How to bi-amplify your front left/right speakers: XR 4/6/8 receivers

How to bi-amplify your front left/right speakers: XR 4/6/8 receivers

The AudioControl XR4, XR6 and XR8 home theater receivers allow you to assign internal amplifier channels 6 and 7 to power either Surround Back, Front Height, or Zone 2 speakers or you can choose to bi-amplify your Front left and right speakers.

To bi-amplify your speakers they must have dual binding posts like in the image below:



When you remove the copper jumpers between the two sets of binding posts you are able to connect two amplifiers or, multiple amplifier channels in a receiver to the speaker. When bi-amplifying a speaker you are typically powering the tweeter/midrange drivers and the woofer driver(s) separately but you should check with the manufacturer of your speakers to clarify how their speakers are wired internally for bi-amplification.

When bi-amplifying a speaker the XR4, XR6 and XR8 receivers will output their rated power output to each section of the speaker. See each receivers product page on the AudioControl website for the power specifications. The XR series receivers are stable to 4 ohms so your speakers impedance should not be less than 4 ohms.

Follow these steps to setup your XR series receiver to bi-amplify your Front left and right speakers:

Using the front panel navigation buttons press the Menu button > select Speaker Types > scroll down to Use Channels 6 & 7 and set to Bi-Amp L+R. You will notice that changing this setting will also change the Surround Back L/R speaker type to None.



SPEAKER CONNECTIONS: Remember to remove the copper jumpers going between the two pairs of binding posts on the speaker before you make any connections. You will be connecting your front left and right speakers to the Front left/right and Channel 6/7 left/right speaker outputs. Channels 6/7 are labeled Zone 2 / Height 1 / Surr Back – there was not enough space on the panel to also list Bi-Amp L+R.

Using the Front left speaker as an example, connect the Front left output of the receiver to the top set of binding posts on your left speaker to power the tweeter/midrange section and connect the channel 6/7 left output to the bottom binding posts on the left speaker to power the woofer section. Repeat for the right speaker using the set of right outputs and remember to keep your +/- polarity in order when making the connections.



NOTE: if you want to bi-amplify your Front left/right speakers when you are using a Maestro X7 or X9 preamp/processor the Speaker Types setup for channels 6/7 is the same as mentioned above but you would be using the Front left/right and SBL/SBR (surround back) RCA or XLR pre-outputs to send signal to multi-channel amplifiers.

RELATED LINKS:



If you need additional assistance our Customer Service and Technical Support representatives are available Monday thru Friday 8am to 5pm PST. 425-775-8461.