Bi-amping JBL XPL200

Kkristen70

Kkristen70

New Member
Hi, I am looking for some advise on Bi-amping a pair of vintage JBL XPL200 (6 Ohm).

1) Firstly, is it worth considering bi-amping at all - any experinces with the JBL XPL 200 in particular?

2) I have a 2x200W/8OHM (Onkyo M-588) that I would consider for the low frequencies. Should the high freq amp be of similar power, or can it be less. I have a Parasound Z-Amp v3 (2x45w). Could it even be considered acquiring an additional Z-Amp and bridge them both to Mono mode (1x90w each)? Or is that not recommended - not to sure if there's a potential issue running the Parasound's in mono vs. the speakers being 6 Ohm?

3) Also like to hear from the community any experiences with applying an Active Cross Over - is it necessary/worth it? The "original" DX-1 cross over from JBL seems hard to find. Any alternatives suggestions are welcome.
 
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Thanks Wendell, appreciate your input. It gives me some confidence that I might not have to worry too much about the extra hardware to bi-amp and cross-over, etc. needed. I'll try an experiment some, as you illude to, and see if it makes a likeable difference. Thanks again and all the best, Klaus
 
dont know anything about your jbls(beautiful btw), however, im biamping my jbl L890s. im pleased. its been set up that way for a couple years now after trying a few different ways to power them.
alot of people seem to use different amps for top and bottom. im sure its preference. sonic matching probably takes more effort.
i had 2 of the same amp(audiosource model 3s @150wpc), so i used them.
in horizontal, 1 amp hi/1 lo, it sounded good. no complaints i could put my finger on.
i then went vertical (1amp per tower) and im going with better low end when listening loud. im thinking, in vertical, 1 channel can soak up as much power as it wants without stressing the other channel since highs don't require as much. in horizontal both channels work hard(?).
there seems to be more separation and detail but it could all be in my head().
all that to say give it a go.
jbl4life
 
I've been bi-amping in some form or another for a while, and recently reconfigured the system to include hybrid bi-amping with tube amps above 80hz, and a solid state integrated amp along with active crossover to the woofers only below 80hz.

I'm of the belief that if it sounds good as-is with a stereo amp and passive crossovers, it would likely improve by doing some form of bi-amping, even if you keep the passive crossovers. Getting into bypassing current passive crossovers adds complexity, cost, and risk....there could be advantages, but also disadvantages of doing that, and it's a path that can be pursued separately down the road. Worth dipping your toes into for sure.

image_bi-amp.jpgHybrid Biamping.JPG
 
Thank you, izeek. Wow, vertical - yes, of course. Worth the experience. Guess that means - like you had - two identical powerful power amps at hand?
 
Your problem will be in gain matching, or more accurately, input sensitivity. Arcam was phenomenal on this front several years ago, matching input sensitivity so your overall gain was equal regardless of the other Arcam amplifiers rated output. It's going to be a crapshoot. Easiest answer is to use a custom install amplifier to drive your mids/highs. I've got a Niles SI275 which would likely work quite well at 75 watts x 2, or an SI2120 is 120. If you shop, you can usually find them for around $100, give or take a few bucks. Sonance, Speakercraft, and others will have similar. I know the Niles have individual channel adjustments on the faceplate. Very stiff amplifiers, stable to under 3 ohms.
 
It's wired for bi-amping or bi-wiring .. either one could and likely would improve it's sound ..

Start with horizontal bi-amping ..
The simplest way is to use any two amps with the existing crossover .. generally the most powerful amp is used on the woofers and the lower power amp drives
the higher frequencies which require much less power ..
The amps don't at all have to be the same. Any two amps can be used.
This way it's easy to take advantage of the differing sonic flavors of different amps.
Personally I like tube amps on the highs and Solid State amps on the bottom.

Some JBL's have an internal jumper to skip over the internal x-over and use a separate electronrlc x-over .. not sure if this is one of those.
Many people will insist that it has to have an external x-over for bi-amping -- It doesn't
It isn't at all the case an external x-over is necessarily better .. and it could in fact make the speaker system sound worse.
There is a very good x-over in there already, and it is wired to permit bi-amping .. use it before experimenting with an external x-over.

Study up a little bit on the topic of bi-amping ... JBL includes it in their manuals for good reason.
Enjoy the Music ..
 
