Monitor Audio RX 6 setup and review

Do you bypass internal crossover of the speakers in the method that you have used for bi-amping?

Somewhere I read that to realize real benefits of Biamping, you need to use active crossovers and bypass the internal passive crossover of the speaker (for that one needs to open up the speaker and physically disconnect the internal XO). The benefit of this bi ampming is that there is nothing between the speaker and amp except the cable and the amp has excellent control over driver movement.

So the chain is Source>>Active XO>>> 2 separate stereo amps >> one amp drives tweeter and the other drives woofer without internal crosover in circuit.

Biamping is very much possible with an AVR which has 5.1 or 7.1 analogue ins. From active XO, the mid/woofer output goes to front channel input of AVR and the tweeter output goes to rear channel input of AVR. The mid/woofer terminal of the speaker is connected to front speaker output and tweeter connected to rear channel output of AVR but even for this, one needs to remove the speaker's internal crossover from the chain.

If active crossover is not used and if the passive crossover is not bypassed then it was called as pseudo biamping in that article in the sense that there are two separate amplifers are used but the benefit is limited just to control the volume of tweeter and mid/woofer separately.

Of course this is just theoretical>
Whatever method/manouvre gives you better sound is good for you.
I don't think that one needs to open speaker cabinet to disconnect crossover. If that was the case the warranty will be void and setup would be possible only for those who are comfortable opening and tweaking the speakers assembly. Disonnecting the interconnect should break the crossover chain. As the high and mid/low driver are seperated. . Separate amping and cable does make a difference in sound for me.
 
And i think audessey xt should take care of active crossover. I am yet to recalibarate as i have sold my center channel speaker, purchased monitor audio rs center and waiting for that to be delivered. Will update more....
 
And i think audessey xt should take care of active crossover. I am yet to recalibarate as i have sold my center channel speaker, purchased monitor audio rs center and waiting for that to be delivered. Will update more....

Monitor audio RX6 is a superb speaker.I am sure you are getting the sound of your dream. You are absolutely correct that opening speakr will void waranty and may not be worth it for such a well designed speaker.

What follows is just a theoretical discussion for the sake of it because there seem to be some guys who want to know about bi amping and the topic has come up in discussion

1) Just by removing the jumper betweenspeaker binding posts, one does not bypass internal crossover. What one achieves this way is feeding the high pass and low pass sections of the internal crossover separately.

because unless one choose crossover frequency of around 2kHZ (i don't know whether it is possible or no on the AVR), one would have blow the tweeter if the high pass filter is not intervening.

Bi amping is done when the speaker is just 2 way : a high frequency section. and a low frequency section. Monitor audio RX6 seems to be something different.


RX6 | Silver RX | Monitor Audio

Seems that it has a 3 way crossover with XO points at 700 Hz (between bass and mid) and 2.7khz (between mid and tweeter) . Looking at the ports, it seems that the speaker is internally divided into 2 compartments, the bass driver is in one compartment with front firing port while the mid and twwe are in upper compartment with rear firing port (this is just my guess. I could not find a cross section of speaker to confirm it) Still there are only 2 pairs of binding posts at base.

What it implies is that the way OP has biamped it, the front chanel of AVR are driving the bass driver through low pass filter and the rears driving mid+tweet (or vice versa).

To use active crossover properly this speaker will need 'TRI-AMPING' and not biamping.

Source >>3 way crossover: Set the lower crossover point at 700 Hz and higher XO point at 2.7KHZ>>> 3 stereo amps.

One stereo amp will drive just the woofers, the second just the mid-bass and third stereo amp will drive just the tweeters. Then one may change crossover points using the active XO and experiement a bit to get a sound of ones liking. Changing crossover frequency is as simple as turning a knob on the active XO.

Here is how an active crossover looks like

http://www.nx-audio.com/images/pro345_productpage_folder/pro345.jpg

This is a 3 way XO.


