282/300 bi-amp exercise

Hi-Fi Corner
1

282/ 2 Hi-caps/ 300 nonDR & 200DR
Source CDX2/XPS/Hi-line

I am currently pairing 282/300 (non-dr) with ProAc D30R

I have a spare 200DR upfront, wonder a bi-amp exercise for which 200Dr for Tweeter & 300 (non-dr) for bass workable ?

I have no complaint against current performance of D30R, since a spare D20DR available, not sure if this works for a much better tweeter or bass performance or even sound stage ? Will try this weekend.

Your view appreciated

Cheers

2

Bi- amping with different amps doesn’t work. Bi-amping needs to have exactly the same power amps, or an active crossover, if different amps are going to be used. I had D30R a few years ago and I currently have D20R. Not sure what you’re asking, ie the speakers?

3

Thanks
I am indeed addressing the issues of the 2 power Amp to drive the tweeter & woofer separately with

  1. Hicap instead of SNAXO (crossover)
  2. 200DR to drive tweeter & 300 non-dr to drive woofer - sensible ?

I have additional pair of A5 speaker cable

Since I have all the equipment at home, just wanna try

Cheers

1 Like
4

Unless you have an active crossover (SNAXO) you are not driving the woofer and tweeter separately. You are just feeding the passive crossover with more power from the two amps.

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5

Not sure about the ProAcs, but some speakers are reported to really benefit from biamping. As you have the 200 and the cables, just try it. I wouldn’t worry unduly about the amps not matching: the Supernait for example has a biamp output and any additional power amp will by definition be different.

If your system was mine, however, I’d be trading the two Hicaps and the 200 for a Supercap DR.

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6

What does a HiCap have to do with bi amping? Anyway if one removes the jumpers on the ProAc’s they can be bi-amped since the internal crossover is split for bi-wiring or bi-amping. Your best bet not having an active crossover or matching amps would be a “ horizontal” bi amp with smaller amp driving L+R tweeters and the larger amp driving L+R woofers.

Honestly I think it’s not going to go well. Hopefully you don’t muck anything up.
Good Luck.

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7

Oh yeah ?

I have no knowledge of how the SNAXO works and wondered Hicap (current 2 pot of 4 pins service mono block of NAP300 leaving the remaining 4 pin pot to serve NAP200DR) will work.

thanks for sharing

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Agreed.

a Supercap DR would be more helpful and good fro future upgrade to 252 as well.

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You can connect the 200 to the third socket on your Hicap. This is passive biamping, which powers the different sides of the crossover in the speaker. So treble and bass is split at the speaker.

With active, the bass and treble are split in the electronic crossover, the naxo, at line level. This potentially gives a much better result but is more expensive and more complex.

With your ProAcs, active is not possible anyway.

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I don’t know. Home distancing effect. I am in fact opening a can of worm ha ha.

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since a spare NAP 200DR
regret of typo error

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Top trumps!

The general rule of thumb was a single higher amp will always outperform any number of smaller amps. Therefore I would expect the Nap 300 to better the two Nap 200’s.

The reason being is that the Nap 300 has a bigger frequency response and should always sound better.

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If you wish to learn a bit more about the differences between passive and active Bi-amping and Tri-amping then have a read here from the forum FAQ:

2 Likes
14

Hear that

So rule number one, stop doing funny thing !

15

Depends if you’re doing vertical or horizontal bi-amping. Using a powerful amp for the bass on both sides and then the weaker amp to do the upper on both sides is a common setup.

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I’ll try out with all resources upfront.
Just to gain some experience if there is …

17

By all means try it and decide for yourself, if we didn’t experiment we wouldn’t learn anything and you may find you prefer two 200’s which is fine :slight_smile:

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18

I think you’ll find that the OP has both a 300 and a 200. The question is whether biamping with the two is better than just using the 300.

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So, the question is, do you put the 200 on the bass and reduce the bass, or do you put the 200 on the treble and reduce the treble.

Don’t look at me, do the tests and let us know which one is best :slight_smile:

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If @Charteralpha is of a mood to experiment, perhaps they could extract the DR from the 200 and stick it in the 300.

(I jest, of course.)