Better Way To Biamp?


I was curious if you agoners will help me out here. I have a Mc207 with 2 channels powering each B&W 802N. I was just told that Im not actually getting 400 watts to the speaker. The way it was explained made sence i just never put much thought into it. I was wondering if they made some kind of crossover to put inbetween the amp and pre? So I would get the full 200 designated to the lower frequency and 200 to the high? I am just looking to get a lil more spl out of my system. I am finally very happy with it. So I would like to keep what I have just make it better if possible. Thanks Matt
mattblueg35
The power is the same with passive and active biamping.

Active biamping will produce the best results, but will require speaker alterations + an electronic crossover.

My suggestion would be to contact Krell on doing this with their KBX crossover. For me, they designed everything for my original Matrix 800's.

Richard
Thanks Drrdiamond. I am curious what would something like that cost ballpark? The Krell stuff would be the only mfg that I would consider besides what I have. The dynamics that Ive heard from Krell equipment is something else. I know I should of just went that route but I always wanted Mc gear. I noticed you dont have a system up in your profile. I would like to see what you got. Matt
One popular active crossover that sells used here all the time is the Bryston 10B,very good from what I hear.
George
I use the Krell FPB300 for the high end and the KSA300S for the bass.

If you can find a used KBX, Krell charges $400 for the customized board, installed. (although you can intall the board yourself, I would NOT recommend it, as they will do a check of the whole unit and especially for any DC output and make proper adjustments)

I don't know the current price for a new KBX.

Actively biamping my speakers was the single biggest improvement that I have made to my system.

Richard
Biamping with 200 high and 200 low is not like having 400 watts to the speaker.

The low freqs require nearly all the power going to a speaker so bi-amping with 200x2 is only marginally better pwer wise than just 200 watts total.

I'm just making an example here because I have no way to know for sure the real numbers. So, in the case of 200x2 biamping, you have 200 watts to the woofers. Some of the other 200 watts goes to the tweeters, but they don't require much power so maybe only 25 watts (remember just guestimating) of that is actually used.

Now put a single 200 watt amp on that same speaker and you see that the woofer now may get 175 watts and the tweeter still takes the 25 watts. So, as you see, no significant difference in output.

Do you know that it takes 10 times more power to make the music twice as loud with the same set of speakers? Further, doubling power at best with provide only a 3db increase in volume which is only just a small increase in sound level.

If you want noticeably (meaningfully??) louder, you will need to make a LARGE increase in amp power or get more efficient speakers, or both.