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Bi-amp with Men220?

edkoz

edkoz

Member
Has anyone bi-amped when using the Men220? While I am VERY happy with what the Men220 did for my system, I'm curious if anyone has bi-amped and found an improvement. My speakers are B&W 802Ds, so I could bi-amp if there was a benifit. I know there has been considerable conversation about bi-amping but not that much when using the men220. Any real life suggestions would be great.
Thanks Ed
 
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The midrange driver of the BWs has always been a mean and nasty load to drive...less than 3 ohms and bad phase angle. It can suck your amp dry. I always thought it was a bad design...but B&W always knew best. We always would try to passively biamp them.... usually with their sister companies amps

You can still use the MEN for room correction as it is designed to do without trying to supplant the design of the B&W crossover.
 
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I am using bryston 7Bsst mono blocks to drive the B&Ws, The improvement after installing the men220 was significant. But, as always, I am I look to see if I can get just a little bit more. I was thinking of adding mc501to drive the high/mid side.
Thanks Ed
 
Bi-amping a speaker system is of no advantage unless you can by-pass the passive crossover and drive the drivers directly. This gets rid of all the reactive components absorbing signal from the amp and preventing the amp from controlling the cone or diaphragm directly. Efficiency improves, IM distortion drops, impulse response improves etc. The issue becomes then how do you balance the drivers to each other making sure the overlapping of the drivers is a positive result. If you use the 220 as Mac recommends, you are still driving the speaker system with the passive components of the speaker crossover in place. The only benefit is a reduction of the bandwidth of each amp has to drive versus a non- bi-amped system. I've bi-amped JBL, Altec, EV, Bozak removing the passive crossover and in all cases the improvement in sound was dramatic. Amps like the 7200, 275, 754, 752, 7104, 7106, 7205, 206, 207 work really well with speakers that prefer high dampening factors. I imagine, 501, 601, would work well, too. I have used 2100, 2120, 2250, 2300, 2200, etc too and the results in commercial systems was very positive.
 
I thought you could use the MEN-220 as an electronic crossover and bi-amp with it? That was my plan when they are nearly vintage and I can afford one. :)
 
twiiii said:
Bi-amping a speaker system is of no advantage unless you can by-pass the passive crossover and drive the drivers directly. This gets rid of all the reactive components absorbing signal from the amp and preventing the amp from controlling the cone or diaphragm directly. Efficiency improves, IM distortion drops, impulse response improves etc. The issue becomes then how do you balance the drivers to each other making sure the overlapping of the drivers is a positive result. If you use the 220 as Mac recommends, you are still driving the speaker system with the passive components of the speaker crossover in place. The only benefit is a reduction of the bandwidth of each amp has to drive versus a non- bi-amped system. I've bi-amped JBL, Altec, EV, Bozak removing the passive crossover and in all cases the improvement in sound was dramatic. Amps like the 7200, 275, 754, 752, 7104, 7106, 7205, 206, 207 work really well with speakers that prefer high dampening factors. I imagine, 501, 601, would work well, too. I have used 2100, 2120, 2250, 2300, 2200, etc too and the results in commercial systems was very positive.
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I disagree....yes pro world conventional doctrine sayes you need a active X-over.We can learn much from the pro world BUT bi wireable home speakers can be designed different.....look at the speaker'x schematic. Try it with a pair of MC2105s or whatever. I have done it with MC240s driving Vandy 2CEes. MC2255s and MC7270s driving various B&Ws and other assorted speakers. This has continued with the newer Diamond and Nautilis. If you have not tried it with these tough load B&Ws how do you know?
 
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