RCA quint amping UPA5

[bucket23]

I am after the best way to hook up my AVR to my two UPA-5's. I am quint amping my front 3 ways (they have 5 speakers each).
I acn't find any RCA splitters that are 1 to 5. I have found RCA cables that have a "piggy back" on one end. Could I hook this up to the first channel of amplication on the UPA-5 and then proceed to do this another 4 times for the remaining channels? Will there be an issue with this?
Is there another way?
Please help?

[NorthStar]

Let me try to catch up good with you here. By "quint" you mean tri-amping your two front Main speakers (L & R) right?
...Oh, Welcome to the Lounge!

Ok, two UPA-5s gives you 10 power amps and you need 6 of them to tri-amp your two front mains.

You would use the Front Left channel preout of your receiver with a triple Y connector and do the same for the Front Right channel preout.

BUT, you would like to utilize all five power amps per speaker, am I right?
Because if indeed I'm right on this, I don't think it's a very good way to operate. But I might be wrong.

Anyway, here's how I will do it if I was you:
* First, it seems to me that you have a two-channel Stereo setup, right?
* And your speakers are quite large too.
* Two XPA-3s would have been the ideal using triple Y connectors (or adaptors).

But with this, I would still use three amps per UPA-5 to triamp each one of your speaker, and just let the two additional amps simply idling from each UPA-5.
BECAUSE, your speakers are tri-ampable, and that going the route you wish to go is not only complicated but can be detrimental if not properly done.
Besides, I don't know of any 5-way Y connector (maybe there are some, but I've never use one myself and didn't even ever heard of any). Heck, a triple RCA Y connector is not your common piece of audio hardware, right?

Why don't you take a simpler approach, and give up those two additional power amps in each one of those two UPA-5s?
Any future projection about expanding your setup with more speakers for a Multichannel Surround Sound Experience?

AND, at the price you paid for those UPA-5s, you can certainly afford to compromise a bit here for the simplicity of life and joy of owning them, no?

So you have few extra channel amps that are not used, so what?

Tell me if I'm right or wrong?

Bob

[bucket23]

The quint is times 5. My fronts are a three way, Woofer, mid, tweeter with two woofers and and mid's. I plan on providing a seperate channel of amplification to each speaker.
I have a 5.1 home theatre. The rears and centre will be taken care of by the AVR.

[RSavage]

And you're planning on sending a full range signal to each driver?

[ottaone]

bucket23, welcome to the lounge!

In your case, a photo of your speakers (or a brand and model) is worth a thousand of LOTR's words.

I don't know of many speakers where you want to amplify each driver. I quickly looked at this list but nothing jumps at me: www.higherfi.com/spkrlist/speakerlist.htm

Strongly suggest that you provide a bit more detail and clarify your objective so that the good folks around here can be more specific.

[back to standby mode...]

[ausman]

2 xpa-3's should be a better choice to use though the pre-amp needs to support tri-amping, if quint amping was possible you would need to use a external processor on it per speaker..


the only speaker i know of that would support quint was made by warfdale back in the early 90's and it sat at 9ft per speaker,...

2/10 split stereo processor with xlr termination... not to mention a 10ft roof height...

[jlafrenz]

Oct 18, 2010 18:07:50 GMT -5 bucket23 said:

The quint is times 5. My fronts are a three way, Woofer, mid, tweeter with two woofers and and mid's. I plan on providing a seperate channel of amplification to each speaker.
I have a 5.1 home theatre. The rears and centre will be taken care of by the AVR.

Though your speaker itself my have 5 drivers, does it have 5 binding posts or just 3? If it only has 3 (Woofer, mid, tweeters) then it is tri as LOTR has stated.

[bucket23]

Thanks for the reply's guys. My Fronts are dynaudio DIY's. Just wanted to find out if anybody new of some one to five RCA's or if my daisychaining idea on the original post would be OK.

[bucket23]

I am going to go the daisy chain option. I'll post to let know how I go.

[jkl]

I'm curious about your crossover(s). Are you using an active crossover before the UPA-5s? Or maybe you've replicated passive crossovers for each midrange and again for each woofer? Or is each driver's response shaped differently?

[shayking]

hey bucket23
Im in the process of building 3-4 way towers/xover/Triamping,
I am very curious as to which Dynaudio speakers your cloneing/ DIYing?

