AU-555 Crossover Question

Ah I see where your source is now:

http://au.babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Faudio-heritage.jp%2FSANSUI%2Fetc%2Fcd-10.html&lp=ja_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

Beautiful unit - I'm presuming this was Japan only market?

It would sure do the job but you might spend 10 years finding one!

- Neil
Yes this series is beautiful. Matching amplifier is BA-1000 and a 4-channel decoder QSD-1 which I have. There are three complete Vario Matrix circuits inside. One each for bass, medium and high.
 
It won't burden the amp any more than it already is being burdened - you say it doesn't do low frequencies well at high volumes - well that won't change with Y plugs - it'll just send the same frequencies to both the Sub and your Sansui's main amp. To stop the distortion you need to stop sending those lower frequencies out of your Sansui's Pre-amp to the Main amp. You can only do that with an Active crossover or a Sub which has a High-pass Filter outlet.

- Neil

Okay, Neil, I'll start looking for subs w/ high-pass and/or active crossovers. Can't say that I know what the means but I'm going to take your word for it. If I find something, I'll run it by this forum before purchasing it. Thanks for "hanging-in-there" with me. Btw, would someone tell me what the high and low filters are for in the AU-555?

Thanks
blue
 
Basically their effect is to take a bit more high frequency than the Treble control (high filter) and a bit more Low frequency than the Bass control (low filter).

Don't be too discouraged if you don't quite get it with the Sub/Active Crossover thing - it works a lot better when you talk to heaps more people and get them to demo things and little by little it'll start to click....:thmbsp:

- Neil.
 
First, my apologies for resurrecting this very old thread, but it does deal with an idea I'm working on. I would like to bi-amp using my BA5000 to handle low frequencies, and a spare BA2000 to handle the mids and highs. The speakers I'm using have separate terminals for the woofers and tweeters.

I have been given to understand that one of the main advantages of bi-amping is that each amp is now being called upon to work with a smaller band of audio frequencies, so distortion is potentially reduced. With all this in mind, is the CD 5 Frequency Divider mentioned earlier in this thread a viable way to do this? If not, what isa reasonable piece of gear to accomplish what I'm trying to do. I will use either a CA2000 or CA3000 as a pre-amp, both of which have two output pairs.
 
Biamp what speaker? The CD5 will work as long as one of its frequencies is the crossover freq your speakers use. Otherwise pro audio brands make tons of high quality crossovers vintage and new, otherwise there's Mini-DSP that would work too I think.
 
Himmmm. Now I'm becoming confused, although that's not so unusual. The speakers are locally made here in Vancouver, by a company called Polestar.

I was under the impression that if one amp was connected to the tweeter banana plugs, and the other amp was connected to the woofer posts, the speaker crossover was now effectively bypassed. It was my intention to discover the crossover frequency of the speakers, and then use an electronic crossover between the pre amp and the two power amps to allow each amp to work with a smaller frequency band, and to eliminate any problems that the speaker internal crossover may create.

The Sansui CD5 has controls that look confusing to me, which is why I'm asking the question.
 
The only way to bypass a crossover is to literally electrically bypass it. All removing the binding straps does is let you passively biamp them. It sounds like you want to actively biamp them.
 
The cleanest way to split a signal (IMO) is to actively EQ that signal between the pre and power stages, then to the speakers. And that is only if you are connecting direct to the drivers after that. I did this with an OB configuration, using gear including a sansui AU-999 for the bass, a VFET amp for the mids/highs, and a Sansui CD5 for the splitting. Given the age of the CD5 (and as I didnt know how noisy its transistors were) I routed the bass signal thru it, and then a fullrange signal to my mid/high fullrange drivers.

If you end up using a CD5, ensure that it is quiet enough, and doesnt add too much noise to the mids/highs. Otherwise its a great way to split off the bass. Its very easy to use, and under the unit you can select a 6db or 12db xover slope - which I found very useful. I left the xover bass point at 300-350 Hz.

As point out above - actively splitting the pre signal and connecting to your speakers will still utilise your speakers passive xover. However even the act of active bi-amping results in benefits to me - primarily being able to "roll" the types of amps you can use for the topend, while using pretty much anything capable for the bass - ie SQ requirements arent quite as high for the bass as they are for the mids/highs.
 
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