Horizontal vs Vertical Bi-Amping

[Khorn]

Any thoughts concerning horizontal vs vertical bi-amping would be appreciated.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Khorn
Any thoughts concerning horizontal vs vertical bi-amping would be appreciated.

Depends on whether you prefer listening standing up or lying down.:D

[Andy]

In my humble opinion horizontal bi-amping is easier to make work, as long as your amps are matched. I’ve seen a systems set-up in vertical bi-amp mode, but always with an external crossover. Vertical didn’t seem to work as well, but it could take more skill and effort than my local dealer has or is willing to put out.

[Highway Star]

Khorn:

Dennis Had of Cary Audio has an interesting take on vertical bi-amping.

http://www.caryaudio.com/html/biamping.html

[sgb]

Originally posted by telefunken
Khorn:

Dennis Had of Cary Audio has an interesting take on vertical bi-amping.

http://www.caryaudio.com/html/biamping.html

Thanks for the link to the Cary site. He is correct, based on reading just the first two paragraphs.

The only important things to remember about vertical bi-amping are that 1.) your two amplifiers have to be the same, with horizontal you can get away with two different types of amps, just as long as they are reasonably close to each other in sound caracteristics and specs (unless you want to use an external crossover, of course), and 2.) That your speakers allow for bi-amping. Believe it or not, there are a number of "high end" speakers that cannot be bi-amped without taking them apart.

[Khorn]

Originally posted by sgb


with horizontal you can get away with two different types of amps, just as long as they are reasonably close to each other in sound caracteristics and specs (unless you want to use an external crossover, of course)

Two (or three for tri) different types of amps may be what is more desirable. In the case of bass, where damping and "slam" is wanted, the speed and power of a SS amp may be the ticket. A more musical/refined amp is probably better for the mid/hi range. This could be either a tube or lower powered more refined SS unit(s).

In my earlier Mac/Pro JBL system I used a far more poweful amp for the bass bins and a smaller amp for mid/high. I used an external active dividing
network (x-over) for bass/mid and passive from mid/high. This accessibility is also what I like about my Khorns if I decide to go the bi-amping route.

[Andy]

Sounds like a pitch to sell more amps.

[Khorn]

Originally posted by Andy
Sounds like a pitch to sell more amps.

No Way

I had a system back in the 70's that consisted of JBL 15" drivers in large curved horn bass bins crossed over to compression driver mids loaded into huge wooden diffraction horns for the mid and x'd again to some rather heavy duty slot lensed compression driver tweeters. The X-overs were all passive and I drove the system with a 200 wpc McIntosh 2205 Amp.

After a while I took some advice and decided to try bi-amping the system. This was accomplished by using the 2205 to drive the bass units and a JBL active (electronic) dividing network (x-over) into a McIntosh MC 250 amp. This amp provided power to both the mids and highs and, were x'd over to the highs passively.

The difference between the two system configurations was drastic with the improvement going to the bi-amped one by a LARGE margin in many ways.

I must say that to this day it was the most EMOTIONALLY INVOLVING system I have ever had.

[Ronald]

If it means anything to you, Jim Thiel doesn't have a high opinion of bi-amping or bi-wiring, although he makes the disclaimer of being the choice being manufacturer specific. For more, see
here. (http://www.thielaudio.com/THIEL_Web/Pages/faqbiamp.html)