horizontal v vertical biamping

hornetstinger

hornetstinger

hornetstinger

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I had my 2 channel system in vertical biamping but in new place I set it up quickly in horizontal biamping.

I have two X two channel, identical power amplifiers. 100 w per channel.

Vertical biamping is using one stereo power amplifier to power one speaker, high and mid/bass. The second amplifier powers the other speaker high and mid/bass.

Horizontal biamping is using one stereo power amplifier to power high on both speakers. The second amplifier powers mid/bass on both speakers.

I think vertical biamping has the better method. I'm no speaker designer and haven't done extensive a/b comparisons.

Both amplifiers receive full range signal, speakers receive full range. No bass management. Sub present receives full range low level, crossover in sub enabled.

Speakers are regular design not active crossover.

I do have a outlaw ICBM-1 but it's not wired up.
 
Id like to comment but I recently heard bi-amping using one singe AV reciever is a waste of time as its the same transformer powering both outputs (not sure whats wrong with that). So thats where my knowledge ends. I assume the two setups you have with power amplifiers makes no difference as its still being powered equally in both configurations?
 
Nope. Two physically separate power amplifiers.

Two amplfiers, stereo. So four channels of amplification.

100w per channel into 8 ohm about 150-175w into 4 ohm. Proper output not a avr.
 
hornetstinger said:
I had my 2 channel system in vertical biamping but in new place I set it up quickly in horizontal biamping.

I have two X two channel, identical power amplifiers. 100 w per channel.

Vertical biamping is using one stereo power amplifier to power one speaker, high and mid/bass. The second amplifier powers the other speaker high and mid/bass.

Horizontal biamping is using one stereo power amplifier to power high on both speakers. The second amplifier powers mid/bass on both speakers.

I think vertical biamping has the better method. I'm no speaker designer and haven't done extensive a/b comparisons.

Both amplifiers receive full range signal, speakers receive full range. No bass management. Sub present receives full range low level, crossover in sub enabled.

Speakers are regular design not active crossover.

I do have a outlaw ICBM-1 but it's not wired up.
Click to expand...

I think your experience of better results with vertical bi-amping makes perfect sense. It's a smarter use of the available power.

In any speaker, the woofer(s) take the lion's share of the power. The tweeters need very little. Doing horizontal bi-amping (one power amp driving the LF input, so driving the woofers; and one driving the HF input, so driving the tweeters) means that the LF amp is doing all the heavy lifting on its own. By contrast, the HF amp isn't being asked to do much at all.

Changing to vertical bi-amping halves the LF load on the bass amp since it's only dealing with the woofer(s) from one speaker rather than the pair. In its place is the relatively light load from the tweeter. That means the single amp now has more power reserve on tap.
 
I suppose it depends on the speaker is one it's powered is treble/mid then other is two bass drivers so probaly fairly simple power demands but other speakers if I biamped them are treble/mid other drivers are three bass
 
hornetstinger said:
If I had two systems. One that is standmount 2 way probably.dksznt.make a difference but if it's 3 way and many bass drivers on the "bass" terminals if probably will.
Click to expand...

It depends on the power demands. You'd agree though, I hope, that the larger the driver the more power it will require? This is even more the case if you start to consider the phase and impedance relationship which often presents the amp with one or more difficult load points in the lower half of the frequency spectrum where impedance can drop to sub 3 Ohms and phase can be somewhere between -35 and -55 degrees? That can increase the current drawn by 1.5 to 2x than the basic Ohm rating would imply.

How the power requirement is split then depends on the designer's choice. Since you're bi-amping each speaker with a stereo amp, then it's safe to presume that you're running a two-way HF/LF split rather than a three-way HF/MF/LF split? For a 3-way or greater array I would expect then to see tweeter + midrange on the HF terminals, and the bass driver(s) on the LF.

Given the power drawn by the bass units compared to the mid/tweeter combo, and the phase relationship's effect on the power required for those bass units, I would still stand by my presumption that driving each speaker with one 200W amp is better than asking the same amp to drive all the bass. Your own listening tests would seem to corroborate this too.

If you want to come up with hypothetical situations where the power split would be weighted more to the HF input then go ahead. Or if you want to find speakers that might follow that design path, then knock yourself out. I don't see the point in the exercise myself, but it's your time and effort so do as you please. In the end you posted a thread stating that you think vertical bi-amping works better in your system. I've posted some reasons that would AGREE with your findings. Now you seem to want to knock down your own castle. It's all very odd. I think I'll just leave you to it.
 
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