Fred Sanford
12-08-2007, 01:59 PM
OK, here's some of the brainstorming I've been doing. And, yes, I know there will be suggestions of, "Why don't you try them all and see what sounds best to you?", and that may be what ultimately happens. However, this is right smack in the middle of our living space, so a clear plan would be smoother all around. I'm looking to bi-amp my 4333As with some assortment of the gear I've got lying around here, and looking for opinions on which approach might be best to start with. The feed/preamp will likely be a split from the local surround processor, which I admit might become the weak link (quality-wise) in the plan.
Crossover is an old pro Ashly SC-22, no metering. Plan is to set this up & upgrade to modern ASAP. This will be put through its paces in the control room before re-wiring all this, and if it's sucking I'll put this off until I can spring for a modern crossover. It's one of those, "it was working fine when I put it in storage" things. Specs here:
SC-22, circa 1984
Stereo 2-way crossover, 12dB/octave filters,
Crossover frequency range-160Hz--8KHz,
Rolloff = 1.5dB--12dB
Input Z = 10K ohm balanced
Output Z = 50 ohm unbalanced
Max in/out level = +20dB
THD = <0.05%, @+10dBV 20-20KHz
Hum & Noise = -90dBV
Power Consumption = 5W
Amp options available:
Adcom 2535 (two of them). Current front-runners, mostly 'cause: A] they're aesthetically acceptable to be visible in the living room, and: B] I can't think of any other use for them here. Actually, the only minor aesthetic issue is that they're two different ages, so front panel layouts & labeling are slightly different. They've got four 60W amps in each, but the first two amps in each can be set to bridged. I'm figuring on setting them up as dedicated left & right amps, each with the bridged 200WPC for the 15s, and one of the remaining 60W amps powering mids/highs and one sitting idle. Not knowing too much about these particular amps, my only reservation here is that running the lows & mids/highs from a single amp seems to somewhat defeat the purpose of bi-amping (is the low amp robbing the mids/highs of some of its resources?).
Crown DC300A. Not a bad choice for the lows, I'd think, but it's fugly. Could be located in my studio's control room, which is directly below this Living Room system- interconnects & speaker cables would still be reasonably short. Easy enough to remotely power it on & off in sequence, too, but it'd be with the volume controls already up (hmmm...). This amp is currently idle, sitting as a spare in case there's call for a quick little PA system rental or loaner. I have a DC-sensing protection circuit box to run in-line after this amp, just in case.
JBL/Urei 6260. Currently slated to run the vocal/keyboard mains in my small recording/rehearsal studio (JBL TR225s), which is likely to work very well but be a bit of a waste of this amp. I'd think this would do very well for the 15s, and be high quality (if overkill) for the mids/highs. Same locating situations as mentioned for the Crown, including the power-up-&-down-while-volume-is-up thing.
Yamaha P2100 (one or two of them). I have had four of these for 20+ years now, and love them. Number One runs my control room monitors (L110s), and Number Two is set to run my small wedge monitors for drummer & singer. Number Three is idle/spare, and Number Four is slated for powering a set of L100s as playback in the studio, but that could potentially be replaced with the Crown. Upside is, I love the transparency and character of the high end with these amps. Downside, I think the ~85WPC rating is a bit low for the 15s. Can be remotely located, or possibly prettied-up enough to live locally.
...so, there you go. Any one of these amps could run the 4333As full-range and be impressive, probably, since the speakers are so efficient and sound great now on a Yamaha receiver's power (~100WPC). Any one of them could also be sold to finance a nicer crossover- that just occurred to me, too. I think writing this out has convinced me to leave the plan in place (Adcoms), but since it's already typed let's see what feedback there is out there.
#1 = Adcom & Adcom
#2 = Crown (lows) & Yamaha (highs)
#3 = dunno...
Thanks in advance,
je
Crossover is an old pro Ashly SC-22, no metering. Plan is to set this up & upgrade to modern ASAP. This will be put through its paces in the control room before re-wiring all this, and if it's sucking I'll put this off until I can spring for a modern crossover. It's one of those, "it was working fine when I put it in storage" things. Specs here:
SC-22, circa 1984
Stereo 2-way crossover, 12dB/octave filters,
Crossover frequency range-160Hz--8KHz,
Rolloff = 1.5dB--12dB
Input Z = 10K ohm balanced
Output Z = 50 ohm unbalanced
Max in/out level = +20dB
THD = <0.05%, @+10dBV 20-20KHz
Hum & Noise = -90dBV
Power Consumption = 5W
Amp options available:
Adcom 2535 (two of them). Current front-runners, mostly 'cause: A] they're aesthetically acceptable to be visible in the living room, and: B] I can't think of any other use for them here. Actually, the only minor aesthetic issue is that they're two different ages, so front panel layouts & labeling are slightly different. They've got four 60W amps in each, but the first two amps in each can be set to bridged. I'm figuring on setting them up as dedicated left & right amps, each with the bridged 200WPC for the 15s, and one of the remaining 60W amps powering mids/highs and one sitting idle. Not knowing too much about these particular amps, my only reservation here is that running the lows & mids/highs from a single amp seems to somewhat defeat the purpose of bi-amping (is the low amp robbing the mids/highs of some of its resources?).
Crown DC300A. Not a bad choice for the lows, I'd think, but it's fugly. Could be located in my studio's control room, which is directly below this Living Room system- interconnects & speaker cables would still be reasonably short. Easy enough to remotely power it on & off in sequence, too, but it'd be with the volume controls already up (hmmm...). This amp is currently idle, sitting as a spare in case there's call for a quick little PA system rental or loaner. I have a DC-sensing protection circuit box to run in-line after this amp, just in case.
JBL/Urei 6260. Currently slated to run the vocal/keyboard mains in my small recording/rehearsal studio (JBL TR225s), which is likely to work very well but be a bit of a waste of this amp. I'd think this would do very well for the 15s, and be high quality (if overkill) for the mids/highs. Same locating situations as mentioned for the Crown, including the power-up-&-down-while-volume-is-up thing.
Yamaha P2100 (one or two of them). I have had four of these for 20+ years now, and love them. Number One runs my control room monitors (L110s), and Number Two is set to run my small wedge monitors for drummer & singer. Number Three is idle/spare, and Number Four is slated for powering a set of L100s as playback in the studio, but that could potentially be replaced with the Crown. Upside is, I love the transparency and character of the high end with these amps. Downside, I think the ~85WPC rating is a bit low for the 15s. Can be remotely located, or possibly prettied-up enough to live locally.
...so, there you go. Any one of these amps could run the 4333As full-range and be impressive, probably, since the speakers are so efficient and sound great now on a Yamaha receiver's power (~100WPC). Any one of them could also be sold to finance a nicer crossover- that just occurred to me, too. I think writing this out has convinced me to leave the plan in place (Adcoms), but since it's already typed let's see what feedback there is out there.
#1 = Adcom & Adcom
#2 = Crown (lows) & Yamaha (highs)
#3 = dunno...
Thanks in advance,
je