Bi-amp or Bridged Mono?

Hello,

I have an old Nad 2400 THX (100W stereo / 200W bridged) amp and soon I'm getting another one. I'm going to use these to drive a pair of MA RS6s. The cdp is Marantz CD6002 and I'm using my Yamaha RX-V1500 as a pre. My room size is 20 * 18.

My question is, to Bi-amp or bridge the amps and use them as mono amps?

Thanks for your suggestions and opinions.

SilentSound.

Hi,
Sorry am not totally getting the question.
One way of biamping is to bridge ur stereo power amps and use one for each speaker. So ur stereo amp drives a single speaker hence doubling the power.(acting like a monobloc)This too is Bi amping!
Second is to Use one of ur power amps in stereo mode to biwire one speaker(if the speaker has the provision)
Third is to use one of the power amps in stereo mode to drive the LF of both speakers and the other amp is simultaneously used also in stereo mode to drive the HF of both speakers.

Are u asking which of these is the best solution? If i have missed out anything would love to hear opinions. Have never tried either vertical or horizontal bi amping myself but it definately has it proven benefits as against just bi wiring.
Regards.

Hi dinyaar,

Thanks for describing the options clearly. My question was between option 1 vs option 2 or option 1 vs option 3.

I think that there is not much difference between option 2 and option 3 assuming both amps have identical performance.

RS6s have provisions for bi-wireable, one for LF & another for HF.

SilentSound.

Dear silentsound,

I have never tried this myself but i feel option 2 should be best. Option 1 where u bridge the amp could increase distortion and option 3 would make the amp driving the LF work much harder than the amp driving the HF. Though apart from running hot i dont think thats a problem too.

Silent try it peacefully over a weekend and post ur comments.
Regards

Hi Dinyaar,

Thanks for the reply. I'm sure you are one of the members keeping this forum interesting and worthwhile.

As soon as I get the other amp I'll try it and post my comments.

SilentSound.

Hi,

I have to agree with dinyaar here though he was bit lost himself but brought the point back with precision !

The most prefferd option is to bi-amp ( use 1 nad per speaker in stereo mode not bridged) then use the 1 nad in bridged mode.

the main reason is in the bi-amp mode you are giving more head room for both LF and HF to play to thier best ability by giving them separate amps and by dissconnecting them from each other as oppsose share the same power between them.this for this reason alone its worth the option ! though their are other benefits both in the speaker and amp,I dun wana confuse you with too much information !

Hope this is of some use to you ! as dinyaar said please share your experiance with US.

Regards,
Bye

Hi Soundsgreat/Dinyaar,

I'm still waiting for the second amp. But I've a question. I'm using my avr as the pre-amp and it has a single rca output jack for right channel and another single rca output jack for left channel.

In the option both of you've suggested, where each amp is used in stereo mode for each channel/speaker, how do I get the 2 output pairs for LF and HF. Yes my speaker is bi-wireable.

Should I use 1 rca to 2 rca cable to connect from the avr to the power amp? If so, how good is this? Won't the signal weaken when you split? Am I missing something here?

Thanks,
Silentsound.

Hello Silentsound,

Yes You are 100% right the signal will weaken when you split it ! the trick here is to use the output from the amp ( usually thier will be a pair of out put in the power block) this out is from the pre or buffer stage of the amp so taking out from this does not have major implications.

So I suggest you to connect the right channel out from the pre-amp Or in our case the AVR to the NAD 2400 and take the line out from it and connect it to the other channel of the same Amp ( hence using two channels one each for LF & HF). do the same thing with the left channel aswell with another 2400.

But please make sure that the interconnects that you use for amp ( one channel to another) is as short as possible to avoid any loop distrotions and other problems

Hope this solves your problem ! anything else you want just let me know

Regards.

Hi silent,
Only 1 pair of pre outs is a problem. U cannot use record out for loss of volume control.
I would not use a 1 RCA to 2 RCA. That would make this entire exercise pointless.
I guess the only option is to bridge the amps and use for each speaker and single wire ur speaker. The only problem that can arise with this is that in bridging u definately increase power and also distortion but u are also lowering an amps ability to drive low impedance loads. By that i mean if ur stereo amp can drive 4-16 ohms in bridged mode it would drive 8-16. Am pretty sure of this but i suggest u also confirm with some technical person.

Am not sure of what Soundsgreat is saying as none of my power amps has an out! The bryston i am using does not, the nad and rotels i had did not. Unless i am not understanding what he is saying.

Silent why not buy a used Nad C162? Most dealers in mumbai are stuck with a few and will happily discount. I know it has 2 pre outs (one is variable) and is a decent stereo pre and will obviously mate brilliantly with ur power amps.
Best regards.

Hi Dinyaar,

The NAD 2400 THX which is the point of disscussion here has an line and lineout (I've attached the Pic of the same) so I think this clears your doubts.

Also My NAD Multichannel Amp 906 has lineout !

with respect to your suggestion of using NAD C162 which has 1 preout with volume at the back. how can you control the volume of that ,same level as the other which is controlled from the front constantly ?

Regards.

Attached Images

	NAD 2400.jpg (18.9 KB, 43 views)
	NAD C162_rear.jpg (21.6 KB, 42 views)