Biamping B&W Nautilus 803's

http://www.bwspeakers.com/service/getthemost/ has a section on bi-amping and http://www.bwspeakers.com/service/faq discusses changing the internal crossovers (i.e. disabling them) as well as introducing active crossovers. Note that they almost dictate that you should bi-wire even though they provide jumpers but warn of difficulties beyond that.

But I have N803s too. And wouldn't it be nice to bi-amp ? I was thinking of using 4 of the channels of my 5 channel amp (Pass Labs X5) for a passive bi-amp of the N803s and the last one for my HTM2 center, bi-wired. Then a separate, cheaper, stereo amp to run the Signature 7NT surrounds. Trouble is that I've got balanced connections and I haven't seen Y's in this config, other than cheap microphone type wires. Anyone have any thoughts ?
Andrew

I've seen them but they're rare. Quest for Sound has them on this site, I imagine there are others..

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/sh.pl?0&1&adlr&Questforsound&home&

Greg

Hi there! Bi-wiring and Bi-amping is one of those items that everyone swears over, either in favor or against. Physically, if you bi-wire (two wires from same amp connection), then you cannot create any difference, because the response required from the amp is the same as with one set of wires. Bi-amping is supposed to allow separate transients to flow to the separate amped parts of your speakers. I don't care what anyone says about B&W's use of less wattage. If you want to hear your speakers sing, give them (almost) as much wattage as you can. For that reason alone, unless your amp is pushing 400 watts per channel, bi-amping (not bi-wiring) should really help. This is just my opinion, of course, but I've been listening and using B&W speakers for the past 20+ years, and there is nothing like them in the world - if they have enough power!! If you need to talk more, contact me at gkbatc@aol.com.

Welcome. It looks like that from your profile you've just arrived. A word of warning. While this isn't like Yahooligans you may get flamed over your premise that biwiring doesn't do anything. I guess I'll be the first. Sorry. B&W make it pretty clear that they expect the normal hookup to be via bi-wiring. Some folks around here use completely different wires for tweeters vs. mid/bass. Thinking about it my bi-wire setup has silver for the upper frequency and pure copper for the lower. Guess I went a little overboard on that one. I'd love to bi-amp, and am sure it would make a difference. But it would make a difference to my wallet, my relationship with my wife (she'd notice another box, honest), just to improve the sound on a system that I already enjoy daily.

By the way my power amp seems to deliver anything that's necessary, including heat (I'm in Tahoe and it's damn cold right now). But it would be nice to use quality power to my mains by using 4 of the 5 channels.

Again, welcome.

I like to add something here. I started experimenting with bi-amping about 25 years ago and I know you get much better results(by far) with active Bi-amping or active tri-amping. The headroom's gain and the control of the amp over the drivers is not comparable. To do this, You have to know what you are doing and be able to afford it too. All the passive components must be removed and the crossover curve, the frequency points and the power to each driver must be experimented with(with out blowing the tweeters). I have build tons of passive crossover and I know active is the way to go. I have a very good example to compare these two. Passive is like having a 4 wheel drive car with two smaller tires in front and one engine and 3 diffrentials working hard to disturbute the power to all four wheels. Active is like having 4 wheels with their own engines and a computer governing all four engines in real time.