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Is Bi - amping worth the trouble?

Hello all...

I'm on the fence with the thought of bi amping. A big part of me wants to go ahead with it... the 'wallet' part says "Not so fast".

There should be lots of folks who've biamped speakers before... When it was all said and done, "Was it worth the time and expense?"

I'm inclinded to add a tube amp for the upper end of my VR4 JR's ... or any other speakers for that matter... though in any case and reardless the speakers, tube amp on top, and SS on the bottom.

...and then there's the thought of keeping two dissimilarly powered amps matched at the same volume level... and the added IC's, PC, and stand... it does seem to add up.

... and at this point, I'm thinking BAT to keep things all the same... and am not sure there, wether even that matters too much...

I sure do appreciate the input.
blindjim
perfectionist
197 posts
 
Read the entire thread, still need advice from the pro's here.

Short and sweet...Running VR-4 Gen III's, Aesthetix Calypso, Parasound JC1's.

I may have the opportunity to purchase another pair of JC1's at a very reasonable price.
VSA does not discourage passive bi-amping using the speak's xover, in fact, Albert seems to encourage it. This may seem like total overkill to some, but I like my music to grab me by the throat and nuts at the same time.

So, four identical amps, vertically and passively bi-amping VR-4's.
Is it worth it, should I try it?
macrojack
1,303 posts
 
You are currently getting almost everything your speakers can provide. Someone suggested moving up in the VS line. I suggest moving beyond it. Both ideas are going to give you more future upgrade options than you will see by trying to squeeze your current speakers for the last two per cent they might have in them. Bi-amping your current speakers means driving into a cul de sac. The only way to go from there is back out.
Besides that, it's a little like putting a spoiler on your Neon.
mfontana
23 posts
 
Blindjim, I have the VR5 SE's and just finishid biamping them, I have a Vac Phi 110 driving the tops and a Spectron Musician III driving the bottoms. Was it worth it? Absolutely! I love the Vac amp but it just didn't have the bottom end I wanted.I bought the Spectron and tried it by itself with the 5's "great bass" but it couldn't touch the Vac in the mids and high's. One thing I noticed when running them seperate was that the Vac played a lot louder at the same volume setting, later checking gain I found the Vac to be about 10db louder.I put a pair of Rothwell 10db attenuators between the pre and the Vac and that seemed to solve the problem. Maybe I was lucky but I found no other problems and the system never sounded even close to what I have now.
undertow
1,033 posts
 
The Vac will be louder cause you eliminated all that loss in crossover on the lows, and the fact you are not driving lows with it now at all, but the crossover itself was probably soaking up 50% plus of the power in the amps power supply, so its got a lot more headroom in reserve. Yeah biamping if done right with good speakers and amps can definatly have advantage's.
hiend2's avatar
hiend2
453 posts
 
Why not put all the money In a ecxellent stereo amplifier, instead of several lesser units with signal degrading from external crossover units.
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