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A crazy thought: Bi-amping two MC452 amps? Better than .....

4-2-7 said:
You can not mono block the MC452 as one was able to do with the predecessors like the MC402, MC352.

Even the MC 402 you would need speakers that have low resistance like 4ohms, 2ohms to even benefit from mono blocking them. If you had a 8ohm speakers you would not gain any power.
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So are the MC302 and MC402 only parallel mono amps not Mono bridge? I thought those two amps were Quad balanced. What changed with MC 452?
 
Any amplifier with a balanced output section is for the most part very similar to a stereo power amplifier operated into bridged mono. So, you can't bridge what is already bridged.

Curiously, the MC402 is able to be operated in parallel mono (strapped) - undoubtedly made possible via the autoformers. Maybe @ron-c could shed some light on why the MC452 and older MC602 lack this feature.
 
MC452 does not use common chassis ground between channels so it can not be used in Mono. All Quad balanced amps are like this.

Ron-C
 
damacman said:
Any amplifier with a balanced output section is for the most part very similar to a stereo power amplifier operated into bridged mono. So, you can't bridge what is already bridged.

Curiously, the MC402 is able to be operated in parallel mono (strapped) - undoubtedly made possible via the autoformers. Maybe @ron-c could shed some light on why the MC452 and older MC602 lack this feature.
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Except when its a Crown Macro-tech, the beauty of the grounded bridge circuitry......
 
ron-c said:
MC452 does not use common chassis ground between channels so it can not be used in Mono. All Quad balanced amps are like this.

Ron-C
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OK - that makes perfect sense. Thanks Ron.

Edit - or maybe I'm still at a loss as it would appear the MC402 is also quad balanced ... ?
 
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ron-c said:
MC452 does not use common chassis ground between channels so it can not be used in Mono. All Quad balanced amps are like this.

Ron-C
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Thank you Ron,

Can you offer any opinion as to performance or sound quality on using two MC452 bi-amped (either horizontally or vertically) vs. a pair of MC1.2KW? What would be the preferred setup?

Thank you.
 
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damacman said:
Edit - or maybe I'm still at a loss as it would appear the MC402 is also quad balanced ... ?
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Velocityboat said:
I second that M402 appears on @ron-c quad balanced McIntosh amp thread list. So is it not Quad balanced after all?
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Yes but it's a complicated way to bridge as per the manual. As I also said above your would also need 6,4 or 2 ohm speakers to benefit any power gains as there is no 16 ohm tap.
 
damacman said:
Educate us kev!
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Well, I think the quad balanced amplifiers could be along the lines of being Bridged then bridged again, its a good way to cancel distortion and improve SNR.....then with the help of the Auto transformers, they are able to drive every day loads....

The Crown is interesting because it is bridged, but the negative amp is driving against ground so there is a common ground between the negative speaker outputs.
The power supply is a different story, its fully floating.....
There is a good explanation in the 5002 Macro-tech manual of how it all works, its very clever. The powersupply also switches from parallel to series via three IRF540 Mosfets depending on power output, and the circuit that controls this which is the "VZ" circuit is 16V and it is fully floating, it has no ground reference because it floats with the changing rail voltage...so it has whats called "VZ common".
Thats just the tip of the iceberg though....

Would be really cool to see what it is they actually do in the quad balanced amps, without me opening up my MC452....lol
 
4-2-7 said:
Yes but it's a complicated way to bridge as per the manual. As I also said above your would also need 6,4 or 2 ohm speakers to benefit any power gains as there is no 16 ohm tap.
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Well looking at the manual of the MC402 it is definitely a a Mono Parallel instruction. There is none of the Quad Balanced/ Dual Balanced push-pull explanations of the design pholsophy shared like the most of the other Quad Balanced Amp manuals. I would like to see the MC402 sales brochure. Makes me wonder a bit on how the design evolved for the Quad balanced philosophy. The SNR appears to have climbed higher in later designs. The block diagrams I will have to study.
 
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