Bi-amping????

Whoaru99 and Gregm have filled in some of the gaps. I have learned a little more myself.

Here is a popular link to an explanation of biamping and passive vs. active crossover configurations.

http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm

Having too much power is not necessarily a problem, just use it judiciously. It gives the amp "headroom", allowing for a lot of sound without stress on the amp. It will keep the amp from clipping at higher volumes which destroys tweeters.

My little Arcams don't create enough juice to hurt the Magnepan tweeters. The 1.6's also have a fuse in line with the tweeter section. I am not sure the Paradigm does.

Hope this makes sense?

BTW - The next thing I want to do is add an active crossover. This will allow me to bypass the passive crossovers, which seem to be generally regarded as a weak link in the 1.6's. It should also lessen the load on the Arcams, allowing them to do the best they are capable of.

Happy Holidays

Jim

One of the biggest benefits of active biamping is being able to tailor the amp to the specific needs of the speaker section it is driving.

For example, in an active biamp situation, if the mid/hf section requires 50 watts and the low section requires 200 watts, then a 50 watt amp and a 200 watt amp are all you need. This works because each amp only has to be sized to match the voltage swing necessary for the filtered range of frequencies being amplified.

In contrast, in the typical passive biamp arrangement, if you are using a 200 watt amp for the lows, you also need (should have) a 200 watt amp for the mids/hf. This is because even though the mid/hf amp is actually using only a small percentage of power from that 200 watt amp, that mid/hi amp still has to be capable of reproducing the entire voltage swing of the full range/unfiltered signal. If it cannot because a smaller amp is used, the waveform to the mid/hi will clip before the amp driving the low will clip.

Only information I have on the Paradigm monitor 11's is that they are"compatable with 8 ohm". The crossover built into the speaker is 3rd-order electro - acoustic at 2.0kHz; 2nd order electro - acoustic at 600Hz (lower bass drivers).
On the web site jim mentioned( sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm) they say most common question I get is ...

"Do I need to disconnect the passive crossover in my speakers?"
The answer is ... Yes, otherwise you are not really biamping at all.

If this is true then you literally straight wire your speakers to the terminals? taking out passive crossover in speaker? If so then do you use electronic crossover with same frequency as passive(out of speaker?) and where do you run the electronic crossover? before power amp?

Thanks for the heads up on the power wires.

Yup, pretty much straight from the amp to the drivers.

Not necessarily take out the passive crossover, but at least bypass it.

Yes, electronic crossover or sometimes passive crossover before the power amps so they only amplify a limited range of frequencies intended for the specific drivers.

To do it is often not very practical or necessary (IMO) for most home audio situations. The crossovers designed these days for good speakers work pretty well. I think it would be hard for the average person to improve upon the built in passive design in most cases.