Biamping 802 Diamonds?

[RebelMan]

Originally Posted by joey_v

Would it be damaging to the speaker if I disconnected the jumpers and just had the amps connected to the LOW FREQ section? Just to see how the Cary 211FE sounds if just connected to the bass?

I was really thinking of buying an 805AE that is similar in power to the 211FE and I can run both in a biamp configuration given that they are very similar in power outputs but I'd get a SET for the uppers and a PP amp for the lowers?

If you exercise caution and don't short-circuit the contacts you can isolate the bass for evaluation purposes. However, I fear you are treading on rice paper by mixing and matching amplifers with voltage gains that are seemingly unknown. The best advice which has been stated before is to bi-amp with identical amplifiers OR go with a single larger amplifier.

[joey_v]

Originally Posted by GaryProtein

If you aren't taking off the jumper and connecting the amps to the woofer and separately to the mid/tweeter section, you have a very screwy bi-amp mode I can't even relate to.

All the amps should be the same.

No no...

I realized from this thread that to biamp, the amps have to be same or very similar.

So what I was thinking was that 805AE up top and then 211FE down low, removing the jumpers.

What I asked was could I just remove the jumpers and try out the 211FE down low and see how it sounds... see if just driving the bass woofers would actually result in a more defined low end...?

I'm beginning to think NO on the biamp. More trouble than it's worth

[joey_v]

Originally Posted by RebelMan

If you exercise caution and don't short-circuit the contacts you can isolate the bass for evaluation purposes. However, I fear you are treading on rice paper by mixing and matching amplifers with voltage gains that are seemingly unknown. The best advice which has been stated before is to bi-amp with identical amplifiers OR go with a single larger amplifier.

gotcha

[GaryProtein]

^^^^ What RebelMan said!

You could remove the jumpers and just see how it sounds driving the bass.

[RebelMan]

Originally Posted by tweet

RebelMan... This is AA. If the recommended power for a speaker is 100 watts, then any amp rated less than 500 watts is completely unacceptable.

LOL. Indeed it is! I've ran the course too and it was fun but life's priorities change. It's very easy to slap together top-of-the line gear and call it a day. Now days my budgetary goals are more modest (I have other interests and a growing son that I am heavily invested in), not to mention stricter domestic constraints, but my performance goals have remained largely unchanged. A while back I ran across an article that Jeff Fritz posted that coincidentally matched my own views. I believe he said it best when he discussed why The World’s Best Audio System column is no longer relevant...

Originally Posted by Jeff Fritz

But the biggest reason has to do with the high-end audio industry and my perceptions of it. I think that, for a while, I deceived myself into thinking that the more money you spend on audio, the greater the return. I now know that this is the great fallacy of high-end audio. Sure, within some lines -- Magico’s and Rockport’s come to mind -- the more you spend, the better the product indeed is. But from company to company, and within the lines of some companies, it’s anything but a hard-and-fast rule, or even something that’s only generally true.

I can think of no better example of cost not equating with performance than the components made by Devialet. My experience with their 120 integrated amplifier-DAC was a real ear-opener -- at only $6495, it embarrassed most other electronics, regardless of price. Trophy hunters looking for bragging rights won’t want to admit that, and I understand. I certainly would hate to find out that my $100,000 set of electronics can’t compete with a li’l ol’ Devialet. Because of this, it would be hard for me to justify continuing to write a column that discussed only the highest-priced gear.

[GaryProtein]

Originally Posted by RebelMan

LOL. Indeed it is! I've ran the course too and it was fun but life's priorities change. It's very easy to slap together top-of-the line gear and call it a day. Now days my budgetary goals are more modest (I have other interests and a growing son that I am heavily invested in), not to mention stricter domestic constraints, but my performance goals have remained largely unchanged. A while back I ran across an article that Jeff Fritz posted that coincidentally matched my own views. I believe he said it best when he discussed why The World’s Best Audio System column is no longer relevant...

I like that phrase, "stricter domestic constraints". I'm going to use it!

[joey_v]

Originally Posted by RebelMan

LOL. Indeed it is! I've ran the course too and it was fun but life's priorities change. It's very easy to slap together top-of-the line gear and call it a day. Now days my budgetary goals are more modest (I have other interests and a growing son that I am heavily invested in), not to mention stricter domestic constraints, but my performance goals have remained largely unchanged. A while back I ran across an article that Jeff Fritz posted that coincidentally matched my own views. I believe he said it best when he discussed why The World’s Best Audio System column is no longer relevant...

You wouldn't be able to tell you had domestic constraints based on your system man! Hehehe

[audiomania]

Originally Posted by Cohibaman

I don't understand this statement. Excursion is what creates volume (dB). If you had it loud before at a given "movement", you should see the same "movement" for the same volume no matter which amp(s) you're using.

A bigger amp (or more amps) won't make louder music without making the speaker drivers move more.

My reasoning for the statement about having less driver movement with more power comes from having the damping factor of a dedicated amp who's sole responsibility is to control the excursion of a specific set of drivers verses having another amp (2 Channel or Mono) needing to control the movement of all drivers at a given output level.

IMO, having more driver control is less likely to result in damage of said driver from things like over excursion. This is why I believe I am seeing less movement now then before.

As pointed out from another poster there are some drivers who won't show signs of drastic movement (such as the FST Mid & Tweeter) in the case of a B&W. This is due to not really having the typical "surround" as seen in other drivers so movement is at a minimum anyway. In this case one does need to exercise caution with how much power they feed these drivers. In my case, I've already found that my max listening level is still under what those drivers are capable of outputting so unless I do something stupid like forget that I have the volume up when turning on the system I think I'll be safe. Luckily my Preamp is fairly smart in that it lets me choose what volume level the system defaults to when turned on so that goes a long way in reducing the chances of blowing something up by feeding it too much power.