Sequels

[Syborg]

Hello all
I have an original pair of Sequels, they do not have provision for bi amping.
I read on here that somebody had modified their Sequels so they could be bi amped.
Could anybody supply detailed instructions on how this is done?
Any help is appreciated.
Regards
Michael

 

[Chasfs]

I opened up one of my Sequels as I’m planning to bi-amp them with an active crossover. I will add an extra set of speakers jacks and run them directly to the woofer. The woofer crossover consists of a coil plugged into the existing speaker jack and soldered to the woofer, plus a capacitor soldered across the woofer terminals.

The panel crossover has leads soldered to the speaker jacks and its output seems to be 16 guage speaker wire to the hv board. I plan to replace that 16guage wire and go directly to the new speaker jacks.

The next step is picking a crossover or speaker management system.

 

[JonFo]

^^^ this.

Woofer crossover bypass is pretty simple, as described. Bypassing the XO for the panel is a little more involved. See my thread on the SL3XC build for details and pics.

The next step is picking a crossover or speaker management system.

I highly recommend the DBX DriveRack Venu360, it's very flexible and will allow you to run a sub from it if you are a 2Ch-only setup. The DBX line is bullet-proof as well; they last decades powered up full-time.

modified their Sequels so they could be bi amped.

You can start simple, just bypassing the woofer XO and using a Crown XLS 1002 (~$400) with DSP to provide both the low-pass crossover needed and the extra channels of amplification.
Use a Y-splitter on the output of your pre-amp, send one feed to the current amp for the panels, and send the other to the RCA inputs of the Crown. Wire the speaker outputs of the Crown to the new binding posts for the woofer. \
The original Sequel speaker has a ridiculously low XO point of 125Hz, and the panel can barely do that at super low levels (see my SL3XC thread for metrics on a brand new panel of that size), so I'd recommend using 200Hz using a second-order XO (24/dB Oct.) configured in the Crown.

But the ideal is to ditch the passive XO on the panel side as well, so for that, the Venue360 is my go-to tool. I'd still use the XLS1002 on the woofer, but with no XO configured, as the Venue360 is handling that. For the panel, a decent amp with Balanced (XLR) inputs is best.

 

[Chasfs]

Thanks for the detailed reply!

Is the DriveRack Venu360 noticeably better than the DriveRack PA2 for this application?

I was thinking maybe 300hz for the crossover - but have no evidence that is better than 200. What have you tried?

 

[JonFo]

Is the DriveRack Venu360 noticeably better than the DriveRack PA2 for this application?

Yes, much more flexible, and the AD/DA is of higher quality. Configuration is best done through the Harman Audio Architect app.
You can save money buying used or B-stock.

I was thinking maybe 300hz for the crossover - but have no evidence that is better than 200. What have you tried?

When doing a full 2-way active setup, where you get to pick the XO points and slopes, then 300Hz or higher is recommended for the Sequel/SL3 panel. I run the SL3XC panel at 340Hz (I think, need to go check, I tried a bunch of XOs, but mid-300's works well).
For slopes, steeper is better, as that panel drops like a rock below 240Hz, see this: SL3-eXtreme Center channel speaker – a design and build story
I use second-order 24dB/Oct. Linkwitz Reily on both.

My recommendation in the prior post of using 200 is strictly for bass-bypass only scenarios, where the old Sequel retains the crazy low passive XO for the panel, so you don't want to push the overlap too hard, but as seen in my metrics, the panel is so far down below 200, some overlap is warranted. Probably 250Hz might even work better in that application, now that I see the graph again.