Cambridge Audio Bi-Amping

I have a very modest setup consisting of a Cambridge Audio pre amp, the C500 and a CA power amp, P500.

A friend is changing his gear around and I can acquire his P500 for reasonable money.

The thing is.......on the rear of the P500 are a pair of phono sockets (1) marked L/R input/output
and
a pair of phono sockets (2) marked L/R input/output

There are four pairs of speaker binding posts.

Two pair are for 'Normal Operation' The other pair are also to be used for bi - wire operation.

I don't have access to a camera so can't show all this palaver and while this is child's play to someone, I am feeling distinctly 'challenged'.

Q...Is there any point in me getting another P500 and bi-amping my speakers and if so, how the
! %*+ do I do it?

Help!

Bunty

p.s. Looked online for a pdf owners manual/handbook for the P500 without success

 

yes ......if its a good price !


you feed each power amp a signal [left or right] from the pre amp

into its mono signal in socket .....

the two channels can normally be bridged to run one speaker or

one channel runs the treble and the other bass.

quite how cambridge do it I don't know ..but it should be contained in the maneul

 

It is simpler than that just make up two splitter leads and then it depends on which way you want to wire the system. The two choices are either one amp per channel splitting the two halves of the amp to bass/mid and treble OR one amp to both L and R bass mid and one amp to L and R treble.

Either is valid. Either produce great benefit.

Richard

 

A splitter lead is one phono plug (etc) with two leads wired to it going to two seperate plugs. Most cablers will make them up for you, I can do it with Sound Cord if you wish.

Richard

 

Thanks to both. Unfortunately my speakers only have a single set of binding posts each.

My idea was to use one amp to drive one speaker and one amp to drive the other.


The amps, as far as I am aware do not have mono signal in sockets.

Does that make it clearer. Oh for the manual

Bunty

 

you need the spliter route .....often a power amp will have a switch to bridge the output /mono the inputs