Aerius bi amping or bridging ?..

[Jfp]

I am not a techno geek so my question may seems naïve to some of you.
I am wondering if there is something I can do to improve my system.

I have just bought an Anthem mca 5 wich is 5 x 200w in 8 ohms and 350w in 4 ohms.
I also have an Aragon 2002- 2x 200w in 8 ohms and and 300w in 4 ohms.
All this throught an Aragon stage one processor, 2 Aerius front, one cinema center And 2 Scenarios for surround.
MY QUESTIONS
1-Is it better to use the 2002 Aragon for front and the Anthem for center and surround OR the opposite, Anthem for front and center and Aragon for the rear?

2-Would it be an option to use the Anthem to bi amp or bridge the front Aerius since the anthem Is 5 channels and I only use three?
Tanks a lot

 

[roberto]

Just, trust your ears, and choose the one that you liked most!... Happy listening.

 

[Jfp]

Hello Roberto.
Do you havé any theory about my second question?
I guess I need 2 splitter?
Ciao

 

[edwinr]

Don't waste your time bi-amping. I tried it and there's very little difference. Use the Aragon for the front and the Anthem for the rears/center.

 

[roberto]

Good advise edwinr..That's what I would do too, but what edwinr likes or my liking, you might not like it. Sound is a matter of liking. What I do like, not necessary is your liking. The only way is, trying and listening. Trust your ears, and choose the one that you liked most. Happy listening

 

[Brad225]

Jfp, I use an Aragon 2004 for my front 2 channels and an Aragon 3005 for the other channels. In my system the older 2004 sounds better than the 3005.
Though in some respects the better sounding amp might be used for the center channel since 80% of the audio comes from there. If you do much 2 channel listening then that might not work.
Try different combinations and see.

 

[Northy]

Don't waste your time bi-amping. I tried it and there's very little difference. Use the Aragon for the front and the Anthem for the rears/center.

With all due respect edwinr, I beg to differ. The difference is not night and day. However, you will appreicate the subtle differences. Generally speaking, you will have more bass control (ie. tighter, cleaner). Your highs will improve also especially on high SPLs. It is a basic electronics fact. You are providing more current (double) when you bi-amp, all things being equal. You have 2 channels that are sitting idle - so why not use them. It is not that you are going to spend money and buy a new amp. I know some people may argue with this, however, biamping has worked in my case.

If I were you, I would use the Anthem for the fronts (bi-amped) and the centre. The Aragon would do rear duty. You will achieve a more uniform sound across the front doing it this way.

As senior Roberto would say, experiment and trust your ears. You have nothing to lose.

 

[gcchifi]

^When the opportunity presents itself I always bi-amp my speakers. While it is not THAT apparent to some I do notice that details are fleshed out a bit more.

 

[Rich]

Actually, edwinr and Northy are both correct. Biamping can make a huge positive difference in the sound . . . or not so much. It just depends on the quality of amps you are using to Biamp with. For instance, you may not notice a big difference biamping with two very similar amps. But if you put a nice tube amp on the panels with a great solid state amp on the woofers, you will notice a huge difference in the quality of the sound vs. driving the speakers with a single solid state amp. In your case, I think Biamping may give you a noticeable improvement simply because 400 wpc gives you a lot more headroom than 200 wpc. That means less distortion and sharper, clearer transients.

 

[edwinr]

Actually, I should qualify my bi amping comment. I experimented with passive bi-amping my Theos with av receivers, and if there was any improvement, I couldn't hear it. This may very well have been because I was frustrated with my original problems with an under powered receiver.

After my above first post in this thread, I decided to give bi-ampng another go, so last night I bi-amped my NAD T777 - but this time using QED silver anniversary cable inserting the bare wires only into the speaker terminals (no banana plugs etc).

Now I'm not saying there was a HUGE improvement in sound, but I thought there may have been a little more control in the bass. Maybe there was a slight improvement in the soundstage. Just maybe I could hear greater dynamics. It's subtle, but definitely there.

I am thinking that slightly inadequate speaker cabling discipline may lead to problems when using higher powered amplifiers. I guess that's why some old Classe amplifiers used huge brass speaker terminals rather than the cheap and flimsy plastic binding posts so popular these days.

 

[Jfp]

Thanks for all the propositions you guy, but I still don't know how to connect my Anthem 5 channels to my Aerius.
The only thing I could think of is to use splitters between my preamp and amp...that's what the Anthem's guy told me....
Help me please!

