Connecting the speaker to two amps

[soulforged]

I was going through some threads in another AV forum where a guy was saying he has connected his speakers to two separate amps. He uses the either amp based on the music and source...is it okay to do this???

What will happen if both the amps are switched on by mistake?
What is one amp is driving the speaker and the other is on standby? Won't that result in feedback?

 

[corElement]

You can have upto 4 amps in a stereo setup.

It is called biamping, you can have a vertical or horizontal biamping. My setup is presently biamped. though the ca azur 840a where left right speaker a and be each have seperate power sources and the remote/buttons are a seperate interface all together so its like a preamp and dual monoblocks in 1 integrated amp. It's not necessary for them to be monoblocks, can be 4 integrated stereo amps aswell.

If you turned 1 amp off, that driver will simply not emit sound.

The best type of bi amping happens when you have an active crossover feeding the preamp.

It's quite common.

 

[soulforged]

Thanks Cor but what I am talking about is more like 2 setups with 1 pair of speakers.

Say, I have a CD player and an amp connected to the speaker. I go ahead and connect a DVD player with another amp to the same speaker. When I listen to music, I switch on the CD setup and when I am watching movies, I switch on the DVD setup...

 

[corElement]

You mean two amps feeding 1 pair of binding posts???

But why would one do that? most integrated amp's have multiple inputs, you can connect cd dvd and all sorts of stuff to 1 amp.

 

[nindo]

I had asked the same question to the guys at La Kozy (dealers of NAD) in Mumbai and they said its not advisable to connect 2 amps to the same set of speakers, even when only one of them is working at one time. Dont know why.

 

[corElement]

It makes no sense to me =s

 

[anm]

don't connect two amps to the same binding post, even when one of them is off. You will blow up one or both of them. Lakozy guys are right.

 

[soulforged]

don't connect two amps to the same binding post, even when one of them is off. You will blow up one or both of them. Lakozy guys are right.

That exactly why I went WTF when I read the guys post. He said he had connected his speakers to 2 amps and so was able to do an A-B. I was like "Dude, didn't it fry your amp???"

 

[Flash]

Buy yourself one of these
Beresford DAC

or design one

 

[nitinbose]

We may simply use two heavy duty two way switches which offer proper isolation between the two amps. As long as you connect your wires firmly, there would never be any shorts. Because the switches have only two positions, there would never be a time when both the amps are feeding the signal. I've seen this type of setups in many showrooms including profx.

 

[Record Player]

I have a similar setup at home. 2 Amps connected to one set of speakers. I use a Speaker A/B Switch. No drop noticed in performance/sound quality.

Usually this is not readily available off the shelf. You can get it custom made.