No, You Cannot Bi-Amp

It is entirely possible that some speaker manufacturers discourage or outright deny bi-amping because of the warranty problems and damage to their products and their reputations that result from misunderstanding of the process. Our hobby and our websites are alive with unqualified opinions from self-appointed experts who start rumors and create confusion either mischievously, maliciously or naively. It all works out the same, however, with sometimes irreversible rumors perpetrated to no good effect.

The key to this discussion is the crossover itself. If that isn't right, amp matching remains meaningless. A good pair of properly designed crossovers can cost a couple of thousand dollars. When these are included in a repeatable speaker model and sold in volume the costs are amortized, but in my case the designer spent over 50 hours getting it right. He used the same horn and driver that I have and the same woofer in the same size cabinet. This was all done outdoors to provide anechoic conditions with microphones, instruments and a computer. There is a lot of trial and error involved if you have 30 years experience as he does. What would it take for you to pull it off?
I ask that question because when you try to set up your digital speaker management system in your own little bi-amp arrangement, you will need to create all the alignment and compensation that Bill worked out for me on your own. Not only is it not easy, it will prove to be impossible for most of you.
So, we go back to Elizabeth who indicated that it is a fool's errand, too often taken lightly by duffers and conceited neophytes. Some of them will arrive as I have with something they think sounds pretty good, Some will, as I did become frustrated and some will do real damage. None will get it right. Even if you use the thousand monkeys with typewriters logic, the odds of a happy accident are too extreme to be calculated and would require a much longer life than any of us can reasonably anticipate. It is your money and your gear, though , so have at it.

Have to agree with others here who dont see the need for a rant when someone admits they dont know something. They're asking those of us who do have the knowledge and experience to share that knowledge, which is how they become knowledgeable> Did all of us start off knowing everything there is to know about audio? Come on guys and girls,I admit I dont know everything there is to know and I've been involved in this hobby since 1986. Ok, my rant about ranting is over.

JohnK, thanks for your comment.

To be sure it's clear to everyone, I'll repeat that the issue I cited, involving a large disparity in power capability between the high frequency amp and the low frequency amp, just applies to PASSIVE biamping, in which the only crossover that is present is the one in the speakers.

I'll add that my comment was intended to apply to the situation where a single pair of speakers is being passively biamped, with the single pair of speakers having been designed to provide reasonable results (in particular, some semblance of flat frequency response) when driven by a SINGLE amplifier.

John's comments about combining Class D and SET, etc., apply to a different situation altogether.

Regards,
-- Al

Almarg's arguement makes sense to me. I believe that using two amps via the passive crossover ought to be called "dual amping" to distinguish it from true biamping using a line level crossover.

I performed testing to determine how powerful an amp is needed to drive my MG1.6 after lows are removed to an auxillary large cone driver system which I use as a subwoofer. I tested for a wide range of crossover frequencies. What I found was that the high frequency signal needed a lot more "power" than I expected. "Power" is in quotes, because what I was measuring was voltage peaks when playing music at high volume. Voltage swing is what is necessary to avoid distortion. Because the peaks are very brief there is no doubt that the power is actually low. But, because of the way audio amps are designed you have to buy power to get voltage.

Bottom line... don't skimp on the high end amp.

A long time ago I had new Mirage M3si speakers which could be biamped.

So I did what anyother audiophile would do, I tried biamping.
I bought two Brytson 4B amps.

I tried them every which way, and then even as mono blocks.

No magic solution.
Perhaps it was the fault of the speakers, but back then the amps and speakers were well respected.

What I eventually settled for was a one amp solution and I even turned my back on the bi-wiring option.

The best sound I got was with one Bryston amp in stereo, and an easy rewire of the Mirage speakers(just re-arranging the internal speaker wires at the posts, no soldering required)so that one pair of speaker wires was all I needed.

Perhaps bi amping and biwiring do make a difference in other situations, but in my case they weren't worth the expense or bother.

Now I have Ref 3A Grand Veena which are also bi wireable(not biamp as I understand )and so far I prefer to run single wire (Nordost Heimdal) with the Nordost jumpers in the diagonal position.

I tried various speaker wires and none of the biwiring configurations I tried were any better than the way I have them wired now.