Hello, I have a 950 and a gaggle of m200's. I want to try some new L/R front speakers that require BiAmping. How do I split the front channels into 2 channels each? The speakers have the crossovers so all I need is a full signal the the woofer side and the same to the tweeter side of each speaker. Will a simple y-interconnect work between the 950's output and the 2 x m200's inputs? Thanks soo much. I am sill fairly new to any kind of Hi-End audio.

As far as I know you just need, for example a y adapter for the 950 output. Lets say it's connected left channel output. Then you have two interconnects going to two M200s. One of those M200s goes the high crossover binding posts, the other M200 goes to the low crossover binding posts.

I have never actually biamped, but that is my understanding.

Technically speaking, since your speakers have internal crossovers, they don't require bi-amping. The very simplest thing to do is to wire the Low Frequency and High Frequency terminals together (LF- to HF-, LF+ to HF+).

[EDIT: This is usually true, but not this time -- these speakers don't contain ALL of the things usually found in a crossover. Moral: Read the manual, and take anything some yahoo like me says on the internet with a grain of salt!]

However, if you've already got the M200s to spare, you can drive LF with one and HF with the other. Just put a Y on the 950 output and run the same signal to the input of each M200. This is "passive bi-amping" since you retain the passive crossover in the speaker.

You may want to consider trying "active bi-amping," which is the same except the speaker crossovers are removed, and an electronic crossover placed between the 950 and the M200s.

My experience -- this year, I altered my speakers to try passive bi-amping, then altered them again to try active bi-amping. I used the two spare channels of my 7100 amp. Passive bi-amping was almost identical to mono-amping for me, and I doubt I could tell the difference in any realistic listening scenario. Active bi-amping, on the other hand, made a dramatic difference; well worth the effort. Of course, your mileage and opinions may vary.

Active bi-amping is generally considered to offer the best pay-off, but it requires some tech know-how - you need to replace the crossovers (which were specifically designed by the manufacturer for that particular speaker) with an equally effective crossover, then open the speaker and bypass those original crossovers. Passive bi-amping (splitting the pre-amp output with a y-adapter and using two amps to drive one speaker) is easier to do and effectively creates a single amp with a power output equal to the two amps added together (although that may not be entirely true, depending on the amps and speakers). With M200's (which already give you a healthy amount of power), passive bi-amping may not yield much more than either bi-wiring or using jumpers at the binding posts.

What speakers are you looking to get?

More info: I am trying out the Speakercraft Starlet 6's. It says it needs 2 amplifiers and has 2 inputs on different ends of the speaker,one named tweeters for the 6 ribbon tweeters and one named woofers for the 6 woofers.I hope this helps.

This does help - we are dealing here with an unusual speaker . It does indicate that separate amps are required for the ribbons and the cones, which makes me suspect that there may be a reason why bi-wiring or jumpering may not work in this case. The y-adapter split on the let and right pre-amp outputs would work fine for this. My only concern is about the mention of requiring gain adjustment on the amp channels (something that, if they are referring to the same thing I'm thinking of, I don't recall the M200 having).

Rats, I think you are correct gonk. So, now I need to look for an inexpensive pair of stereo amps with seperate gain ctrl's or a 4 channel of similar specs, before I can even try these out. Thanks for catching that. I will return with an update after the above acquisition!!!

HELLO again, any ideas on what amp(s) might have gain adjustments on them. My m200's were such a deal but it appears they just won't work here.

I wonder if the M200's might work for half of the task (possibly for the cones), with a separate amp (maybe a stereo amp) with gain adjustment to drive the ribbons? My old Parasound amp had gain adjustments on it, but I don't know if their current line-up does.

Hmm, those are interesting speakers... Oddly, the similar but smaller Starlet 4 doesn't need separate amps. I'm guessing the big ribbons on the Starlet 6 simply make a difficult load, impedance-wise, and most amps can't handle them plus the woofers at once. I have a feeling that an M200 might be tough enough, but not sure.

Usually the internal crossover deals with level-matching between tweets and woofs. Sometimes it's selectable for personal taste, but requiring amps to do so is unusual.

You might take a look at pro amps. QSC is one such that provides amps with variable gain controls. I'm sure there's others.

In my system, the active crossover (a Behringer DCX2496) also provides selectable level matching, among other things.

There are ways to do it. Cool speakers!

The Starlet 4 power requirements state 2x75 watts per speaker, so the 4's may need just as many channels of amplification as the 6's. But then text in the SCT-1.0 test kit description states that the 6's and 9's have separate inputs while not mentioning the 4's. Is the 2x75 watts per speaker requirement mentioned on the site for the 4's an error?

While sloane states that there are [passive] crossovers, the SpeakerCraft site doesn't mention whether or not the Starlets would require active crossovers ahead of the amplification, as the Rogues seem to, or whether both the woofers and the tweeters can be fed full-range but separate signals that may or may not be passively filtered. Assuming that there are existing crossover filters separately for the cones and ribbons in the Starlets, apparently level-matching attenuation was not a part of the design.

I would say that SpeakerCraft needs to do a slightly better job of representing their information - the site doesn't seem to consider the the tech-minded reader.

When one uses an active crossover and connects directly to a driver without passive filtering, level-matching must be accomplished somewhere, either as an adjustment at the crossover or at the amplifier. When bi-amping without the active crossover and without attenuation in the passive crossovers, level-matching would be needed at the amplifier or a separately introduced volume control device.

More information -- found the manual for these speakers online (PDF file). Apparently the Starlet 6 needs to be calibrated so that for 1.75 V at the ribbon terminals, there is 0.5 V at the woofers. This information is at the bottom of Page 11. The smaller Starlet 4 doesn't require any difference in levels. The Starlet 9 has a different level change.

I guess that's typical of ribbons. The woofers are actually more sensitive than the tweeters. Maybe they didn't want to pad the woofers by putting series resistance in the crossover? (Or a ploy to get you to buy their amps? {grin})

Anyway, this is solvable. If I did the math right, this works out to about 5.4 dB of attenuation at the woofers relative to the tweeters. Some amps will let you do this. You might want to call SpeakerCraft and ask them what amps (in addition to their own) they recommend for use with these speakers. While you're at it, ask them what the crossover points, types, and slopes are.

If I was in your shoes, I'd probably go with the Outlaw M200s, and build two voltage dividers to put at the inputs. I'd need four female RCA jacks, two more interconnects, and I'd probably pick a pair of 1.2kOhm and a pair of 470 Ohm resistors. I'd then wire 950 -> voltage divider -> M200 -> woofer terminals. This voltage divider would ONLY work with these speakers. If you're not comfortable doing this, then you should probably stick to one of the other options.

Whatever you decide, please let us know how they sound. I'd be interested to find out.

Well guys, I am giving up. This all too complicated and expensive for me. Temporarily unemployed secondary to throat cancer (cured with radiation,but bad insurance means big bills) so, anybody interested in a New set of Starlet Sixes. I have only opened the one box to look at one of them. My loss, your gain. I'll be advertising them on Audogon and Videogon first.