Jeff Rowland

Hi Richard, yes you are right... I was missing the obvious... From Bricast M1, it's probably a good idea to go directly into an amp via balanced XLR connections. This would be sub-optimal from Continnuum S2, because its linestage bypass inputs are single ended RCA, while CS2 architecture is optimized for a fully balanced signal path.

Guido

Bombaywalla - Your post was factually correct, but I felt it could use some further clarification after you stated: "Ask Rowland if driving 1.5 Ohms in bridged mode will be an issue." I thought as Guido stated that this could be interpreted as if the speaker had a 1.5 Ohm nominal impedance instead of 3 Ohms. No offense was intended to you as your post was helpful and constructive.

I talked to Lucien(Jeff Rowland Group) today regarding bridging the 525 to drive Aerial 7ts. Per our conversation, he discussed the issue with Mr. Jeff Rowland and they agreed that bridged 525s would have no problem driving Aerial 7Ts. I asked him if it were him, what would he do? I was surprised that he answered my question! His answer, "if you're comparing one 525 to a Continuum S2, get the Continuum; however bridged 525s with a Capri S2 preamp will beat the Continuum S2 integrated amp.

Ricred1,
great! thanks for the update. looks like you are good to go w/ the M525. You now know that you won't have a melted output stage with the Aerial 7T's 1.5 ohms in bridged mode.

Still......I would give heed to Almarg's suggestion (which was also on my mind but Almarg beat me to it) of using 1 stereo M525 for each speaker in a vertical biamped format. The amp will not see 3 Ohms (because it will be running in plain old stereo mode) & you will have 1 dedicated amp for driving the bass for each channel.
Since you will have 2 M525s you can try the bridged mode & the vertical biamped mode. Yeah, you will need 4 interconnects pre-power & 4 speaker cables to try the vertical biamped mode.
Let us know how you fare. Thanks.

What is the MSRP of a Capri S2 and two 525 amplifiers compared to that of a Continuum S2?