Using two channel amps as monos?

Spoken like a true audiophile. It must be nice having as intuitive a sense of electronics as you have of your own body! Why experiment indeed!

I did this experiment many years ago for a relatively short time with two Parasound 750 stereo amps powering Paradigm Studio 100s V1, using only one channel of each amp for each speaker. It was OK but then I upgaded to a Bryston 4BST stereo amp and things got noticeably better. So it will work but it depends on the power and budget. My sense is that the price for one high quality stereo amp will provide better results than two amps added together cost the same.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have been using two stereo amps as mono amps with excellent results. Perhaps a better way is to look at this would be to imagine 2 cars each with an available 300HP. One weighs 3000lbs, the other 1500lbs. Everything else being the same, which car will go faster? One of my reasons for doing this "experiment" was based on that sort of logic. The stereo amps existing power supply now sees only 1/2 of it's original specified load.

Note, I've only run single ended as balanced is not an option with the Forte units, wish it was.

So why do I run two stereo amps like this in the first place??? Well because I bought the first Forte amp and really enjoyed it! Since having hard to drive electrostatic speakers, I thought I would get another unit and have them bridged. Looked for and found a "deal" on E-Bay, but got jacked by the seller, one channel was toasted, guess he forgot to put that in the description?

Ok, what to do? Well, I was looking at two amps and three working channels or two amps and two channels and a spare amp module... or virtual monoblocks!

Hello Jimjoyce25,

"It must be nice having as intuitive a sense of electronics "....

I don't - I learn. See, for example, thougtful post on the subject:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1215786174&openflup&23&4#23

I am out of this thread

All the Best
Rafael

One thing I did not see mentioned in any of the responses is that whenever an amp is bridged, the load impedance it sees is halved and it is called upon to deliver twice the current. This means a nominal 8Ω load is seen as 4Ω by the amp, and a nominal 4Ω load is seen as 2Ω.

Not all amps, actually few, can operate in bridged mode into such low impedances without being adversely affected. Just something to be taken into consideration when thinking of operating amps in bridged mode.