If one purchases a second , identical amplifier in order to bi amp his Klipschorn speakers,
Does the second amplifier require a second pre amplifier ?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bendable:
If one purchases a second , identical amplifier in order to bi amp his Klipschorn speakers,
Does the second amplifier require a second pre amplifier ?[/QUOTE

Nope. Does not. Klipschorns sound really nice with good tube amps, by the way.

Why would one buy an identical amp to biamp a pair of Klipschorns? The low frequency drivers require much more power than the mid and high range drivers to achieve the same SPL. Of course, one would have to bypass part of the crossovers and use an active crossover. You would have to bypass the low to mid part of the crossover while still using the mid to high portion.

Klipschorns are very efficient speakers. I believe anything above 50 watts into them will be concert level loud. Why would you not just get a single very nice 2 channel 100Watt/channel Amp for them?

Yes, horn speakers are very efficient.

What kind of bi-amping are you planning to do?

I used a pair of stereo amps in bridged mono at one time. The preamp before the amps was sufficient for both channels. I think there was a slight level difference I had to adjust though.

You can run bi-amp or "buy amp" which we used to call using a second amp as a L-R pair vs. stereo hi-lo split. Also, depending on the amp, as has been mentioned...bridging them to mono and running one for left and one for right works too. Bridging an amp is generally more power but lowers headroom so can be a bit less dynamic

^^^

Right, but using the two channels in one amp to separately power the tweeter and woofer doesn't really accomplish anything. It doesn't deliver any more power than using the amp as a monoblock and letting the internal crossover in the speaker do the work.

Running an amp in L R mode for the tweeters and an amp in L R mode for the woofers is even worse, because the woofers need much more power than the tweeters.

Now, with an active crossover before the amps and sizing the amps to the speaker's ranges and power needs, you can improve things, and this what you do in pro audio. But it's very rare in consumer electronics except internally self powered bi-amped speakers, or powered subwoofers.

I bi-amp my little Klipsch RP-600Ms with my Rotel RA-1572 integrated amp and my Adcom GFA-555 amplifier. The Rotel directly powers the treble, and with the pre-out from the Rotel to the Adcom, the Adcom powers the bass.

The Rotel is rated at 120 and my Adcom is rated at 200. The Rotel also has a sub-out, which goes to my Velodyne 18" self-power sub.

So, it depends on what your system is capable of. The Rotel isn't special in having ins and outs options, but it more than fulfills my needs.

Just use a Y-adapter (splitter cable) on your existing preamplifiers outputs.

I used to vertically biamp my speakers with 2 stereo amps but there was not really any improvement over 1 amp as power was sufficient anyway. It was just nice having a separat amp for each speaker.

Now I have 2 beautiful vintage Threshold monos, hand crafted in the US, which I really enjoy.

What kind of bi-amping are you planning to do?

One set of wires from Amp A too the L and R posts on the speaker back.
( Mid and high)
Then
Another set of L and R on the B. Amp too the other two posts on the other two posts on the speakers for the bass.

That's based on information from the internet.

There's two ways:

One amp for L/R tweeters
One amp for L/R woofers

OR:

One amp for Left tweeter and bass (Amp 1 - Lchan to tweeter, Rchan to bass, or vice versa)
One amp for Right tweeter and bass(Amp 2 - Lchan to tweeter, Rchan to bass, or vice versa)

If using two identical amps, scenario two is better because it allows each amp to handle only one high demand woofer and one low demand tweeter.

Scenario one puts both high demand woofers on on amp, a both low demand tweeters on the other. Also, you need to match gain and level of the two amps to get the relative volume of the treble and bass balanced

There is not much evidence that passive bi-amping improves sound quality. Generally, more power is better, so a bigger amp or bridging an amp to mono is probably better than bi-amping.

Active bi-amping - using an active crossover and sending treble through one amp to the tweeters, and bass through another amp to the woofers does affect things. But then you have to do all kinds of level matching and setting the crossovers to the right range for the individual speaker drivers. This is more common in pro sound because you need BIG amps for concert level bass and not as big amps for the treble.

Most of the time, bi-amping is a flex for high end stuff like back when I used to sell McIntosh, Krell, Mark Levinson, B&W etc. Two amps on stands in the middle with a pair of stupid expensive speakers to the side...symmetrical look was big for many years and it was as much about appearance as the sound. Now, with the B&W Nautilus, it used an active crossover so you needed four amps to run them.