By-pass or Remove X-over in Revel Studios 1st Gen

I thought I'd bring this thread back to life since I am going down the bi-amp route now with a pair of Von Schweikert VR4.5 speakers.
I started down the "active" route and NOTHING sounded right at all. As KAL and Raul have stated, those speaker designers spent a lot of energy coming up with the crossovers. You have to spend a LOT of money to reproduce the transfer function correctly. I'm sure it can be done to good effect but I wasn't getting there. Out went the crossover idea.

I did some more research and athough a lot of people dismissed it, the passive bi-amping (I think that is what it's called) is the way to go. If the speaker manufacturer provided seperate inputs, then they also think it is a good idea to biamp (not just bi-wire!).
Just have two amps go straight into the speaker with no external crossover and let the speaker crossover do the work. If you are using the same amps you are done!

But have you exploited all the advantages of bi-amping?
I will respectfully disagree with Raul about using different amps. I'm no trail blazer here and this advice came from none other than Albert Von Schweikert himself who advocates using SS for the Lows and tubes for the Highs. Check it out on the AudioCircle VS forum:
wwwdotaudiocircledotcom/index.php?topic=59529.0

So it can be done and to good effect.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you use different amps, as I have, then you still have some work to do to level match the amps. Get out your Radio Shack db meter and feed white noise (or is it pink noise?) and adjust until even. A simple resistor attenuator is all that's needed. You can build one into an RCA or XLR "adapter" that can go between your preamp and amp.
I used an NHT PVC to adjust and will eventually build the adapters and remove the NHT.
I am very happy with the sound. I now have the smoothness of a tube amp (Thor TPA-60) and the bass slam of SS (Sim W5) - the best of both worlds. Did I say I am very happy with the sound? Oh, yes i did8-).
HTH

"If the speaker manufacturer provided seperate inputs, then they also think it is a good idea to biamp (not just bi-wire!)."

A few manufacturer's and designers have said, privately, that they provide these inputs in response to demands from their dealers/customers and not for any other reasons.

Kal

Having owned Revel Salons, which have the same configuration as the Studios, to biamp the speakers all you really need to do is hook your preamp to two different stereo amplifiers, remove the jumpers between the speaker terminals on the back of the speakers, then run one set of speaker leads to the bass, and run the other set of speaker leads to the mid/treble terminals. You could use one stereo amplifier per speaker: right channel for the bass and left channel for the mid treble if you have matching amps. If you have differnt amps, use one amp's right and left terminals for the bass and one amp's terminals for the mid/treble. Do not disable the internal crossover! The proper use for your Rane Crossover is to purchase a subwoofer or subwoofers like the JL Audio, cross the Studios over at about 80 hertz so that the subs do the lowest bass, and your other pair of amps do the upper bass, midrange and treble. You can have outstanding results this way but it will require lots of tweaking. The reason I'd recommend the JL Audio subs like the f-113s is that they have built in software that will find the areas in your setup that need bass reinforcement and attenuate themselves. The only way I no to get better sound would be to have a professional with test equipment set up the subs.
You could also get great results with the Velodyne subs.
Let me know if you need more info.
Vertically or horizontally biamping the Studios can bring exiciting results and is recommneded by Kevin Voecks who I've spoken to several times. Kevin would also endorse the inclusion of subs I believe as he helped me attaint the highest level I ever brought my system to in this way.

You will enjoy this setup more if you use identical amps, speaker wires, interconnects, isolation,etc.

Hope this helps,
Sgr

Kal
Thank you for reprising. It does seem strange to to
spend the extra $$ just to fake people into thinking
they have something they don't really have I.E.
capability for "true" bi-amping.

However, I have thought for sometime that using two amps per side might be a good idea. That is provided the masquarade of the dual input does not extend to the crossover design as well. I for one would never know. I guess the experiement would be to hook up the amps seperately to each set of inputs (low/high) and listen
to what comes out.

Sgr
Thank you for reenforcing an idea that I had.
Yes, I originally got the RANE for hi/lo main speaker adjustment, but I did notice that low freq I/O section.

I will attempt to put that ideal to good use. I will post what happens once i finally get amp, or second set of amps.