tweeters and run them in tandem with my 802's

In principal they have added a great deal in capturing subtle detail as well as in specificity and depth in the sound stage, most certainly in (over-all) dynamics and clarity

Basically "I love the sound" the 300 ti's seem to add that extra level of transparancy, reveal and crispness that the the B&W's didn't quite capture on their own...

THE SNAG however is a low level HUMmmmm!!!! coming from the Sound dynamic spkrs......

Mine is a complex set-up.... featuring A stereo pair of Janis SUB WOOFERS crossed over at 100 HZ and powered with their own dedicated W3 100 watt JANIS AMPS..

Also a pair of TOWNSHEND "super tweeters" connected to the B&W's

I built a (glued & screwed) MDF coupling that positions and holds the the 300 ti's upside down (forming a 6 foot high 9 driver (per side)"array" tweeter to tweeter assembley.. COOOL!!!

THE WHOLE THING IS A TERRIFIC REVALATION FOR ME!!!!! EXCEPT FOR THE ANNOYING HUMmmmmm!..

I've checked and re-checked the integrity of all connections to no avail...

If I re-move the 300ti's.. the hum is gone???...

IS it the B&W 8ohm Vs the ti's 4ohm mix??. Is that creating some kind of dichotomy causing the hum in my otherwise silent set_up ?...

I would love some help on this.... THANKS..
tweakyman

Showing 4 responses by manoterror

manoterror
216 posts
 
I've been contemplating doing the same thing with 2 pair of matching Anthony Gallo A'Divas. Kind of a poor man's Reference Strada since I can't hear above 18khz anyways. :-) Although I am thinking of just running them on both A and B speaker outputs.

How did it work out for you? What was the sonic improvements you heard?
manoterror
216 posts
 
So I have a question on how you wired them. KR4 was asking why I would run them off the A + B terminals since they are off the same amp. I was thinking of this for 2 reasons. 1) Its simple, and I have 2 runs of cable. 2) I thought if I wired the speakers together, that it would drop the Ohms from 8 to 4.

So how did you accomplish this task? Is one way better than the other? As I see it, there are 3 methods:
1. Wire the speakers together (red to red, black to black) and connect a single cable to one of the speakers from the amp.
2. Use a bi-wire cable that isn't designed to have seperate treble and bass connections to both speakers, to one connection on the amp.
3. Use the A + B terminals with seperate runs of speaker cable to each speaker.

I would assume all of these might give the same result, but my main concern is the Ohm rating on the amp, as I'm running a Marantz SR7001 reciever and don't want to overtax it. :-)

Thoughts?
manoterror
216 posts
 
Yeah, I am using the C connection in a bi-amp for my Mirage speakers, and that works great. I am concerned that the amp won't be able to handle the drop to a 4 ohm load with the 2 speakers. Not really made for that I don't think. I'm pretty sure that wiring it like Twekyman would definitely present to low of a load.

I was hoping that by using A&B, it would assume an 8 ohm load for both, just with less overall power to each. Assumption...I know. :-) Interestingly, the Orb systems use 2 of their 8 ohm balls in the method Tweakyman setup...and they say most receivers can handle it.

Why must I always want more! :-D
manoterror
216 posts
 
Okay, so I learned I need to read the manual once in my lifetime. :-) The Marantz receivers have the option of a using the rear-surround discrete channels to do a true bi-amp setup. I thought it was merely bi-wired.

So, I can use that separate set of amps to run the second set of speakers, as they both get the full signal. So there is one advantage of a receiver....but just one. :-)

So I'm gonna do that with the Gallo Adivas. Yeay...office system.
More to discover