Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Rotel RB-960BX for M80 - enough power?

When i finally move out into my own place, i will be getting the M80s as my large floorstanders.

I'm currently using 2x Rotel RB-960BXs (60wpc, total of 120 W per speaker) for bi-amp on my Monitor Audio Bronze B4s. Wondering if the same amps will have enough juice for the M80? Rotels make pretty decent amps with good amp power supplies (this has a dual mono with 2 transformers in each chassis) and nice headroom and all, but the bass is not the most well controlled with the Bronze's 6 ohm load.

So i'm wondering if they will be able to exercise the full potential of the M80s with the 4 0hm load?

Comments appreciated!!

I don't think that biamping the two amps provides double the power...

I agree with David, but the amps should provide sufficient power, as long as you're not pushing to high levels in a large space (eg, past 100dB.)

i have 2 stereo amps, each is 60wpc, total 4 channels of 60w each. I'm using 1 amp for each speaker, 1 channel for mid+high, 1 channel for woofer. That makes 120W per speaker right?

I used to run them bridged, but that was worse as each channel was then driving a 3 ohm load, half of the speaker impedance....

No, that is just 60W for the mids and highs and 60W for the lows, the watts do not get added. You have simply allowed for a full 60 watss to drive the woofers with, instead of a portion of 60 Watts if you hadn't biamped.

Not that you're likely to have been using a full 60W at any time during playing anything, unless it was clipping a fair amount.

Email Rotel and ask what your RB-960 is pushing into 4 ohms, the 200 watt RB-1080 is in the neighborhood of 320 watts or something like that with the 4 ohm M80s.

That amp will drive the 80s just fine.

No slack, not right; as some of the other replies pointed out, you can't add the power from each channel together. They're separate, and each section of the speaker would get(nominally)60 watts maximum. Nevertheless, unless you drive the M80s at extremely high levels dangerous to your hearing, the 960s should be fine.

John,

Do you have a link to the article that explains how bridging an amp does not change the impedance of the speakers load, instead it is the amps characteristics that changes?

I seem to have lost it.

Oh, I finally get it. It's not doubling the power because the speakers aren't drawing double the power. Finally. I knew it was the case, but I didn't get why it was the case until just now.