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"Polyamping" A Look to the Future or Fancy Fad?

In a recent quest for information regarding DIY speaker designs, I was referred to the Linkwitz Orion Project. These speakers employ active crossovers and it is suggested to give each driver its own, separate amplification (actually one for each woofer and one for the tweet/mid - three per speaker). Linkwitz recommends the ATI AT6012, a twelve channel, six zone amp (60W/ch). I am not sure about the merits of the ATI amp but, regardless of amp, does anyone think this will be a "growing" design. I mean I have heard the benefits of biamping and have heard tell of triamping but, in this case, "sextamping"? Octamping would seem to be next. All accounts say that the Orions sound fabulous. Perhaps I am just behind the curve. What so you learned folks think of this direction in audio?
4yanx
jwmazur
190 posts
 
Don't dismiss Seigfreid Linkwitz. He is an innovator when it comes to speaker designs. He just happens to explore the more simplistic or overlooked approaches.
thsalmon
348 posts
 
Linnies have been "Aktiv" for quite some time. You should try it.
abex
322 posts
 
At present I am having a set of modified NEARs built using an outboard active XO.It was suggested to me months ago and it is the last frontier for getting all you can out of the amps.More efficient to use dedicated amps for the drivers.

It just makes plain sense to me.It also gives you the dexterity to set the seakers to room variations.That in itself makes it a useful.You can trim the ranges in order to get the drivers to blend better with the room dimensions and accoustics.

JMO
lazarus28
339 posts
 
as a user of active speakers (ATC 50's), i can tell you first hand that the usage of an active versus a passive crossover does indeed sound better.
4yanx OP
1,576 posts
 
Some interesting comments.

Bob, I was not singling out that an ATI amp be used, just that such was sugeested in the design by the designer. I have no knowledge of these amps personally. It was the only design in the DIY realm that I saw which incorporated use of a mutli-channel amp.

Sean and Gregm, your comments with respect to sufficient power are intriguing. How would the 60w not be enough for quality bass response when others claim to get such even with very low wattage amps? I am not saying you're wrong, just asking because I don't know.

Sorry if I overlooked designs of the past that used this design scheme. It was the first I've come across that really went beyond biamping in what seemed to me a radical way. But then, I haven't been auditioning dozens of speaker designs over dozens of years. Because Linkwitz is considered to be rather an innovator, I wondered if his design might be a direction for the future. If such has been done before, though, it wouldn't be the first notion of a technology or approach in audio that was relagated to "dinosaur" status, only to raise its head triumphantly at some point in the future. I'd say analog front ends are an example that many here are familiar with.
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