I would like to get another 250dr to bi amp my B&W 804D4’s, can this be done and what cable is required from my 272 pre?
A search will reveal a lot of threads and views about bi-amping.
Bruce
If you’re talking about passive bi-amping, it is of questionable value, and so unless you have a spare amp (which it sound as if you haven’t), do try before you buy.
(Active bi-amping is quite different, and brings noticeable improvement, but needs an active crossover)
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A friend used a 250 with his superuniti to good effect, easy as he used the uniti for the tweeter and the 250 with the mid/bass.
Just wondering how to do with 272/250 and what cable requirements.
You have two DIN4 preamp outputs on your NAC272. Your existing 250 will be connected to one of these so just connect the DIN4 to XLR cable that comes with the new 250 to the other DIN4 output.
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I still suggest trying before buying, as your speakers (and ears) may respond differently.
Better than buying another amp for passive bi-amping might be sell your existing 250 and buy a better amp - the now discontinued NAP300 might be available at bargain price, then there’s the new amps. I don’t know the economics of it, but food for thought perhaps. Of you were proposing going active I’d say go for it!
Of course an alternative might be to upgrade the speakers, but presumably you’ve discounted that.
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Excellent, thanks.
I did this sometime ago with two Nap 180s into bi-wireable speakers connected using two snaics from a hicap.
I found it to be a worthwhile improvement especially in terms of power and control…and good fun trying it out as I had the gear already to experiment with.
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I’d recommend getting a lead made up to give each amp a twin mono signal so one amp gets two lefts and the other two rights. Then use each amp for each speaker with one channel driving HF and the other LF. Contrary to how bi-amping is often done (stereo LF and stereo HF), what I’ve described is the “correct” way where the overall headroom on the transformer is also greatly increased because no amp is driving two LF channels.
Although Naim don’t generally advocate for bi-amping there are exceptions and if I recall posts from Richard correctly, they do advocate passive bi-amping with some B&W speakers.
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Hello,
In my humble opinion, everyone has their own experiences, and when possible, it’s better to audit the whole system.
A friend who owns B&W 802s was listening with nac 52 nap 135s. We replaced the 135s with 2x250 olives in passive bi-amplification, an excellent discovery ! he sold his 135s without regret. His brother has 804s that he listened to with nac 252 and nap 300 and was satisfied, but he still tried with 2 x 250 black and then sold his nap 300.
I have Linn isobarik DMS/PMS with external filters, with 2x250 in bi-passive it is already much better than with the 135, with 3x250 in passive it is quite fabulous. Now I like my Linn DMS tri-passive as much as the tri-active I also own.
Contrary to a widespread idea dating from the active era, Naim plays perfectly well with passive multi-amplification without interference on the pre-amp, provided that the passive filtering of the loudspeakers is cleverly designed with entirely independent cells.
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Interesting post, thanks.
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