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Is true-biamping now cheaper and easer?

Crown now, in their XLS series, sells high powered stereo amps (300 -500 per channel/8 ohms, doubling into 4) that offer a highly variable low and high pass filtration that can be channeled selectively into the left and right outputs. Moreover, the gain of each output is individually variable. Hence, two-way, bi-amping is now easy (you select the cross-over point, and adjust the volumes of the tweet and woofer) and cheap, ~$300-500 per speaker. Just get rid of that awful passive crossover.

Is this a great possibility, or am I missing something.

P.S.In responding to this, please realized that I don't believe that one can hear either cables or amps (given they have the watts). I prefer objectivity, something one hear it 'blinded'!
pmcneil
wolf_garcia
6,695 posts
 
I had a 400 watt biamp made by Kustom (300 watts for bass, 100 watts for treble) to power a pair of Altec A7's for my band in the 70's (huge improvement on the Peavey powered mixer it replaced). So what exactly is new? Also, it sounded great for its time. Now I use a current model 700 watt QSC to power a couple of passive Mackies for solo gigs and other live stuff...it sounds better. Use any of the above in my hifi rig? No. Set it up to scare kids on my porch on Halloween? Yes.
4est
507 posts
 
Often you get what you pay for...
tpreaves's avatar
tpreaves
2,686 posts
 
I tend to agree with Ms. Liz. When I was a young man, I thought that if I used the pro stuff at home, I would have an awesome stereo. It was until I got introduced to high quality sound equipment. If pro sound equipment floats your boat, rock on brother!!!!
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,680 posts
 
Another thing you are missing is that the built-in passive crossover of quality speakers is more complex and less "textbook" than what these amps provide. Those crossovers are designed to suit the needs of the specific drivers in the specific enclosure and you cannot implement their transfer-function without careful measurements and filter design.

True biamping, done properly, is not as trivial a task as you have described.

Kal
ngjockey
1,042 posts
 
After agreeing with Kal, my first question would be: What are you biamping?

If it's a 2-way, the passive at about 2KHz probably isn't as "awful" as you think and an "off-the-shelf" active crossover can be just as bad or worse. Besides, the power required above that is minimal. Ribbon tweeters usually require passive filters or, at minimum, a capacitor for protection.

If it's 3 (or more)-way, and the crossover is below 400Hz, active biamping becomes more reasonable. It's when you get down to 100Hz, and the inductors start looking like toroidal transformers, that active biamping really pays off. The problem with that is all the passive crossovers in the speaker are usually on a single PCB.
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