bi-amping or bi-wiring

[revoh 10+ year member]

I am about to get my full system installed (just waiting on my brahma15) and have been talking to a local install shop about my installation. The owner is the guy who is helping me and seems to be real knowledgeable about installing. Anyways, I have a set of Infinity Kappa Perfect 6.1's and he is saying that I should bypass the supplied crossover and use the active crossovers on the amplifier instead of the passive crossovers that came with it because passive crossovers cause a loss of signal. I am not sure if you call this bi-amping or bi-wiring but he wants me to get a 4 channel amp (4x50 rms) and run each of the 4 channels to each individual speaker in my component set. That would be 50watts to each tweeter and 50 watts to each woofer.

However, in my manual is states this:

The combined responses of the speakers and passive crossover constitute 4th-order Linquitz-Riley acoustic alignment and cannot be duplicated by any electronic crossover currently available for car audio use.

I showed that to the installer and he still thinks it will sound better with his method of bypassing the crossovers. What do you guys think? Is the 4th-order Linquitz-Riley thing really that important or is it just manufacturer hype? I'd appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks!

-revoh

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[Alaxan 5,000+ posts]

Being as we just got into this discussion on another board I am on I can answer this for you with my opinion. Linkwitz-Riley Crossovers provie a very clean sound more so than other types of crossovers and are used in a wide range of systems. Mostly geared towards Sound Quality. Using the crossover that came with the component set is HIGHLY recommended. It cuts off the mid and low range to the highs, it cuts off the low end and high end to the mids. You will not lose anything for sound quality and in fact will gain as I see it. You can still use a crossover on the amp to drain the low end from them more. (which may or may not be necessary) BUT can be a benefit as well. In my opinion.......this guy is a jackass for suggesting NOT using a crossover system on a component set.

 

[marcopolo 10+ year member]

Yes, alaxan is absolutely right, you difinately SHOULD use the passive crossover. I doubt that you can reach the same smooth transition from mids to tweets with the amp active crossovers + it's really not so difficult to damage the tweeters without using the passive crossover which is protecting them (specialy at clipped signals).

So, I would strongly suggest you use the passive crossover, even if you're using the active one too (never hurts to have a higher slope cut off at low freqs).

Hope it helps, bye!