I need a little help from the group. I would like to bi amp my system. I have a set of legacy signature three speakers with bi ampable terminals on the back, all I have to do is remove the jumper. I would like to run two spec 2 amps through my spec 1 preamp. I know the spec 1 has two pre outputs, but I would like to still be able to use the tone controls on the pre amp. I know how the speakers outputs from the amp are routed back into the preamp for control reasons. But is their a way to make this work? Or will I just have to use the pair of preamp outputs and run them into the amps and hook the speakers directly to the amp outputs.

To make it work completely properly, you need an external crossover to control the frequencies going to each set of speaker drivers.

Read this and you'll know what I'm talking about:
http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm#bi_wiring

Other than that, the controls on your SPEC 1 will control everything you want them to, as if you were using only one amp.

I'll be bi-amping a pair of AR-9s at the AK Fest with a pair of SPEC 2s and a SPEC 1. Army is bringing his external crossover for me to use, and I imagine, I'll be buying one of those external crossovers myself real soon.


Retro

Like Retro mentioned an external crossover will do the trick!

You will get the most power where it's needed and is a vast improvement in sound quality over passive bi-amping in my experience. I added a Behringer sold at Parts Express to drive my Infinities a while ago with my Spec 1 and twin Spec 2's I highly recommend giving it a go.

Tone control as usual with the Spec 1

This is really going to depend on your speakers. If the crossovers in your speakers have two sets of terminals and a simple flat piece of metal that connect the two positive and negative terminals then you dont "Need" a external crossover, in fact if you dont remove the crossover from inside the speaker and you use an external crossover you will end up with some odd results. IE: let's say your speaker's internal crossover has a cutoff point of 3khz for the tweeter and you set the external crossover for 2khz then you will end up with hole between 2 and 3 khz because the external crossover will feed the power amp driving the tweeter a signal with frequencies starting at 2khz and up, but the speaker's crossover will not pass anything lower than 3khz.

With all that said; an external crossover is far better since 1) you have control of the crossover points. 2) The signal fed to each amp will have the high or low frequencies removed resulting in lower intermodulation distortion 3) you can control the volume levels of the low and high frequencies. 4) every time I have done this the results were spectacular!

Again you can try this out by removing the jumpers from the speakers and hooking up your amps, but you won't be able to use the a/b speaker switch on the spec-1 anymore.

Like Retro mentioned an external crossover will do the trick!

You will get the most power where it's needed and is a vast improvement in sound quality over passive bi-amping in my experience. I added a Behringer sold at Parts Express to drive my Infinities a while ago with my Spec 1 and twin Spec 2's I highly recommend giving it a go.

Tone control as usual with the Spec 1

Which Behringer did you go with? I am considering the CX2310 but since I don't have a subwoofer can this be bypassed?

Which Behringer did you go with? I am considering the CX2310 but since I don't have a subwoofer can this be bypassed?

I went with the CX-2310 which can be used with or without a sub :thmbsp: