It may sound like a complicated process, but with the right equipment, bi-amping your speakers is very simple indeed.
In this short guide, we’re going to describe why you should bi-amp your speakers, and describe how to do it.
Why Bi-amp Your Speakers?
Many home cinema speakers come with four sets of terminals on the back, two red, and two black with each pair of terminals supplying separate high and low-frequency signals to the correct speakers. When supplied, the speakers will usually have a ‘bridging plate’ across them so that you only have to supply one cable to the speaker. If you supply each pair of terminals with a separate cable, from a separate amplifier output, you will be ensuring that each frequency gets a dedicated and consistent signal and this should improve the sound quality.
How to Bi-amp your speakers
Firstly you need to make sure that your home cinema amplifier and speakers are capable of bi-amping. Most modern 7.1 home cinema amplifiers (such as the Onkyo TX-SR607) are suitable for Bi-amping, but check your instruction manual to make sure. If you are already using all 7.1 channels, then you will have used up all your outputs so this isn’t an option for you, but otherwise, read on.
Is it worth Bi-amping your speakers?
Like many things in audio and home cinema, the effects of improvements such as these can be very subjective. However, the physical evidence of supplying a different frequency from a different feed does stack up and we have noticed very worthwhile improvments when implementing it on sets up in the past. Because you will only bi-amp your front speakers this normally only requires a relatively short length of additional speaker cable, and the worst case is that you won’t notice an improvement – but for such a low cost upgrade, we would say it is definitely worth a go.
With the Onkyo TX-NR107, if I bi-amp the front speakers and set the amp to bi-amp, what signal is sent through to the SURR BACK PRE-OUT. If it is the SURR BACK signal, can I use the PRE-IN of another amp to send it to the rear speakers?
Thanks for any help.