Linking M6100 Amplifier

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SteveRobinson
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Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by SteveRobinson »

Hello,

I have just taken delivery of a M6100 amplifier to go with my Majik DSM and 109 speakers. My questions are...............................

What is the best way to link it all together? I believe there are internal cables available for the M6100, which would be the neatest solution. What are these cables called? Is there a part number? Are they are dealer fit, or can I fit them myself? Are there sound quality benefits/penalties using these?

I do have two pairs of Linn Silver interconnects so I could get another pair and link the amplifier channels externally, but what sounds best? Also, with the interconnects are 1.2m long so that means another load of spaghetti hanging out the back of the amplifier. Can the Linn Silvers be shortened to say 0.3m without degrading the sound?

Hopefully my questions make sense!

Regards,

Steve
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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by Chapelier »

Hi Steve,

I used to have a M6100 with Kabers driven in aktiv mode. I found the silvers were the best solution of them all. Second was the internal link.

Internal links can be ordered thru your linn dealer and are very easy to install by yourself.

Cheers,
Francis
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David Neel
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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by David Neel »

You don't mention active cards. Do you have these? If not, and assuming that the M109s are currently driven passively by the MDSM, you will only use 2 channels of the 6100. If you have the active cards, then you will need to modify the 109s from passive to active (by changing the crossover links inside the cabinet).

And don't shorten the Linn silvers. I had a dealer do this to a pair of Blacks, they didn't sound as good afterwards.
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SteveRobinson
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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by SteveRobinson »

Hello,

Thanks for your reply.

Are you saying that I can't use the M6100 passively? My plan was to use the six channels in the M6100 passively until sometime in the new year when I would either get suitable Aktiv cards, or maybe even look to go Exakt.

Regards,

Steve
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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by stefan »

SteveRobinson wrote: 2019-12-09 08:59 Hello,

Thanks for your reply.

Are you saying that I can't use the M6100 passively? My plan was to use the six channels in the M6100 passively until sometime in the new year when I would either get suitable Aktiv cards, or maybe even look to go Exakt.

Regards,

Steve
Yes, you can tri-amp a passive three(or more)-way speaker with M6100 with either internal or external links. Just make sure you remove the links on the terminals of the speaker. But getting the internal links obviously only makes sense if you're planning on getting the internal aktiv cards. You can't use them if you go Exakt.
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lejonklou
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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by lejonklou »

You can tri-wire, but it sounds worse than single wire.
You can tri-amp passively, but it sounds worse than a single amp passive.

The only options that make sense are single amp, single wire passive and fully aktiv.
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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by sittertal »

I can confirm the above. For more than 12 years I have been running my 242/1 with two Twins. A few weeks ago I removed one Twin (because of comments in this forum I have read quit some time ago, but I was sceptical). One amp really is more musical. I also reinstalled the second Twin again to be sure but it was immediately obvious two sound worse!
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SteveRobinson
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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by SteveRobinson »

This is very interesting.

Any idea why this should be? Is it timing?

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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by sittertal »

My first impression was „better musical flow“ which is more or less the same as timing. The only possibility with the Klimax Kontrol is to connect the two Twins by daisy-chaining. I had to use the balanced output of amp1 and the rca input input of amp2. This probably also influences the timing.
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lejonklou
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Re: Linking M6100 Amplifier

Post by lejonklou »

SteveRobinson wrote: 2019-12-10 08:41 This is very interesting.

Any idea why this should be?
The reason behind this is more complicated than one might expect. As a general rule, I would say that every time you split a signal and later add them together, there are negative consequences.

For me the whole thing started with how to best connect the preamp to the power amps when multi amping. I think it was in the beginning of the 90's when someone told me that daisy chaining the signal sounded better than parallel connection. In other words, pre - power1 - power2 - power3 sounded better than pre - power1, pre - power2, pre - power3.

This was mysterious, as with daisy chaining, the signal arriving at power3 had passed not just one but three interconnects. And this degradation was obvious - one could easily hear the difference between whether power3 was driving the bass (daisy chaining from treble to mid to bass, incidentally the best order) or whether it was driving the treble (daisy chasing from bass to mid to bass). Power3 always sounded worse than power1.

With a parallel connection, all three power amps performed equally well. What could possibly be the drawback with that configuration? Well, the capacitive load placed on the preamp's output was slightly higher with a parallel connection. But adding additional interconnects to the preamp in the daisy chain option wasn't enough to reverse the order.

A few years later, I decided to go from single amp to bi-amp on the passive pair of Tukan's in our apartment. At the time, I still believed in multi-wiring and multi-amping and for some reason had never really questioned or evaluated either of them. They were part of Linn's (very clever) upgrade ladder that ended with aktiv multi amping and I regularly demonstrated all these steps at The Sound Company, where I worked. I had in fact had a few odd experiences, where I felt "hm, that wasn't really better, was it?", but instead of investigating further, I dismissed the experiences with a "must have been something wrong there, might be the mains quality". The power of belief is strong!

Anyway, as soon as I had bi-amped my Tukan's at home, my soon-to-be wife said "What have you done? The system is not as fun any more." Now for the first time I started evaluating the bi-amped system with a critical mind. And I quickly found that one power amp was better than two. And then that a single pair of speaker wires was better than two.

Later I found many such examples in circuit designs, when even a very small splitting of the signal in parallel tracks performed worse than doing the same manipulation in a serial sequence.
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