Biamping AR-2ax's

[Guest]

Can somebody help me concerning biamping AR-2ax's? I need to know how to hook the speaker cables to the back of each speaker. Since there are three terminals on the speaker's back and four speaker cable plugs, I'm not sure how to connect them maintaining proper polarity.

[tysontom]

>Can somebody help me concerning biamping AR-2ax's? I need to

>know how to hook the speaker cables to the back of each

>speaker. Since there are three terminals on the speaker's back

>and four speaker cable plugs, I'm not sure how to connect them

>maintaining proper polarity.

You can bi-amp an AR-2ax, but you need to power through the crossover. The woofer is basically connected to Terminal "1" (negative side) and Terminal "2" (positive side). The midrange/tweeter are connected through "1" and "2" also, with the "T" strapped to "2." This strap was put there to enable woofer-only operation, which was quite common in the 50s and 60s when someone wanted the power and low distortion in an AR woofer system.

To bi-amp this speaker, and you do *not* want to use a common ground, you would need to go inside the cabinet and take the blue wire from the woofer, on the other side of the coil, and connect that to the negative side of the woofer amp. The red wire, positive side of the woofer, would be connected to the positive terminal on the woofer amplifier.

For the midrange and tweeter, you would take the negative wire (after it goes through the 16-ohm level control unless you bypass it) and the 6 mfd. capacitor, and the *positive* or white wire off the tweeter, and beyond the 4 mfd. capacitor, tie these two wires into the negative side of the high-frequency amplifier. The black wire, or negative side of the tweeter, and the green wire (positive) on the midrange would then connect to the positive side of the high-frequency amplifier. If this sounds confusing, remember that the mirdange and tweeter polarity are reversed -- a whole different topic. After all the smoke settles, leave them reversed if you want the smoothest response.

If you are going to use a common ground (most likely not), you can avoid going into the cabinet, and remove the jumper on "2" and "T" and use the "1" terminal as the common ground for both amplifiers.

[Guest dogmeninreno]

The AR2ax has 3 terminals marked 1,2 and T.

The factory jumper is installed between 2 and T.

Remove the factory jumper and connect the positive lead,

( red on the amplifiers speaker output terminals)

for the woofer to AR terminals 1 (negative) and 2 (positive).

Next connect the upper range outputs from your amps to the terminals T (positive) and 1 (negative) on the AR2ax.

I believe this is the proper way to bi-amp the AR'2axs.

You can also refer to the "classic speaker" page on this website for info on bi-amping the AR90's.

In summary, 1 is common negative for the mid and tweeters, 2 is positive for the woofer and T is positive for the tweeter. Good luck!! Dale....

[Guest dogmeninreno]

Tom has a lot more experience than I in bi-amping, I would follow his instructions. I guess our reply's crossed at abour the same time. Thanks Tom for clarifing. Common grounds are a necessity in electrical control and switchgear for ground loop problems. I guess there are other considerations in audio? Thanks Tom, Dale

[tysontom]

>Tom has a lot more experience than I in bi-amping, I would

>follow his instructions. I guess our reply's crossed at abour

>the same time. Thanks Tom for clarifing. Common grounds are a

>necessity in electrical control and switchgear for ground loop

>problems. I guess there are other considerations in audio?

>Thanks Tom, Dale

Hello Dale,

I don't know what would be wrong with using a common ground, of course, except that in some amplifiers (if you were to use the left and right channel of a stereo amplifier, for example, to biamp one speaker) the grounds are floating, I believe, and those manufacturers recommend against connecting the grounds together. I can't give specifics, but I think some Crown amplifiers, among others, were designed this way. I encountered this issue in wiring speaker-selector switches in one of my earlier, multi-room speaker wiring schemes. I ended up having to wire separate grounds for each channel.

On the other hand, the AR amp -- and probably most power amplifiers -- had the grounds tied together, so using the ground terminal as common would be fine here.

--Tom Tyson

[Guest dogmeninreno]

>>Tom has a lot more experience than I in bi-amping, I would

>>follow his instructions. I guess our reply's crossed at

>abour

>>the same time. Thanks Tom for clarifing. Common grounds are

>a

>>necessity in electrical control and switchgear for ground

>loop

>>problems. I guess there are other considerations in audio?

>>Thanks Tom, Dale

>

>Hello Dale,

>

>I don't know what would be wrong with using a common ground,

>of course, except that in some amplifiers (if you were to use

>the left and right channel of a stereo amplifier, for example,

>to biamp one speaker) the grounds are floating, I believe, and

>those manufacturers recommend against connecting the grounds

>together. I can't give specifics, but I think some Crown

>amplifiers, among others, were designed this way. I

>encountered this issue in wiring speaker-selector switches in

>one of my earlier, multi-room speaker wiring schemes. I ended

>up having to wire separate grounds for each channel.

>

>On the other hand, the AR amp -- and probably most power

>amplifiers -- had the grounds tied together, so using the

>ground terminal as common would be fine here.

>

>--Tom Tyson

[Guest dogmeninreno]

Hey Tom, Great to be on Mark's forum and hearing from you!! Most of my biamping was done with Phase Linear amps a long time ago when I knew Bob Carver from Lynwood Wa. I agree that we are safe in saying not to common the negatives. No arguments there. The Phase Linear as I recall had common grounds on board but I am not to familiar with most of the others. Thanks Tom, Dale

[Guest Nigel]

I used a Hitachi (or was it Toshiba?) stero power amp at work awhile back. It inverted one channel (lets call it so that on channel A the black was hot, and the red ground; and on channel B the black was ground and red hot. It was very clear in the owners manual about this. It was done so that you could use it as a mono amp with no other changes - just go hot to hot.

Nigel