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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
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,685 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.
ojgalli
165 posts
 
You're on the right track. Get rid of the nasty passive x/o, but converting a passive speaker may be a bigger job than you think to do it correctly. Do your research, know what you're getting into, then dump the passive x/o and enjoy the results.
wolf_garcia
6,708 posts
 
Also, biamping home stereo speakers is an insult to all those brilliant speaker designers who slave away at making great crossovers.
hifihvn
943 posts
 
I would buy a real power amp first. Why bi-amp something like these? They give a power rating at 1khz only. That way, it sounds like a lot of watts. Who listens to just 1khz? True amps give the rating at 20-20,000 cycles. What happens to these amps when you run the full 20-20,000 through them? Half of the power rating? Worse? If you get a real amp, you might not have any reason to bi-amp it.
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