Bi-amping Polk Monitor 40s

[TheBDB]

I have an Onkyo receiver that is capable of bi-amping, and some Polk Monitor 40s that are also capable. The Onkyo instructions specify which connectors are for the tweeter and woofer, but the speakers aren't labeled. Do I assume that the upper connectors are for the tweeter and lower for woofer?

 

[her209]

On my Monitor 60's I just tried one side one way and the other side the other way. Turned on the receiver. Determined which side needs to be fixed. Then fixed the backwards pair.

 

[CubanlB]

On my Polks the top is the tweeter and bottom is the woofers, so you should be right on.

 

[s44]

Giant waste of time.

 

[theorignalAMD Overclocker]

Giant waste of time.

Agreed. Bi-amping is only worth even looking into if you are trying to push way more then 1 amp can push out AND have high end equipment.

 

[alfa147x]

If his speaker supports it and his receiver supports it, why not?

 

[sdifox]

don't bother...waste of time.

 

[Soundmanred]

I wouldn't bother either, just chiming in (with experience).

 

[Tiamat]

If his speaker supports it and his receiver supports it, why not?

Passive bi-amping does little to improve the sound quality since the tweeter uses so little power compared to the woofer. Providing power to the individual drivers separately does not add much headroom at all compared to providing the same power to the drivers with the straps connecting the binding posts. It is mainly there because customers like to see 4 binding posts and wire companies make a huge profit on their cables.

As a overly simplistic example (best case scenario), 100W + 100W bi-amp allows each driver to see 100W. However, the tweeter typically only uses 10 Watts before catching fire, so that extra 90W does nothing; the Woofer uses up to ~100 Watts (assuming it can handle 100 Watts).

100W normal hook up with straps connecting the binding posts: As in the above example, the woofer receives up to ~90 Watts which gives you ~0.5dB less headroom than the bi-amp hypothetical, hardly audible especially when at the limits of the speaker.

At normal sound pressure levels, you will be lucky if the tweeter is drawing more than 3-5 Watts.

To answer the OP's question, I would assume the top binding posts correspond to the tweeter, and the bottom binding posts correspond to the woofer.

 

[s44]

The other thing is that it's very rarely the individual limit of a particular amp channel that's tested, as one can see from AVRs usually pushing more undistorted watts in 2-channel mode.

Bi-amping is great with an active crossover (as in Mark Seaton's powered speakers), but useless in most other situations.

 

[Howard]

Sounds more like biwiring than biamping.

 

[alcoholbob]

Both outputs are feeding a full spectrum signal so it's irrelevant which one you use on the tweeter and which on the woofer.

As far as passive bi-amping, I do it only for one reason--I don't like the exposed jumper straps, just like I don't like exposed wire and use banana plugs, since that stuff oxidizes when exposed. If my damn speakers didn't come with two pairs of binding posts I never would have bothered.

I believe there is a slight gain in output, but virtually irrelevant.