What are monoblock amps?

Instead of being stereo amps, a monoblock only amplifies one channel. That is, you need two of them in order to drive a stereo pair of speakers. While this may seem like taking the concept of separates to an absurd limit, there are benefits to be had in terms of stereo separation - hard for one channel to affect another when they are in different boxes. But the most significant benefit comes from being able to locate each amp close to the speaker it is driving. This means shorter speaker cables which is a very good thing. It does however mean another amp stand, another power cable, issues over lengths of interconnects required, wife acceptance factor etc. I also suspect there is an element of "cool" to it - the graduation to monoblocks signalling the entering of high-end arcana.

Oops! I seem to have posted while someone was making the exact same points - apologies for the repetition.

Without going into the theory of it (enough's been said in the previous postings) I can tell you that when I 'upgraded' from a very very good stereo power amp (Sim Audio's Celeste 4250SE) to a pair of Legacy monoblocs I felt, let's say a 20 % difference in sound. Pl. note I didn't say 'improvement', but a difference. I consider that difference an improvement but opinions may vary. It wasn't a very pure experiment of course because a) my speakers are Legacy and there may be a better match betw. them and the monoblocs and b) the monoblocs produce 800 into 4 each while Sim did only 500 into 4 per channel. Still, unless you want to go nuts and spend a lifetime on all this matching crap, etc., I think it was a good enough experiment. I stayed with the monos. Also pl. note that interconnects MUST be short, pref. as short as possible, because the signal that travels in them is low power signal and (if you take cable talk seriously of course) you can lose more of the signal in interconnects than in speaker wire (where the signal generated by power amps is very very strong). So, if you can't place all your stuff betw. speakers with short inteconnects and short speaker wire betw. monos and speakers go for short interconnects and longer speakerwire, which I did. And I'm very happy. Just don't lose the forest for the trees, that is music for the sound. Good luck.

Here's something I've not said before (heh heh): You might want to consider reading The Complete Guide to Highend Audio. Good luck, and happy listening!

All of you are quite incorrect. Monoblock amplifiers are a special breed of amplifier created back in the Phil Spector 'Golden' era of recording. They are specially designed to reproduce mono recordings. People in the know have commented on their surrealistic realism as compared to stereo, or more so the new quattro amps we are seeing from the slavic* regions. *home stereo.