The XPL is set up to be bi amped by two amps with out the need of an external crossover. All the passive components remain in place with more added to further protect the drivers. Its like bi wiring but using two amps. So unless you want to go inside and remove a bunch of components for the woofer and the lower midrange true bi-amping will not make much of a difference using an electronic crossover. I would at least want 200 watts on the top, because you are going to need power for that lower mid speaker. The XPL is not all that efficient so thats another reason for need more top amp power. Now if the room is fairly small and you listen at 10 feet or less I suppose a nice MC 275 for the high end to get that tube sound everyone is looking for would be a good choice. or if you just won the lottery a pair of MC 451's. Its a mono SS 300 watt amp on the bottom and a 150 watt tube amp on the top with a built in crossover. You can select the right frequency or by pass the crossover section completely. You would need two of those beasts. . But the bass is going to stay pretty much the same as what you hear now if you keep your current amp. Buying the MC 1502 which is tubed and has 150 watts per channel will put you in the poor house at about $12,000. They haven't been out long enough to find pre-owned at a decent savings. Set of 8 KT -88's pretested, with matched miniature tubes and matched by Mcintosh can push the $2000.00 plateau that you will need in the next 4 or 5 years. . So stick with a nice MC 275 MK 4 from audio classics below $4000.00. If you are going to use SS for the mid and HF's I would pass and look for a better 200 watt to 400 watt stereo power amp to use full range. Maybe you could find a pre owned MC 402 at a nice savings. Some folks like the older MC 2600, which was a great amp in its day. Remember one in good order puts out 30% more than rated before the power guard turns on protecting the speaker. So the 2600 would put out about 900 watts at 6 ohms and the 402 about 640 watts. A MC 7300 was a great amp in its day rated at 300 watts per channel, but was capable of over 400. But, pushing 6 ohms from the 8 ohm tap would give you close to 500 watts per channel. If you want a direct coupled amp the 7200 would give about 400 + watts per channel into 6 ohms. If you are going to push things I would want the 7300 or 402, If you are going to be crazy the 2600. Its a 7300 doubled and it has cooling fans so it will run 24 hrs a day 365 days a year full bore. Just keep it clean on the inside. All have great meters so don't go over 200 to 300 watts indicated and you will be fine. If the tweeters fail the manual isn't being truthful. I have seen that before on other JBL models. Same goes for Altec, EV and Klipsch.
 
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The good news is both of your amplifiers have level controls so you can match the upper and lower sections of the JBLs.

Bridged Mono/Stereo Operation
You should not use a speaker with an impedance that is less than 8 Ω for Bridged Mono
operation. In mono, the Zamp v.3 “bridges” the R channel to amplify the positive half of the
audio signal and the L channel to amplify the negative half of the audio signal. In effect, each
channel “sees” only half of the speaker’s rated impedance, so that an 8Ω speaker in Bridged
Mono is only a 4Ω load and a 4Ω speaker in Bridged Mono is only a 2Ω load. The Zamp v.3 is
not designed to operation into loads that are less than 4Ω at any time.

Warning: When used in Bridged Mono mode, the Zamp v.3 should not be used with a speaker
with an impedance of less than 8 Ohms. Running the Zamp bridged into a 4 Ohm speaker will
cause the Zamp v.3 to overheat and could result in serious damage.
 
Wow - thank you so much all for your insights and contributions. Much appreciated. I will begin experimenting my way through this (but probably not with the idea of bridging two Z-amps to mono for the high-ends; seems not suited for this setup) - Thank you all!
 
If you have not seen them before, you really should read JBL's former chief Engineer Greg Timbers comments on the XPL200. Its one of his designs ...

4315B - Includes Designer's Post

... Submitted by Giskard
www.audioheritage.org

"The 4315 is a very compact, high power 4 way studio monitor. It was designed around in-wall mounting although they are very rarely used that way. Its strong points are a very powerful and fast woofer (doesn't go real deep however) and a killer midbass unit. The LE5 is a little aggressive but quite lively. The good news here is that the VC alignment on the LE5 and the 2405 is nearly perfect so none of the combing that usually occurs with the 2405 used with horn drivers happens.

The 4315 requires that the HF and UHF L-Pads be turned down considerably below the "0" setting or the system is too bright. With that said, it is very dynamic, detailed and quite good tonally. It is still one of my favorite spaekers.

The XPL 200 has a killer midrange in the 091 or 093. The blend between the HF and UHF is really good as they are in the same plane and identical materials. The 2214H was chosen to give good bass extension and it does just that. Unfortunately compared to a 4" VC 2203, it doesn't have the kick or dynamics. The biggest weak link inthe XPL 200 is the mid bass unit. It uses a filled polypropylene cone with a vinyl surround. It is very smooth but it is too warm and "fluffy" sounding due to the poly collasping under drive. Another weak point is the LF/MF passive crossover topology. It was done to allow bi-amping with a simple toggle switch. The 4315 crossover uses a higher order crossover at that point and has a much more complicated switching circuit. That means money which I didn't have in the XPL.

