Bi-amping or buy a subwoofer?

Hi all.
I have done one of the above "unseen" (i.e. unheard), based on the salesmans recommendation.

I'm still waiting for delivery and in the meantime I thought I'd ask what you would concider best bang for the buck (I can still change my mind)

The power amp 2x120W is about the same price as a really nice sub (about £600).

My main amp is only 2x60W and the bi-amped amplifier will be automatically limited to 2x60W. The 120W version is said to deliver much better sound even when limited to 60W.

The subwoofer I was recomended was a nice little Rega.

I have Tannoy Revolution R2 speakers and the goal is to get more controlled bass and it would also be nice if it went a little lower (not possible with bi-amping, is it?).

/Michael

 

Hi Micheal
I'm sure others with more experience will be along to give a better answer.
Personally i would have stuck with the amp and tried different speakers, maybe larger floor standers.

 

What is the amp?

 

Myryad MI120 bi-amped with MA240

Penance: Changing speakers is hard due to wife.. It was hard enough to talk her into the R2s. Speakers have to be quite small, and look like nice furniture

I could probably sneak in a sub woofer. And I can for sure put another amp in the rack (at least this one because wifey likes the design

/Michael

 

Why not try the biamp, and see if you can borrow a sub to compare. Or vice versa if i mis-read what you have done

 

It wasn't to hard to "read" what I did was it
Yes, I'll do that.

Any general thoughts on subwoofers? Is a subwoofer an option if I want bigger speakers, but aren't alowed?

/Michael

 

No it wasn't, but its after wine time here
Many different camps on the sub vs bigger speaker debate. I would say try and see what works.

 

It's an option for sure... whether you like it or not is entirely up to you.

Bi-amping won't get you any more depth, but it may get you more bottom end control as the 240 should have good control over the bass driver(s?) of the R2.

Otherwise, you could try to persuade the lady that a pair of meadowlark swifts wouldn't look amiss (as they've been accused of looking too nice)...

 

I'd have thought that a new wife would be a better option!

Failing that why not try a sub, many people like them. I'd go for an MJ acoustics Ref 1, if you have about £600 to spend. or possibly a REL Strata.

 

try and sneak a demo of the MJ acoustics Ref 100 @ £350. I tried one with my Celestion Kingstons a while ago and it did pretty well. Very very small box too.

What i've found by adding a subwoofer is not only bass extension dramatically improving but it really does work magic with the stereo imaging/soundstaging too.

Tannoy R2s btw- lovely speakers- one of my all time fave Tannoys

 

Hi Michael,
Would you prefer more bass depth over more mid/bass clarity lack-of harshness at medium/high volumes?

Bi-amping will be much easier to get right. I don't think it's true to say the lower powered amp will be the limiting factor, so don't worry about that.

Driving the treble takes less power than driving the mid/bass drivers. Bi-amping also means that when the mid/bass amp goes in to clipping on a big transient when driven enthusiastically, it won't be causing the treble to clip too which is much more noticeable as harshness.

If you don't listen loud, some people report putting the more powerfull (i.e less distorsion at a given load) amp for driving the tweeters, but myself, I like clean, tight bass notes very well controlled, so that's not for me.

I'm not familiar with the size of the Tannoy Revolution R2.

I'd say get a good sub if you like to follow the fundamentals of the bass line and your current speakers don't go as low as you want.

Bi-amping will make the sound tighter, but not appreciably lower through a given pair of speakers.

Getting a subwoofer means you then need a sub-bass crossover to filter the signal with your Tannoy speakers at some point.
i.e you need some way to stop them trying to playback the sub-bass that the subwoofer should manage a little better (especially true with smaller speakers).

You don't have to do this, although improperly integrating the sub will leave you with one-note and woolly bass.

Some subs have speaker level connections to allow you to pass-thru your speaker wire and have the sub itself filter the sub-bass from going to your speakers. This makes integration a little easier but doesn't reduce the load on your hi-fi amp much. You change the timing of the sub compared to your mains by positioning the sub closer or further away than them and moving it along the wall edge from corner to corner to find the way you like the way it makes the room ring the best (or boom the least). This can be a very tricky thing to get right, although there are a few tools to predict room response node points.