Consequence Ultimate Edition's?

[gman1234]

Interesting project, as jkl enquired, I would love to know if you have a separate passive crossover (and associated speaker input) for each driver. This would eliminate any issues with impedance making the crossovers simple to design, however laborious considering 5 separate crossovers would be needed. My concern would be splitting an RCA (preamp output) signal 5 ways may have an unpredictable result varying with the preamp's ability to drive 5 outputs at it's rated voltage. I say this from a position of NO understanding of circuit design, and I would check with the preamp MFR for sure before pursuing the project. Does daisy chaining provide some buffering or is in effect the same as splitting 5 ways initially, I think the later. I haven't built speakers in a while but I may approach similarly, though not to the same extent as yourself. I might tri-amp for example. Anyway, I'm impressed with your ambition and good luck with it!

[shayking]

from my Car audio teen days , when splitting the signal the sound/impedence (input for the output) gets quieter.
Thats why active crossovers are really truely needed .

there are multiple ways of doing it, but only one "true/official" way.

i am however, starting with 1st order passive w. XPA2, and then slowly & eventually endup w. 3 amps per side (4-way)
actually 3-way, with 4 Xo points.

sorry off topic

[NorthStar]

Bucket, thanks for the precision; I now fully understand your goal!

You are a true troubadour in "Quintuple-Amping" your speakers.

And I'm sure you can find or make a "Quint" (five-way) Y connector/adaptor for your quite ambitious project. There is always a way to find a way...

I am certainly not an expert on how your approach will give you the final projection, regarding impedance, voltage, current, phase variations, x-overs' interactions, and other overall electronic responses of that sort...

And as some other members suggested, I too believe that it is quite essential and primordial that you use separate active crossovers for each drivers having their own amplification, in order to truly be beneficial.
Furthermore, five x-overs (or actually three to be more realistic and accurate) is a complex and hard to implement challenge for any speaker's designers. The Phase responses and Impedance fluctuations are tough to control and expensive to keep in a straight line all across the full bandwidth of the audio frequency range.

Ya, I might use few more words than other people sometimes to say what could be said in much less words, but that's just the way I communicate and convey my toughts plus with the assurance that I am fully understood.

Best of luck to you, and please share with us your experience on this very ambitious project of yours.

* For a 5-way W (or M) splitter, just simply use four Y splitter in this arrangement, like this so:

..................Y................
.................Y..Y.............
...................Y...............

[NorthStar]

Clarity in life doesn't have a number or a scale or balance or a definite measure... - Bob

...It comes in all forms and visions... And even in total darkness.

[bucket23]

I have five separate passive crossovers for my Dyn's (D260, 15w75 x 2 and 24w75 x 2)
I haven't built the crossovers yet (approxiatmetly $500 for both), so I am very open to active crossovers, however all of the active ones I have seen have been three way only (which I suppose I could go back to doing, but I didn't want to stress any of the amps as the dyn's did down to 3ohm's and below when two drivers are parelled together)

[NorthStar]

Oct 23, 2010 18:19:34 GMT -5 bucket23 said:

I have five separate passive crossovers for my Dyn's (D260, 15w75 x 2 and 24w75 x 2)
I haven't built the crossovers yet (approxiatmetly $500 for both), so I am very open to active crossovers, however all of the active ones I have seen have been three way only (which I suppose I could go back to doing, but I didn't want to stress any of the amps as the dyn's did down to 3ohm's and below when two drivers are parelled together)

Hi Buck, I agree that it must be quite difficult to find some active 5-way crossovers (3-ways are easier to get, and also better integrated for the full audio range; any more than that and you're starting to have some serious design challenges at harmonizing them all together as you probably know already).
* Tactile transducers & Super tweeters? (5 Hz to 50 kHz)

Also, the XPA amp series would be better in your particular case, I believe.

Cheers & good luck,
Bob

[jkl]

I've been out of this hobby/passion/obsession for some time and never worked with an active crossover. But with those caveats said, it seems to me a three way active crossover is appropriate here. It would sit between your pre/pro and your amps, so you'd take the woofer output from the crossover through a Y cable to two of your amps -- assuming they need to be crossed the same. And you'd do the same for the mids.

Good luck with this.

John