I would only expect about 1 - 1.5 dB difference in 2.83v sensitivity in favor of the 4315. If both systems are adjusted to similar HF response (i.e. turn down the 4315 a little) and overall sensitivity I would expect the following:

The 4315 should be more dynamic and detailed below 800 Hz - 1000 Hz. The XPL200 should kick butt above that. The XPL will be considerably more 3-dimensional due to the narrower baffle and neoprene covering. It could be hard to choose between them as they are both quite nice but just different. Bi-amping the XPL really brings it to life by fixing the crossover problem and taking the LF inductor out of the path for the 2214, but a special drive slope is required to do the job correctly. The DX1 is ideal and was developed exactly for that purpose. The 4315 benefits substantially from bi-amping as well.
I'm pleased to see that both are still around and bringing pleasure to people."
 
Kkristen70 said:
Hi, I am looking for some advise on Bi-amping a pair of vintage JBL XPL200 (6 Ohm).

1) Firstly, is it worth considering bi-amping at all - any experinces with the JBL XPL 200 in particular?

2) I have a 2x200W/8OHM (Onkyo M-588) that I would consider for the low frequencies. Should the high freq amp be of similar power, or can it be less. I have a Parasound Z-Amp v3 (2x45w). Could it even be considered acquiring an additional Z-Amp and bridge them both to Mono mode (1x90w each)? Or is that not recommended - not to sure if there's a potential issue running the Parasound's in mono vs. the speakers being 6 Ohm?

3) Also like to hear from the community any experiences with applying an Active Cross Over - is it necessary/worth it? The "original" DX-1 cross over from JBL seems hard to find. Any alternatives suggestions are welcome.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't recommend bi-amping without an active crossover and using a calibrated measurement mic and Room EQ Wizard to tune them. active crossovers can be quite affordable or rather expensive, depending on your selection. I'm using a Dayton Audio DSP408 to bi-amp (and soon, tri-amp) my speakers, it has been critical in tuning the speakers for a flat response, sorting out the inherent nodes in the original design via parametric eq, time-alignment of the drivers, as well as managing my amps, a pair of 150 Watt bridged mono blocks and a 15 wpc tube amp. as for gain and sensitivity matching, if your amps have attenuators, it shouldn't pose much of a problem; alternatively, a DSP crossover can do a fair amount of adjustment as well. I am using 150 Watt amps for my woofers and a 15 Watt amp on my mids and tweeters; will be soon adding a 3 watt amp to drive my tweeters: my DSP Crossover will manage it all.
 
I would +2 and +4 @opnly bafld advice to avoid bridging the amps ..
You're risking smoking an amplifier if the impedance of the bridged load at all frequencies isn't carefully measured ..
 
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Kkristen70 said:
Thank you, izeek. Wow, vertical - yes, of course. Worth the experience. Guess that means - like you had - two identical powerful power amps at hand?
Click to expand...
yes, i did. i liked my audiosource so much that i bought a second one for backup. i then bought a third for backup after biamping and might even get a 4th.
im intending to have them recapped and the like.
 
Akustic said:
It's wired for bi-amping or bi-wiring .. either one could and likely would improve it's sound ..

Start with horizontal bi-amping ..
The simplest way is to use any two amps with the existing crossover .. generally the most powerful amp is used on the woofers and the lower power amp drives
the higher frequencies which require much less power ..
The amps don't at all have to be the same. Any two amps can be used.
This way it's easy to take advantage of the differing sonic flavors of different amps.
Personally I like tube amps on the highs and Solid State amps on the bottom.

Some JBL's have an internal jumper to skip over the internal x-over and use a separate electronrlc x-over .. not sure if this is one of those.
Many people will insist that it has to have an external x-over for bi-amping -- It doesn't
It isn't at all the case an external x-over is necessarily better .. and it could in fact make the speaker system sound worse.
There is a very good x-over in there already, and it is wired to permit bi-amping .. use it before experimenting with an external x-over.