An AV amp/processor include sub-bass crossovers, some good, some bad. often done digitally, but I guess you are not looking at such a route, as you'd have to feed your main speakers through it, so it starts becoming an expensive AV amp for good music. These often feature a distance setting to allow the subwoofer and main speakers to be time aligned for best integration, i.e the subwoofer may be nearer or closer than your speakers and it's larger driver may take a tiny bit longer to start and stop as it has more mass. This will give you a few more placement options that otherwise may have slowed or bloated the music's bass notes.

I bought Matt's Tag AV32R recently as it has great DAC's and great bass management combined in a digital pre-amp, but then that's really expensive for a music only system.

The advantage of an active sub and hi-pass filtering the signal TO your Myryad MI120 means that it won't be wasting it's power ampifying sub-bass that your speakers won't reproduce anyway. I think this is a very underrated benefit of adding an active subwoofer to any system.

I guess I'm voting bi-amp, as that will give you more control to the bass than the circa £350 subwoofers I've heard. Unless you are a bass fundamental junkie like me, but it's just what I'm used to and has led to adding bass traps and room treatments that a lot of people would find unnaceptable on a non-dedicated listening room.

regards,
Rob.

 

One problem with stereo amps is that they don't have a sub output. Using a 'Y' adaptor to combine L&R tape output seem to affect channel seperation.

Somehow, I don't like the idea of running speaker cables through the sub and then to main speakers.

Any sub-woofers out there with seperate line inputs for L&R ?

 

Gonna cost more than £600 to get rid of old one though.

 

Many subs will have high level connectors so that you can connect up to the same speaker terminals on the amp that the speakers themselves are connected to.

That's how I used to connect up my REL sub in the old days

 

Separate high level connectors for L and R channels?
Will this reduce effective impedence presented to the amp?
What are 'high level connectors' ?

Thanks.

 

The input impedance of an active sub's high-level connection is typically of the order of tens of kiloohms, which is entirely insignificant relative to the typical 8ohm or less load of a speaker. Additionally, this impedance is pretty much purely resistive, rather than reactive like a speaker.

Assuming both amplifiers have the same voltage gain, the lower-powered amp sets the undistorted power limit. If that amp is 60W, then the other amp will output 60W at the same time. If you push harder, the lower powered amp will clip. Essentially you are still limited to 60W, but you have more power supply headroom, as well as not driving the bass amp so hard (although you will find lowest %age distortion occurs just before the onset of clipping with linear amplifiers of most common topologies).

 

I suggest you spend your £600 on CDs? (Or LPs, you don't indicate what sources you have).

I think that biamping is a good way for manufacturers and dealers to sell more amps, better to have one competent amp. Active systems are a whole other ball game, both in performance and price.

So buy 60 CDs you wouldn't usually choose. Consider it 'free' money.

Paul

 

KEF Reference 207 has 3 pairs of terminals!
Tri-Amping anyone?

 

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

I have done some thinking and I have come up with some more questions.

Here is some background:
- I will probably buy bigger speakers in the future.
- Sometimes I would like to play louder than MI120 can do for me
- I need a good DAC since most of my listening is from FLAC files through a Squeezebox
- I'm not completely against A/V, but for now I only need 2 channels

First thought:
Should I change the MI120 for an MP100 preamplifier to use with the MA240 power amp (2x120W)? This would give me more power as the 60W MI120 wouldn't be a delimiter.

Second thought:
The DACs I have considered is in the £600 range. This is *about* the difference in price between MI120 and MDP500 which is a preamplifier for A/V (7.1, and all that). It would be nice to have the DAC inside of one of the matching components in the rack.

Does anyone know how MDP500 behaves in a 2 channel system and how good the DAC is? If I go for MDP500 I might even change the MCD200 for an MDV300 DVD player which is £60 cheeper. In my ears the MCD200 sounds really good. Do you think that an MDV300 as a transport connected digitally to MDP500 would sound as good in 2 channels?

If I go for the processor I figure it would be easier to add a subwoofer in the futer as well.


Any thoughts?

/Michael

 

I agree with what Isaac has said, but I think it wrongly assumes that the treble signal and mid/bass signals have equal energy. I can't remember where I read this, but I seem to recall power required for a given volume is less at higher frequencies.

I also must mention that my practical experience is with active bi-amping, not passive, although I am planning on passive bi-amping my center channel soon, when I re-arrange my power-amps.

regards,
Rob.