Planar Speaker Asylum

RE: I'll have a go at explaining.

86.166.117.22

This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: I'll have a go at explaining. posted by Davy on August 10, 2010 at 04:16:52

Here another explanatnion of the same thing I just wrote explaining more how to hook it up, - let us know if you get it.

So yeah if you want to passively biamp these speakers, - here is exactly what you have to do (hook up wise)

From the preamp, the signal is split into two. The first branch does into the power amp used for the bass panel. You connect the speaker cables coming out of that power amp into the wodden sides external crossover box you have, and then the "bass" OUTPUT leaving that wooden box goes into the bass panel terminals on the speaker. The other output of the wooden box that goes to the mid/tweeter seciton is totally unused. This is the SAME thing as you are doing now. NO CHANGE for the bass side.

This is where it gets different

The other output from the preamp is fed to the other power amp used for the mid/treble, but BETWEEN the PREAMP and the POWER AMP on this branch of the signal you need to insert a line level capacitor (solder one into an interconnect I guess) which will filter the signal of bass feqnecuies before it reaches that particular power amp. Then you run the speaker cable from that power amp into the mid/treble input directly on the speaker.

The alternative to this is to use an active crossover in between the preamp and power amps and achieve active biamping. This would be a massive improvemtn but to get started using the cap or the XO-1 is the only way for you to biamp these speakers.

The major advantage of using the active crossover is not to do with the part thats for the mid/treble seciton, - it gives you a huge advantage in the bass section of things. You can send a signal cut of high freqnecies at line level (from the active crossover) to the power amp for the bass panel as well, and then hook up that power amp directly into the bass panel terminals on the speaker, totally bypassing the external wodden crossover box and all the power /current sapping components in it. Hopefully you can see this will give a massive improvement in the drive of the bass panel.

This is the best option by far, - take away that nasty wodden external crossover box and use an active crossover at line level instead. You can use the active crossover (between preamp and the power amps) to do the filtering at line level for both the bass panel and the initial imnportant bass cut filtering for the mid/treble branch OR (and especially if you get a cheap active crossover like the Behringer) you can insetad use the active crossover on the bass side only. That is put the active crossover in between the preamp and the power amp used for the bass section ONLY. On the other side, between preamp and the other power amp (the one for the mid/treble) you can use the same line level capacitor you would use for passive biamping as I explained before. The latter option is potentially going to give you a purer/better sounding signal into the mid/tweeter power amp, and is a very good option to use if the active crossover you are using is a cheapie. As long as your preamp can supply enough active signal this will be fine.

Again I hope I have not confused you more!, - and I hope I have explained sifficitenly the advanatges of going active and you understand now how relatively easy it is to do from where you are now!

Cheers,
Colin

Follow Ups: