Bi-amp Focal's?

[adrian s 10+ year member]

So I'm considering bi-amping my focal ps165's. My set up is a pioneer 4400 HU. The focals up front powered by an alpine pdx f4. No rear fill. Jl 10w6 powered by alpine Mrv-500. I'm wondering if it would be worth it to bi-amp the focals. I don't have any experience with it, so any input would be appreciated. I really like the idea of having gain control over the tweets. As far as setting the xover and gains on bi-amped comps...

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[calebkhill 10+ year member]

As in separate amp for tweets and woofers?

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

Bi-amount the set will give you the ability to adjust individual power settings for your tweeters and mids. This can be useful when you want to throw 100w to your mid but only 30w to your tweets.

Bi-amping is also useful if you have a headunit with time alignment where you can now adjust the time delay for each individual speaker so the sound will reach your ears all at the same time.

Some installers prefer to bi-amp component set rather than run them fully active because it is a quick way to adjust a sound stage without things getting overly complex

Running active would do the same thing but would then require a device: headunit, crossover, or a nice amp crossover to make the crossover points and slopes that the factory passive already supply. While this is a more difficult way of doing thing it can work better than bi-amping depending on the crossover selection available on the given device. Where passives might have fixed points and maybe a 6,12,18db slope, the seperate device may be variable points 20-5000hz and have more slopes 3,6,12,18,24,48,64db depending on the device.

This is what makes devices like the audison bit one, Rockford 360.3, jbl ms8, alpine h800&h660 so desirable.

In conclusion bi-amping is a great way to increase you sound quailty with out making things overly complex and difficult

 

[adrian s 10+ year member]

I have two channels open on the pdx, so I'm going to try it out. I'm guessing ill run the xover for those two channels at full on the amp and let the passive xover for the tweets filter the frequencies. The birth cert. on this amp has it at 127w per channel. That seems a bit much for the tweets. Should I just be very careful (minimul) with the gains?

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

I have two channels open on the pdx, so I'm going to try it out. I'm guessing ill run the xover for those two channels at full on the amp and let the passive xover for the tweets filter the frequencies. The birth cert. on this amp has it at 127w per channel. That seems a bit much for the tweets. Should I just be very careful (minimul) with the gains?

Well that's the glory of it you can keeps your gains on your tweets low which keeps distortion low but now you have a lot more power going to them so they can take more power and get louder with less chance of hear generating distortion and you will gain a little more detail from the extra power.

But yes go easy on the gains because the tweeters prolly can't take much over 50w without steep crossover slope. But like I said the added headroom will allow the tweets will draw more power during transients allowing for the added detail

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

I have two channels open on the pdx, so I'm going to try it out. I'm guessing ill run the xover for those two channels at full on the amp and let the passive xover for the tweets filter the frequencies. The birth cert. on this amp has it at 127w per channel. That seems a bit much for the tweets. Should I just be very careful (minimul) with the gains?

Id leave the gains at 0. Even then, you will probably be sending too much volume to the tweets. If you do experience distortion, I would run front rcas to tweets, rear rcas to woofers, and sub out to sub. That way, you can use your fader control to reduce more volume from the front (tweets).

That is how I have mine run, and even at zero gain with fader faded to -18/-24, I sometimes have to back off a bit, and thats on a 50x4 amp.

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

Id leave the gains at 0. Even then, you will probably be sending too much volume to the tweets. If you do experience distortion, I would run front rcas to tweets, rear rcas to woofers, and sub out to sub. That way, you can use your fader control to reduce more volume from the front (tweets).
That is how I have mine run, and even at zero gain with fader faded to -18/-24, I sometimes have to back off a bit, and thats on a 50x4 amp.

What tweets are you using and what headunit are you using? I've put 75+ watts to my Memphis m class tweets but they were on a 36db slope

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

RF punch tweets. 60rms on a alpine mrp-300 50x4. Im using pioneer 80prs. But mine is passive on a 12db slope. I run mine at full tilt too.