Bi-amping ML Aerius i's.

I used ML SL3's with a Krell KAV 300i on the bottom and BAT VK60 mono's on the top and the sound was great, much better than either set of amps alone. I could have easily gotten by with a single VK60 on the top which is closer to your 30W Joule Electra. You will do fine on small scale jazz but may want a little more oomph on louder stuff. Try it first before you commit to anything.

I found that having a preamp on the Krell was necessary to balance the highs/lows since the amps were so different. Your pair may be close enough to get by without.

I don't think you can truly biamp these, they don't have an outboard or bypass-able crossover. Biwiring yes, biamping, no.

-Ed

John / Ed, Thanks guys for your help.

Agreed. This is not going to be true bi-amping unless I tinker with the Aerius' to by-pass the cross-over altogether. Stargates has an adjustable negative feedback and maybe I can set it to zero to reduce the lower octave energy applied on the panels to save them from potential disaster.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Just plug them in with out an active crossover. You might need an attenuator on one or the other, but try it first without one and see how close they are -- you might not ned one, and its free to try! Pretty hard to hurt the panels with a 30wpc SE tube amp. Or the woofers with 40wpc tube. I doubt you could if you tried! Transformers give a lot of speaker protection. No DC to go to them.

Who made that passive attenuator that plugs into the amps RCA and has an RCA on the other side, for about $200 a pair? That would be ideal.

Tom

I was told the same thing (you can't bi-amp, the crossover only allows for bi-wiring) about my ProAc 2.5s. I tried anyway, one amp on tweeter and another on woofer, it worked just fine.

I use tubes, on my panel, ML Sequel ll, and solid state, on the woofer, and no external crossover. I bi-amp them, with the passive crossover, in the speaker. I think they sound magical. If anything, you might need more watts, or current, on the woofer, to tightly control it, but I think it will sound fine.

Eliminating the internal crossover will yield sonic benefits that make a huge difference vs. this pseudo-biamping described above.