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Bi-amping Question?

I am and amature to highend audio and am trying to get into it by first messing around with low-end eqiupment and learn concepts. Quick question. I have a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 8.4 (rated at 150W-RMS 6ohm impendence). Additionally I have a ROTEL RB985 (5 channel at @ 100W per channel at 8 ohm.) Could I bi-wire/bi-amp the Diamond 8.4s using two outputs for each speaker from the amp (i.e. Use Left Front to power Low Frequency of the Left Speaker and Left Rear to power the High Frequency of the Left Speaker and use similar setting for the right speaker). Since the Stereo pre-amp I have has two outputs for each channel, I was planning to connect Left out to Left Front and Left Rear and Right out to Right front and Right Rear on the Rotel amp. Would this actually make a sonic difference? Putting 100W in High Frequency and 100W in Low Frequency = The speaker being powered with 200W or is it still effectively 100W? Any ideas-under the assumption I am buying no additional equipment?
dkalsi
eldarado
381 posts
 
IMO, it will make a small difference. You can always try it both ways is see for yourself.
undertow
1,033 posts
 
Yes it would work fine, more cables however. But you will have a left over channel doing nothing. Beyond that it may or may not be better sound, test it and see if there are any benefits to it and decide from there, just use cables that you have or borrow to see what happens. Something to remember though is that the woofer section generally dictates the overall impeadance, so the 6 ohm will probably drop more when you are driving the speakers, and will probably be only an 8 ohm load or something on the midrange and tweeter half, this is fine, but could heat up 2 of the channels and barely pull much from the others if that makes sense, this could be benificial if you are looking for more bass and to tame the treble and mids however. Trying it and hearing for yourself will be the key, but it is safe to do it so its up to you.
bignerd100
515 posts
 
Bi-amping usually has only a small benefit.
The only thing I would be concerned about is that some (few) preamps have two outputs with one being a high gain and the other being low gain. Chances are this would not hurt anythingif it were the case, but it would sound terrible.
Try it anyway.
Then you too can tell people from personal experience that bi-amping gives you only a small improvement.

Have fun!
jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr
805 posts
 
1. Wiring inputs and outputs that way will work just finely.
2. You may or may not hear a difference. If you don't have to buy more speakercable, TRY IT!
3. You will be driving your speakers with 400 Watts of rated-maximum power, and the sound should be more dynamic unless you listen at quite-low volumes. Actually, with 6-Ohm speakers, your amp channels could drive more maximum power, say, 150 Watts each, which is around the maximum-rated power of your speakers, so be careful--if you're a headbanger, you may be blowing drivers soon.
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tinman
35 posts
 
My friend set up has bi-amp his B&W 801 with 2 ML333s, the initial improvement seems to be small but we both agreed that once we heard the bi-amp set up for awhile that we can't go back to single amp set up any more. We found the sound does not strain during the loud passages with bi-amp set up to yield more natural sound, much closer to life as I heard in the concert hall. The sound stage is also much stable with bi-amp set. I guess bi-amp set up is depending on the system resolution and power handling of the speakers. In our case, it was better match with bi-amp. Happy listening!!
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