For doing all this, the speaker box needs to be opened up , the passive crossovers physically disconnected and then connecting three drivers to appropriate stereo amplifier. It results in a lot of cables around . Whether it is worth it? At least I will not attempt it if I buy such an expensive speaker. However, active XOs, biamping and triamping is very commonly used in pro audio as it has a lot of benefits the most important being
1) Absence of bad effects of passive XO components on the amplifier.
2) better control of amplifier on speakers due to absence of phase difference (I am still in process of understanding this).
3) Less distortion.
4) much easier control on crossover points.

Hope this helps to few people who are planning bi amping.
 
Thanks for the useful information.
however please note the
passive corssover is still in place for low/mid range drivers and high range drivers. if one bi amps and feeds signals to two different paths one for low frequencies and second for mid to high frequency . I do not see any issue in this setup
Front speakers >> Active corssover > driving low drivers
Rear speakers >> active corssover(to cut low frequency) >> speakers passive crossover ( to dsitrbute mid-low and high ) >> mid woofer and tweeters.
would not this result in better sound in comparison to the case where sepakers internal passive corssover is distributing between all frequencies with just one amp channel source ?

I am certainly not an expert in this but even my (Alpine/JBL)car audio amp is setup like this. active crossover from amp for low range sealed woofer enclosure and active crossover from amp for mid/high channels and then I use passive corssovers for midrange drivers and tweeters.
would it not be good to use two separate amp channel one to drive low drivers and one to drive mid/low instead of one driving all and passive crossover to distribute?
 
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There are some important ill effects which the passive crossover has on sound as well as on the amp. Will provide a link as I am unable to describe it properly.However, despite knowing the advantages of active crossover,I am not using active XO and biamping myself because I find it too tedious to work with and I am still sticking to passive crossover in my own speakers . I have simplified the things to cretain extent in my speakres where the full ranger does not have any cross over and my tweeter justhas first order high pass filter. As I said , don't worry much as long as you are getting the sound of your liking. I described whole thing just because few forum members seemed to be interested in knowing about bi amping.
 
There are some important ill effects which the passive crossover has on sound as well as on the amp. Will provide a link as I am unable to describe it properly.However, despite knowing the advantages of active crossover,I am not using active XO and biamping myself because I find it too tedious to work with and I am still sticking to passive crossover in my own speakers . I have simplified the things to cretain extent in my speakres where the full ranger does not have any cross over and my tweeter justhas first order high pass filter. As I said , don't worry much as long as you are getting the sound of your liking. I described whole thing just because few forum members seemed to be interested in knowing about bi amping.

Agreed .. but I am still confused becuase you say that passive crossover has illeffect and still you do not prefer two separate channel (bi amping) with active XO? opinions seems to be distributed on whether bi-amping improves the sound or not. for me the difference exists in sound with my current setup and it should be even more for those who have speakers with more power with less powerful receiver( 150+ speaker with 100 watt receiver/amp).
I would suggest anyone who has spare channels in their amp ( say 7.1 receiver) to borrow/buy the spare cables, check the sound by trying bi-amping and decide by their ears ..
 
Agreed .. but I am still confused becuase you say that passive crossover has illeffect and still you do not prefer two separate channel (bi amping) with active XO? opinions seems to be distributed on whether bi-amping improves the sound or not. for me the difference exists in sound with my current setup and it should be even more for those who have speakers with more power with less powerful receiver( 150+ speaker with 100 watt receiver/amp).
I would suggest anyone who has spare channels in their amp ( say 7.1 receiver) to borrow/buy the spare cables, check the sound by trying bi-amping and decide by their ears ..

Yes! Active crossover has many advantages over passive , the only disadvantages of active being, need of more no. of amplifiers, cables and higher cost.
That is why I am still on passive. However, I have recently acquired another stereo amp and will decide soon whether to go active or no.

Have a look at the following links

Active Crossover vs Passive Crossover / Open Baffle vs Direct Radiator Closed Box

Tips: Biwiring And Biamping - Axiom Audio

The Difference Between Biamping vs. Biwiring — Reviews and News from Audioholics

BiAmp (Bi-Amplification - Not Quite Magic, But Close) - Part 1

Bi-Amping: Pleasure or Pain?