Study up a little bit on the topic of bi-amping ... JBL includes it in their manuals for good reason.
Enjoy the Music ..
Click to expand...
really enjoyed this breath of fresh air.
 
izeek11 said:
really enjoyed this breath of fresh air.
Click to expand...
Me too. Thank you. Here's a question which - maybe even further - reveals how much of a novice I am in "bi-amping". Let's say I have two identical PAs - in mono. Can I get away with using two of such PAs for my speakers for bi-amping? Reading all your replies and studying during the weekend - although not sure. For example (but not necessarily those) - 2 x Schiit Vidar/2 could - in mono - provide ample power. So, if I were to e.g. vertical bi-amp, would I then use all binding posts on each Vidar for each of my speakers - HF/LF respectively?
And same question if I do horizontal bi-amping? All four binding posts on each Vidar in use? HF/HF - LF/LF?
Or is it simply not possible to get away with two mono amps for bi-amping a set of stereo speakers; i.e. I would need 4 "Vidars"?

The user manual of the XPLs by the way only refers to bi-amping via the DX1. Interpretation: "bi-amping not a readily available option without an external cross-over. Probably just a sales trick/gimmick from back then. I trust - as TWIII highligts in this tread - the XPLs are made for bi-amping out of the box with no strict need of any external cross-over.
 

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Kkristen70 said:
Me too. Thank you. Here's a question which - maybe even further - reveals how much of a novice I am in "bi-amping". Let's say I have two identical PAs - in mono. Can I get away with using two of such PAs for my speakers for bi-amping? Reading all your replies and studying during the weekend - although not sure. For example (but not necessarily those) - 2 x Schiit Vidar/2 could - in mono - provide ample power. So, if I were to e.g. vertical bi-amp, would I then use all binding posts on each Vidar for each of my speakers - HF/LF respectively?
And same question if I do horizontal bi-amping? All four binding posts on each Vidar in use? HF/HF - LF/LF?
Or is it simply not possible to get away with two mono amps for bi-amping a set of stereo speakers; i.e. I would need 4 "Vidars"?

The user manual of the XPLs by the way only refers to bi-amping via the DX1. Interpretation: "bi-amping not a readily available option without an external cross-over. Probably just a sales trick/gimmick from back then. I trust - as TWIII highligts in this tread - the XPLs are made for bi-amping out of the box with no strict need of any external cross-over.
Click to expand...
To get the best out of biamping, I’d strongly recommend using a dsp crossover. I’d also caution against vertical biamping, as your divers likely have different sensitivities, as well as power needs and limits. With horizontal biamping, you’ll want a way to manage driver gain and balancing between the amps- you may be fine just plugging in the speakers and using the passive crossover, but again, a dsp crossover will make it much simpler.
 
In my experience, unless you just like having more components littering your listening space, your money would be better spent on different speakers or a better single 2-channel amplifier.
 
Kkristen70 said:
Me too. Thank you. Here's a question which - maybe even further - reveals how much of a novice I am in "bi-amping". Let's say I have two identical PAs - in mono. Can I get away with using two of such PAs for my speakers for bi-amping? Reading all your replies and studying during the weekend - although not sure. For example (but not necessarily those) - 2 x Schiit Vidar/2 could - in mono - provide ample power. So, if I were to e.g. vertical bi-amp, would I then use all binding posts on each Vidar for each of my speakers - HF/LF respectively?
And same question if I do horizontal bi-amping? All four binding posts on each Vidar in use? HF/HF - LF/LF?
Or is it simply not possible to get away with two mono amps for bi-amping a set of stereo speakers; i.e. I would need 4 "Vidars"?

The user manual of the XPLs by the way only refers to bi-amping via the DX1. Interpretation: "bi-amping not a readily available option without an external cross-over. Probably just a sales trick/gimmick from back then. I trust - as TWIII highligts in this tread - the XPLs are made for bi-amping out of the box with no strict need of any external cross-over.
Click to expand...
you would need 4 amps to mono biamp as each amp would handle one fr section, as there would only one output per amp.
i guess it can be done that way.
i tried bridged mono no biamp. more power with less impedance. loud but missing some ooomph for me.
a true mono amp sounds better it reasons.
horizontal =1 amp hi/1 amp lo.
vertical=1 amp L/hi, R lo.
using dsp and external crossovers is probably the best route but im guesstimating that there are a whooole of people biamping without doing so and being happy with their results.
im not performing surgery on my speakers for an external cross-over. plus in mine the crossover is separated
so i can biamp more easily.
ive not used dsp yet, eventually ill get around to it. in the meantime, my ish sounds great.
 
jayvis said:
In my experience, unless you just like having more components littering your listening space, your money would be better spent on different speakers or a better single 2-channel amplifier.
Click to expand...
saw a good few biamped systems at the Capitol Audio Show. sooo. with a boatload of money spent on them.
ime, people do what they like regardless of such posturing.
 
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