I am interested in running two NAP500 amps in tandem, one powering the left channel and the other for the right channel. I am not sure if this is supported without any additional boxes from Naim (SNAXO as far as I understand is for an active speaker setup), I read that the NAP500 is designed in bridged mode, I don’t fully understand if that is an advantage for my intended setup…
Any help here would be appreciated.
Thanks,
T
If you use one 500 for each channel you would only be using half of each amplifier, which is unlikely to bring much improvement, if any. However, as the speakers have biwire terminals, you could use one amp for the bass and one for the treble in a passive biamping arrangement. The benefits of biamping are very speaker dependent, so it would be very wise to try before you buy, if that is possible in Dubai. They look like fantastic speakers.
Thanks, I was wondering if the bridged mode meant that I could use both channels at once in the setup I was thinking about. I agree, bi-amping is not going to give me enough improvement to justify the cost…
The speakers are wonderful, they do very well with all sorts of music styles…
If you want more power, perhaps you should look at a Statement….
A lot to chew on with the Statement :-)… I was hoping there was a way to double up with the NAP500 and get each speaker an independent amp… In a way similar to monoblocks.
This has been done - using one NAP500 for left and another for right channel in a passive system - by one or two US Naim users. Essentially you just use one channel of each NAP500 (the NAP500 is already a bridged design, btw, so you can’t bridge again).
We did try like this at the factory. It gave a larger and more spacious feel to the sound but there were some issues too where it was felt that the music didn’t quite all come together and gel as well it had done before. IIRC Roy speculated that the result might be down to “parasitic” effects from having half the PS unused in each PS unit.
Got it. Thanks for the feedback. Will so some research about bridged versus non-bridged designs… Just curious about this topic.
Active 2x500 is what you probably should try. Never herd that setup before myself, but I’m sure it should do a good job.
I believe that would require a SNAXO box and specific speakers to run.
Most common amp arrangement, nd AFAIK all other Naim powe amps, are “single ended” with one of the speaker output terminals grounded. Bridging effectively means taking two separate identical power amp channels, joining their ground output terminals together, and connecting the speaker across the two non-grounded terminals, and similar with the inputs. (That is done for each of the final channels, left and right, so in effect the stereo 500 is built using four standard amp channels.)
The benefit is twice the voltage output, which means 4x the power, of the single ended amp design. The disadvantage is that the lowest usable speaker impedance is also doubled. Also you have to be be aware that the black (often wrongly called negative) output terminal is not at ground potential, so must never be connected to the black terminal of other amps (it is possible that some speakers with biwirable terminals may still have the “negatives” connected internally, so it is wise to check to confirm not).
Good info, thanks! you never stop learning in this world of ours…
Why not use the new 350powers?, I understand these have been designed for this use
Wasn’t aware this was one their designed features.
Would you get the same effect happening when you do the same with other power supplies like say the cd555ps ?
A question better asked of someone like Roy, I think. However, as he endorsed using two PS555s, it would appear the results were rather better in that instance.
If you want passive bi-amping*, and your speakers have bi-wire/bi-amp* terminals you can use any pair of stereo amps giving you the 4 channels needed, using the speakers’ internal passive crossover, nothing else needed. If the amps are identical you can have one stere amp feeding each speaker. If not identical then use one amp for bass the other treble. Benefits are uncertain and almost certainly not worth buying an amp to do, but no harm trying if you happen to have a second amp. But as previously mentioned one precaution is required with bridged amps like the 500, check that with links removed the ‘negative’ terminals of the speaker are not connected together internal.
Active bi-amping* is a completely different matter, bringing very clear benefits by powering the speaker drivers directly, with no crossover components between amp and driver, giving better control over the speaker, however the crossover must be removable or bipassable, not simply using bi-wire terminals, and you need an active crossover with settings matched to the speaker, SNAXO or one of a variety of others (some you can set up yourself).
*Or tri- if 3-way speaker etc.
By default, this is what passive biamping means in the US and Japan quite often with amps having a “biamp” switch to make them twin mono without using splitter cables.
My understanding is that this offers massive advantages over using the same stereo amp for just bass or trebble.
Worth noting that if a bi-wire crossover is well designed, both methods of passive biamping can reduce induced teactive feedback from the bass units contaminating the signal to the higher frequency units. When they are all driven by the same channel, that feedback isn’t walled off. There’s a good video on YouTube of an enginner from Esoteric explaining this.
I don’t use bi-amping and know from experience it usually doesn’t benefit with Naim amps. But I don’t believe in dogmatic absolutes either. If I was going to do it, I’d only do it with identical amps in twin mono mode.