Please bear in mind that all this is theoretical discussion for sharing knowledge. Whatever arrangement gives you best sound is best of you regardless of whether it is bi wiring or bi amping or neither of it. :)
 
Yes! Active crossover has many advantages over passive , the only disadvantages of active being, need of more no. of amplifiers, cables and higher cost.
That is why I am still on passive. However, I have recently acquired another stereo amp and will decide soon whether to go active or no.

Have a look at the following links

Active Crossover vs Passive Crossover / Open Baffle vs Direct Radiator Closed Box

Tips: Biwiring And Biamping - Axiom Audio

The Difference Between Biamping vs. Biwiring — Reviews and News from Audioholics

BiAmp (Bi-Amplification - Not Quite Magic, But Close) - Part 1

Bi-Amping: Pleasure or Pain?


Please bear in mind that all this is theoretical discussion for sharing knowledge. Whatever arrangement gives you best sound is best of you regardless of whether it is bi wiring or bi amping or neither of it. :)

if major audio companies who have all the money and time to research have included bi-amping in their products and marketting there must be something to offer in sound. there was a query on how to use bi-amping and if that resulted in sound improvement for me. shared the video on how to bi-amp and replied that it resulted in sound improvement (for me offcourse). your first post suggested that the setup was wrong and theoretically tri-amping is requireed. agreed that tri amping will be better if there is true three way speaker system with separate connections , however theoritically bi-amping with active crossover should provide better output as two separate channels and interconnects are ussed thank a single cable and single channel with passive crossover .
it is simple.. try both with or without bi-amping in the similar setup and source and let your ear decide.. after all it is your music and taste
do let us know if the additional amp imrpoved the sound for you..

Cheers!
 
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I had tried to use my yamaha AVR that way. The issue was that the active low pass filter in AVR used to feed signals to LFE out: So I needed another amp which I did not have that time (about 4 years back). Later I sold AVR and got stereo amp.
So i don't have active crossover as such right now.
In fact before I take plunge, I want to get some insights from a person who is doing bi amping with active crossover. When I read that you are biamping, I thought you opened speakers . Then I read about RX6 and then I understood that it is a 3 way speaker and more complicated than I thought.

There are many hurdles for me, the main one being that all professional active XOs have balanced (XLR) connectors and our home audio has RCAs. To get cables having XLR at one end and RCA at other is a headache and is costly. Will let you know if I find some good solution.
 
I thought why not ask the manufactures directly who have the experts in technology and know their product like no one else. Hence I wrote to marantz and monitor audio both about if i should use biamp. And below is the reply from monitor audio technical support department.

Hi Vikas

Bi-Amping the RX6s will "open up" the speakers and you will fill the benefit when listening to music

The Marantz 5006 should fully support this facility

Regards

Technical Services Department


Waiting for marantz to respond..
 
since we're on the topic - i have a pair of ma rs6 powered by the nad c272. it has A and B. im currently using only A. can i bi-amp using B as well? will it have an audible difference
 
In fact why don't you try and let us know. You are in the best position for that.

as I posted the reply of monitor audio technical support, they feel it should result in a difference for audio. marantz manaual also states that and awaiting reply from marantz technical support about crossover
try and let us know if you feel any difference.
 
the reason i ask is (and correct me if im wrong), when using both A + B in the nad, the output power gets split to 75w per channel from 150w. anyway will try it out. didnt try it out so far because i didnt want to cut my speaker wire into 2:)
 
So NAD also has provision for biamping so has denon marantz and other manufacturers. They will not waste time and money if biamping was not useful. However one need to check with his own setup if separate amplification improves the sound or make it brighter or there is no change. See if it is possible for You to borrow a pair of cable from your friend /dealer and check
 
Here is the reply from marantz

Response NJ Customer Service & Support via Email

Hi Vikas,

The receiver does indeed have a crossover in it. If you want to bi amp the receiver you will set the receiver to C Speaker in the amp assign menu and then connect the speakers accordingly to the front and surround back terminals.

Thank you,

Technical Support/Custom Install D&M Holdings
 
vkhandelwal: How is the combination of RS6 center and RX6 for movies is performing? Pls let me know as I am thinking of same combination for HT . Thanks
 
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