 

[Northy]

With all due respect edwinr, I beg to differ. The difference is not night and day. However, you will appreicate the subtle differences. Generally speaking, you will have more bass control (ie. tighter, cleaner). Your highs will improve also especially on high SPLs. It is a basic electronics fact. You are providing more current (double) when you bi-amp, all things being equal. You have 2 channels that are sitting idle - so why not use them. It is not that you are going to spend money and buy a new amp. I know some people may argue with this, however, biamping has worked in my case.

If I were you, I would use the Anthem for the fronts (bi-amped) and the centre. The Aragon would do rear duty. You will achieve a more uniform sound across the front doing it this way.

As senior Roberto would say, experiment and trust your ears. You have nothing to lose.

Jfp, you should get a pair of RCA splitters. You would then split the right and left channel front outoputs of your processor. Ensure you label each cable - you should have two front rights and two front lefts. You then connect each of these splitted channels to the input of the Anthem amp. Again, label the left and righ channels. You still have two of each. These will occupay four channels on the amp. Next, you connect each input terminal of the speaker to one channel on the amp. Your left speaker will be hooked up to two left outputs of the amp. Dido for the right speaker. Make sure each terminal on the speaker is connected to a channel on the amp (red to red, + to +; black to black, - to - )or else you will damage your amp and/or speaker. Be careful with your labelling as you do not want to mix your left and right channels.

You have now passively bi-amped your front speakers. You still have one idle channel on your Anthem which I suggest you use it for your centre speaker as I mentioned in my previous reply.

So good luck and let us know what heppens.

 

[roberto]

Hola... as Northy had pointed out, polarity is very important. If you do not follow that polarity, you could have a mess and bass cancellation can happen, lost of image, lost of the size of the instruments, timbre missed match. But as I always say: Trust your ears. It is wise and very good to have amplifiers that are going to be use for this purpose, with the same input sensitivity. On the other hand, if you make a mistake regarding the connections, the sound will be horrible, but will not harm the speakers or the amplifiers. Just odd sound! Tell us your findings. Happy listening.

 

[shakham]

I would...
Use the Anthem 5 x 200W on all 5-channels.
Use the Aragon 2 x 200W to bi-amp the Aerius....aka put it on the woofers.

Do a lot of A/B testing on the two main channels....aka Aragon on woofers...Aragon on panel....no Aragon...no Anthem. Remember, you can always consider using the Aragon towards a 7.1 setup, or outright sell it.

It seems though your Anthem is better headroom than the Aragon, and also I believe it's a better brand. So you may find that the Aragon may actually make things sound worse.

 

[Jfp]

Thanks a lot Northy, Roberto and Shakham, you all are gentleman's.
Northy, your suggestion confirmed what I thought was possible.
Shakham, your suggestion seems like a good idea too!
Roberto, I will do what you say and trust my ears.

Any suggestion on what kind of splitters should I use, because there is not a lot of theeee in Montréa.

PS: Roberto, the nights are getting cooler up here, I might come In Ticoland son!

 

[dmusoke]

Also know that bi-amping on active woofer systems is meaningless for the woofer is driven by the internal amplifier and will exhibit its sound signature regardless how exotic the external amplifier may be. This would apply to speakers such as Spires, Montis, Ethos, Summit, etc...

 

[Northy]

Thanks a lot Northy, Roberto and Shakham, you all are gentleman's.
Northy, your suggestion confirmed what I thought was possible.
Shakham, your suggestion seems like a good idea too!
Roberto, I will do what you say and trust my ears.

Any suggestion on what kind of splitters should I use, because there is not a lot of theeee in Montréa.

PS: Roberto, the nights are getting cooler up here, I might come In Ticoland son!

JFP, you live in a cosmopolitain city with many great Hi-Fi shops. Do not diss Montreal. Our American forum friends may get the wrong idea.

You really do not need fancy ones. As long as they are gold-plated, you should be fine. I suggest the ones that have 15-20 cm wire attached to them. It makes the splitting in tight spots easier. I got mine from The Source (that is what Radio Shack is called in Canada since a few years ago.)

 

[roberto]

Hola. Just a little advise regarding using different brand of power amplifiers, it is wise to use an electronic crossover. With this device, you can adjust the level for the panels and the level for the woofers amp. Or, to have signal volume control at the power amp. This will allow you to have panels vs woofers level match. Another reason why it is wise too, to use the same brand of amps to drive them. Happy listening!