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Wiring speaker terminals

Kidon Sull

July 06, 2020 06:45

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Hi, I've received Beocreate, after a loong wait, last week ! 

I assumed (perhaps wrongly !) :

60W L R [ + - + - ] 30W L R [ - + - + ]  

and bi-wired my speakers accordingly. Sound comes out, but sounds somewhat awkward. When I changed Channel to L, or R, instead of Stereo, on HifiberryOS, both speakers still sound !!

So I now will have to change, when I go back to my home in the evening, to :  

60W L R [ + - + - ] 30W R L [ - + - + ], assuming the printed signs are correct.

 

I'd highly appreciate if you could advise whether this is the case, or otherwise.

 

Cheers,

 

Kidon Sull

Yongin, KOREA

 

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13 comments

• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team July 06, 2020 06:46

  What do you mean by "bi-wired"? You did not connect the same speaker do multiple speaker outputs - didn't you? 

• 0
  
  Kidon Sull July 06, 2020 09:27

  Oh, I meant my speaker is a bi-wire speaker (Vandersteen 2) as shown on the picture :

  

  60W to the Bass, and 30W to the T&Mid.

  Edited by Kidon Sull July 06, 2020 09:29
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team July 06, 2020 09:28

  Are these completely separated internally? If you connect the cable only to the Bass, you only get bass?

• 0
  
  Kidon Sull July 06, 2020 09:30

  Yes, they are separated via their own crossover networks.

  

  Of course it'd be better if I can make it a complete digital crossover, but it's something over my capacity to overhaul so I'm trying to connect 'as is' at the moment.

   

  Edited by Kidon Sull July 06, 2020 09:36
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team July 06, 2020 09:37

  It's normal that you still get sound when changing channel channel to L/R, you still get sound. You will only get the left or right channel in this case. 

  Do you have any filters applied?

• 0
  
  Kidon Sull July 06, 2020 10:04

  Nope, no filters, yet. I believe current wiring delivers (Left Bass + Right T/Mid) (Right Bass + Left T/Mid), mixed up hence 'awkward' sound stage. My question was what's the PCB design for each channel's terminal because I couldn't find any on the document, or on the PCB ! One of my friend who purchased this board even believes that it seems [ - + + - ] on the 30W channels, so it's not a very clear picture we have here. 

• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team July 06, 2020 15:10

  Polariy is printed on the PCB - however it's very small. 
  
  From left to right:
  +- +- -+ -+

• 0
  
  Kidon Sull July 07, 2020 04:04

  Yup, thanks. I also found out that on Channel's 'Advanced' menu I can adjust all the channels and polarities there at once, which is very impressive ! The power of digital, I guess, which is huge !! 

• 0
  
  Tom Peel August 03, 2020 13:50

  Hey Kidon Sull I am about to embark on this very journey myself. 

  I wondered what speakers you were running? I have a set of KEF Q300s i want to BiAmp in this same way. 

  I figured Watts is watts and this is designed to drive a beefy B&O Speaker so it should be capable of driving 2 x q300s.

  How did it all work out for you? were you happy with the end result?

• 0
  
  Kidon Sull August 11, 2020 07:42

  Hi Tom, how's your progress with Beo + your Q300s ?

  I originally wanted to drive Vandersteen 2 speakers, floor standing speakers (8 ohms) which I used to drive with a classA 200W amplifier (Krell 300iL). This sounded OK, but I purchased new bookshelf speakers called Aviano 2, which I decided to use at my little office room. 

  This one, Aviano 2 (Mordaunt-short), seemed to be a tricky one to drive because of too bright(shiny) highs, though well-built with nice enclosures and fine drivers. But the price was too good you see !! I had to use Beocreate to tame this shrew, and I think it kind of worked ! I begin to enjoy the sound after setting the dsp ("Listening Mode") to 'Warmer' and 'Relaxed' domain and it produces some liquid, comfortable sound in my current environment.

  One thing, though, is that I won't be able to run it loudly under this circumstance, but it's perfectly fine with me because I'll have to listen to symphonies and operas at my home and got a chance to immerse myself to some chamber music which I tended to neglect ! 

  So I'm a happy Beocreate user, and look forward to their better dsp applications (like room compensation) in the near future.

  

  

  

  Edited by Kidon Sull August 11, 2020 07:45
• 0
  
  Tom Peel August 11, 2020 10:22

  Its been an interesting few days, i finally had some time to play with it yesterday and i'm not getting where i want to be...

  I get that this is a B&O partner product but the documentation is atrocious for something which also aims at the maker/diy market.

  Anyway, When running the A-B channels to the Low input and the C-D to the High and removing the shorting bar i was getting all sorts of issues.

  Lack of crisp sound, distortion at even medium volume and pops when more bass was coming through, i for sure have it all wired securely and correctly been through that a few times. 

  I was getting sound coming out of channel C from D when it was muted all be it very low level but this sort of cross talk seems like a hardware issue to me?

  I decided to go for the ultra simple approach plan B which was to remove the C-D channels all together an ensure i'm getting good audio from the speakers at all from A-B

  This was fruitful, put the shorting screws back in and sure enough a reasonable sound as you would expect. ( reasonable because they are sitting on a bed at the moment while i get this all working)

  So i then tried to use just the C-D channels and it was messy with only higher frequency seeming to be working and different sound left to right... 

  As far as i can see i have no filters applied, no crossovers, and i'm running the Beocreate universal DSP program and "other speaker" preset otherwise i get nothing at all out of the whole system.

  I would like some better documentation as to what all the profiles are supposed to be, its totally not clear the journey you need to go on to install this for other speakers.

  If you have any ideas on the above much appreciated but when i get more time i need to confirm C-D are working or not and maybe RMA it.

• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team August 11, 2020 16:22

  Sounds like the limitdr is set:
  https://www.hifiberry.com/beocreate/beocreate-doc/beocreate-hardware-documentation/
  You need to remove this (see number 5 in the "Jumpers" section)
  
  We only provide one DSP profile for the Beocreate board. If you want to create your own speaker settings, you need to use the "Other speaker" settings.

• 0
  
  Kidon Sull August 12, 2020 02:35

  Oh dear.... I missed that initial messy part !

  As advised from the HB team, you need to remove jumper 5, and choose 'Other speaker' as 'Speaker Preset' on the Sound menu, and the correct wiring diagram is :

  Lo [A B] [L R] [+- +-]

  Hi [C D] [L R] [-+ -+]

  ie. AB(this counting from the extra power inlet jack) is for 60W and CD is for 30W. The last one [polarity] was the tricky one for me. This is the Default setting which the DSP Channel shows without touching anything, ie. Factory Setting. I checked the polarity for the lows, highs, and all together and it sounds correctly. 

  As you did, I checked with another small speakers (Philips mini compo) using only two channels ie. C D (30W), and it also did sound GREAT, in fact.

  I wish there's a step by step installation guide for this Beocreate which obviously is MISSING at the moment. 

  But still I believe this versatile small amp is a great one, especially in 'bang for the buck' category, and hope it gains more popularity and expand it's capabilities, like dsp Room Compensation. 

   

  By the way, I saw one of my friend complained about getting a compensation profile for ONLY "100Hz - 500Hz" when his room problem was a big booming at 44 Hz. I heard that he did have to put his own Dip Filter after calculating the REW by himself !! So I gather there's plenty of room for improving.

  This final comment/question is obvisously for you, HiFiBerry team !!

   

  Tom, I think I did include all the things I remember to get Beoceate to work correctly, so wish you a good luck and look forward to hearing your success story !

   

  Cheers,

  Kidon Sull