Biamping w/ a 5 channel amp?


Ok...if your using a HT 5 channel amp
and decide to run the fronts to the highs and the rears to the lows.
Is this biamping?

If the amp in question uses a single power supply...wouldn't this be technically biwiring? since if the lows drive the amp to clipping won't it clip the fronts also?

I hope this makes sense!

(Ps this isn't something I'm trying...my brain is just jumping through hoops tonight and I was hoping someone could set me straight!)
geoffgarcia
Great question. I think in the purist sense, an amp with its own power supply for each section of the crossover would be the ultimate goal, i.e. 4 monoblocks. Quad-amping? Next, 2 stereo amps having 1 power supply and 2 amps for each section of the speaker, then a multi-channel amp with 1 supply and 4 of its amps for both speakers. Probably have to call that one Uno-amping. Uno-amping is probably a little better than biwiring, like Spinal Taps, "this one goes to eleven", "it's one louder!"
its a theoretical question...
not something I would be doing.

I'm not sure what you mean about how I would use the interconnects...I'm not savy on higher end HT. I currently use a 5 channel receiver that has equal output per channel and assume I would simply run a cdp or other source to the receive, run the receiver in equal output 5 channel mode (not any surround type) and that would be it...
Geoffgarcia,

I'd say yes, technically speaking you are biamping. There should be no delays in each channel due to surround modes, as you mention. This is not something I would recommend you do. Each power amp channel would be amplifying the whole audio frequency which can tax your power supply and is a waste because your speaker crossover will filter out the signal portion that the individual driver can not produce.

In an optimal bi-amp configuration you would take your line level signal from a preamp output and run it through a crossover that splits the signal into two, low and high frequency. Those would then be fed into individual power amp channels for amplification to speaker level, then fed into the separate low and high frequency speaker connections. This makes your amplifier work less since each channel is only amplifying a portion of the whole signal.

Bi-amping can produce awesome results but it requires knowledge about your speaker crossover points and the ability to balance the signals fed to each speaker driver. Done badly, you can ruin the sound you have now.