So while I was trying to replace my $#%@ HK subwoofer, I had my rig all disassembled, and since i couldn't get the sub out, I figured I might as well do something useful. I finally rewired my DLS CA-51 for bi-amping my UP-35 speakers, set the xovers to high mid/low tweet, and the sound is about a thousand times better than when I was using the bridged channels into the full-range xover. The midbass is fantastic right now, and I love being able to balance the bass and highs using the fader on my HU.

Thanks for the tip, duder. I'd thought about going active before, but I recall some post you made a while back about a setup where you used the CA-41 to bi-amp DLS 3-way components that was what inspired me to give it a shot.

:bj


Kidding.

Anyway, Ken is a great guy, real helpful. Occasionally crosses over to the darkside and acts as Benny or I would... When's your sponsorship going through?

Happy to have helped... now I wish I could remember what I told you :)

Hahha. In a nutshell... UP-35s sound much better bi-amped than run with the stock xovers.

The DLS CA-51 (and I presume the CA-41) are both excellent amps for that kind of setup due to the built in HPF and LPF on the A/B channels and HPF on the C/D channels. Unfortunately, they're not the easiest to tune. It's really hard to pinpoint what the xover point is with those screws, but I more or less aimed for the 800 Hz that you suggested in a thread a couple months ago.

The midbass is fantastic right now, and I love being able to balance the bass and highs using the fader on my HU.

I plan to actively bi-amp my UP35s as well, but I was going to reserve the F/R fader to balance my front stage with my subs. I figured that you wouldn't benefit from changing the balance between the midbass driver and mids/tweets. Should I reconsider?

BTW-What are the crossover points of the DLS passive Xovers?

I would definitely use the F/R fade to balance the woofers with the mid/tweeter combo. In my experience, that took a lot more tuning than the sub/main speaker balance. In addition, a lot of HUs let you tweak the sub gain on the HU anyway.

Unfortunately, I don't recall the passive Xover points at the moment. I'm pretty sure they've been posted in a thread here, however. I do know that I changed them a bit in my final setup, which makes sense because I probably have a better power distribution than the stock Xover gives.

If you're going to go active and use F/R to balance woofers with mid/tweeter, give yourself a good week and some solid listening time to get the tuning right. I think once a day I would go back into the Xovers and think about changing the mid or tweeter gain, and I would change the amp gain for that channel based on how I'd rebalanced the fader that day. Eventually I got to what I consider the sweet spot for my setup.