bridge or bi-amp with 4ch ?

[RJesus 10+ year member]

I have an eclipse EA4100 4x75, rated 2x150 bridged

I'm getting some herts MLK 165 comps. Their crossovers have an option to run off of 2 amps.

Should I put 1 channel into the passive crossovers, then put another channel in and have each channel act as another amp so it'll be 2x75 + 2x75

Or should I bridge the amp to 2x150 and run that to the crossovers?

Is there any noticeable difference in quality between the two options?

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[funandgames 10+ year member]

I would bridge them, they should sound excellant. You really have to see the set in person(which you will this week) to appreciate them. They're a beautiful set.

 

[KOL 10+ year member]

bi-amping will give you more fine tuning options, if your hu or amp can adjust the mids & highs separately I'd bi-amp

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

Bi-amp them all day. You're effectively giving the component set 150rms when you bi-amp them anyways but you gain full control over how much power the tweeters get with respect to the woofer. It would be foolish to bridge them and not run them bi-amped.

 

[RJesus 10+ year member]

Bi-amp them all day. You're effectively giving the component set 150rms when you bi-amp them anyways but you gain full control over how much power the tweeters get with respect to the woofer. It would be foolish to bridge them and not run them bi-amped.

I don't mean that I'm going to run active with them (yet). My amp doesn't have crossovers over 500hz.

Both channels go to the passive crossover, I'm guessing the passive crossovers bridge the channels internally?

Are you confused or am I confused....?

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

I think you're confused. When you bi-amp the passive crossovers, you separate the power path in the crossover. That means that you can put both tweeters on the front channels of your amp and the mids on your rear channels. From there, you can adjust the gain of the mids separately from the gain of your tweeters to get them balanced to your ear.

You know when you bi-amp that each crossover has two inputs right? One to power the tweeter and one to power the mid.

 

[RJesus 10+ year member]

Hmm, so since my amp is 75x4//150x2 and the comps are '150w rms', if I bi-amp, I'll have 75w going to the mids and 75w going to the tweets.

Whereas if I bridge the amp it'll send 150w to the mids and xx to the tweets?

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

Well, a little less in both cases. Passive crossovers really split the frequency spectrum which cuts the power relative to the how much power is distributed across the spectrum of the input signal. Bi-amping gives you the power to distribute that power to your liking. If you're worried the output differences, they will be insignificant with music. Plus, that is a solid amp that will put out clean power to really drive both those mids and tweeters.

 

[RJesus 10+ year member]

Well yeah I know it splits the frequencies and can send the same amount of power to each frequency. But I'm guessing the midbass driver is rated for 150w and the tweeter is rated for much less than that, and the passive crossover manages the power for the tweeter.

Basically what I'm worried about is, I don't want to only send 75w to my midbass drivers and 50w (made up number) to my tweeters, when I could be sending 150w to my midbass drivers and 50w to my tweeters. Ya know?

So will using the 'bi-amp' thing only send 75w to my midbass drivers?

If so, wouldn't it be better to bridge the amp to put out 150x2 and send 150w to the midbass and let the passives decide what to send the tweeters.

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[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

The music decides how much power each driver receives, not the crossover. I think you're concerned about the wrong thing here and putting waaaayy too much emphasis on power. When playing music through your speakers, you aren't going to come anywhere near a true 150wrms. Higher frequencies carry much less power than the lower frequencies and the power on your front stage is not at all comparable to how you power your sub.

Try out both configurations and see if you can notice a difference but my guess is that it will become too loud before you run out of amp for both ways. I would also bet that you can get more midbass output from bi-amping than from running bridged. If you run bridged and can't control the tweeter output, the tweeters could get very loud very fast while leaving the midbass behind and not allowing you to turn it up much further. If you bi-amp them, you can adjust the tweeter output so that you can get the most out of your mids.

 

[RJesus 10+ year member]

how do I set the gains for a full channel amp? what tones do I use?

is bi-amping the same as running active, except without the ability to change crossovers?

I guess I'll try both out and see which one works better.

Is there any way to test woofers // tweeters without mounting them? I'd like to try the tweeters out in a few different places to see where I like them best at.

And the tweeters can be attenuated if they're too bright, so isn't that almost the same as being able to set the gains?

how do passive crossovers work??

does it send like 30% of the watts of whatever the woofer is getting to the tweeters or something?

 

[KOL 10+ year member]

A passive crossover splits the full range frequencies between the appropriate drivers. The power given to the passive isn't split between between the drivers... its shared (like a single full range speaker). Excess power is shed in the resistors to burn up as heat.

Since you're picky enough to test different mounting locations, I'd recommend bi-amping. The added tuning options, increased efficiency & the reduction of the passive network (less signal degradation) are all pluses. The only advantage to bridgeing the set, would be if you're the "set if & forget it" type.

 

[funandgames 10+ year member]

Yea on second thought i would biamp them. Like stated earlier you will get more control over the mids and tweets by biamping them. I'm sure you'll play around with them though and find what works out best for you. Either way it's going to be a great sounding set.