passive vs active biamping and other

Or...I am considering either going with a used tube pre or maybe getting a used tube amp as I am somewhat intrigued by the idea of using a tube for the higher/mid range and my current SS for the lower. The jolida 302 (or maybe one of those old Dynacos) seems to have great reviews but a lack of detailed bass and would seem to be a good fit for this experiment. Plus they seem to reasonable priced on the secondary market and fit my under $500 budget.

Could I use an integerated amp for the above experiment or would I have to use just a power amp. Do the power ratings for the tube and SS amps need to be the same? How does one make sure the gain is at the correct level for eachamp so the highs/mids don't overpower the lows or vice versa?

Am I even on the right track here?

Your thoughts are appreciated!!

Chris
PS masochist that I am, I'm somewhat intrigued by the prospect of having the ability to chage sound of the tube amp by changing tubes. I only like a little pain and if I am getting out of my league please lemme know

March 21, 2006 - 3:34pm

cwoll

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Re: passive vs active biamping and other

BTW, my rig;

Cambridge 640 spinner
Adcom GFP 1a
Adcom GFA 2
Paradigm studio 40's

Side note, for what it is worth, I just had Adcom stuff serviced and the tech said according to test the amp was solid as a rock and after 20 plus years of use has a distortion rate of .005, so I got that goin' for me...which is nice

March 21, 2006 - 5:42pm

Kal Rubinson

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Re: passive vs active biamping and other

Quote:
Here is my problem, I just bought Paradigm 40's and after some long term listening I havs concluded that the are a little lacking in the high/mid range. What I am looking for is a slighly softer highs and fuller more detailed mids.
I read a post by K. Rubinson where he mentioned both but I couldn't find any info on the logistics the difference and I thought this might be a possible answer.

Passive biamping uses the speaker's built-in crossover but drives each portion with a full-range signal. With active biamping, the speaker's crossover is removed/bypassed and a line-level crossover is devised so that each amp can drive each speaker element with the appropriate part of the frequency spectrum. Not for the faint of heart.

Neither is a likely cure for your complaint.

Kal

March 22, 2006 - 7:17am

cwoll

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Re: passive vs active biamping and other

Thanks, I had a suspicion that the active biamping thing was going to be a lot harder than it looked to the untrained eye.

What about the tube preamp idea?

March 22, 2006 - 8:01am

Kal Rubinson

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Re: passive vs active biamping and other

Quote:
Thanks, I had a suspicion that the active biamping thing was going to be a lot harder than it looked to the untrained eye.
What about the tube preamp idea?

Borrow one and try it.

Kal

March 22, 2006 - 1:02pm

CECE

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Re: passive vs active biamping and other

There is no need for active bi amping in a home envioement. In large venues where speakers are postioned in varying areas of acoustics and bldg and room effects, active crossovers help, not in a 20 X 20 room with speakes 10 feet apart. Get the book from www.rane.com all about pro audio and real science, that hyped BS from marketeers.

March 22, 2006 - 1:05pm

CECE

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Re: passive vs active biamping and other

And if you bi-amp ya gotta be sure they don't invert phase, in one and not the other, they also need to be similar input sensitivitys. Otherwise you just created more work.

April 5, 2006 - 2:09pm

cwoll

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Re: passive vs active biamping and other

Ok, but if i use the speakers inernal crossovers and vertical biamp with 40w or so tube on the top binding posts and a 110w SS amp on the lower posts would that make a difference.

The guy at the hifi shop said one of his coworkers had that setup and swore by it. Iwas thinking there would have to be some sort of attenuation but he said no. Actually I asked three times and he said no each time. he said as long as you had roughly about a 3 to 1 SS to tube wattage ratio it should work fine.

Anybody have any experience with this setup?

April 5, 2006 - 4:46pm

Monty

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Re: passive vs active biamping and other

I have an old, NAD Monitor 2100 amp that has input level adjustments that can be used to accomplish what you are talking about. If you are going to try using tubes and Solid State to bi-amp, you might want to consider this feature in a Solid State design. Another benefit of being able to adjust the input level is in the interface with the preamp. Rather than operating a preamp volume at the low range, you can lower the amps input level and allow for a higher volume range on your preamp.

I actually never used the features in this fashion because I opted for the Lab inputs to provide for a direct path to the amplification stage, thus bypassing other circuitry. However, I can sure see where this would come in mighty handy when biamping.

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