Celestion Vintage

Categorized | Guitar Parts & Accessories

Posted on 28 October 2010. Tags: audio, bassspeaker, celestion, celestion vintage 10, celestion vintage 30, celestion vintage 30 review, celestion vintage 30 specs, celestion vintage 8, guitar, speakers

Celestion Vintage

Can I convert Celestion Ditton 44's to Bi Wire using a Bi amp?

OK so I'm no audiophile but am handy with a screwdiver and a soldering iron. I recently was given a great pair of vintage Ditton 44's and I love them. My existing system would not do them justice on higher volume so I have bought a technics HD 560 system on ebay not realing that this is a bi amp system with Bi wiring for the speakers. It sounds great on it's supplied speakers, but I want to use the Dittons. I realise it would be foolish to common up the two pairs of wires - guess this would blow something up, but can I convert the dittons by opening them up and wiring the midrange and tweeter to HF amp and the bass speakers to LF. It's probably not as simple as that as I know there are crossovers? bridges? etc. It must be obvious to an expert that I don't really know what I'm talking about so I would be very grateful for your help. Don't want to ruin either the Technics or my lovely speakers. Maybe I should give up and buy another more suitable system? Thanks

Bi-wiring doesn't really accomplish anything. Bi-amping only provides any real benefit if you put the crossover before the amplifier meaning you have to replace the speakers internal passive crossover with an active crossover placed between the preamplifier and power amplifier. As most receivers do not have preamp loops this means this can only be done if you are using separates.

If you Bi-amp without active crossovers you lose the benefit because in this configuration if you clip one amplifier you also clip the other amplifier. Both are being fed full bandwidth and the frequency separation is done in the speakers internal crossover. If you play it too loud and the bass signal begins to clip the amplifier it's clipping both amplifiers. If on the other hand you use an active crossover the frequencies are separated before the amplifiers. In that case if you start to play loud enough to clip the bass frequencies, the high frequency amplifier may still be unclipped. Typically the higher frequency isn't what gets clipped so while the woofer may be getting a clipped signal, the midrange and tweeter is not. This helps to protect them since they are the most likely to be damaged by clipped signals and it helps keep the overall sound quality better since they are the ones creating the most distortion from clipped signals. So with an active crossover before the amplifiers Bi-amping can be a big advantage but Bi-amping without the active crossover offers no real benefit at all.

Crossover design is quite complex and to do it correctly you need acoustic measurement equipment and some knowledge. You will not get optimum results by simply buying an off the shelf active crossover and putting it before the amplifiers. To do it correctly you have to make measurements then apply the appropriate EQ to each driver first making their response as flat as possible well beyond the pass band. You must time align their acoustic centers and then you apply the crossover slopes. This is the only way to get optimal results so if you don't want to make that investment you are better off just using the speakers as they are designed.

If you feel the speakers just need more power then a better option would be to add an external amplifier assuming your receiver has preamp outputs. Very high quality performance can be had for a little of nothing these days with amplifiers from Emotiva. http://emotiva.com/xpa2.shtm