Bi-amping, "What amps would you use"


"Biamping and eliminating the passive crossover by using electronic x-over is best way to get the most out of your speakers", a close stereophile friend told me. I've decided to take the bi-amp route. Now the only thing is to decide on the amps best for my set-up. I have the McIntosh XR19 speakers (with two 12" woofers for the lows, one 8 mid and 12 x 1" for the highs) per box. Being on a high-end side of audio don't won't say....a Pass Lass is better than Krell, a Krell is better than Levinson, Rowland is better than Mc...etc. because each amp is design to satisfy a certain perfence. What would you reccommend for the highs and for the lows? What amps you know, that is known for bass their reproduction and, what is known for there super nature smooth highs. Please let me koow what you think.

Thanks, Danny
trandanny820
Will you be dividing the amplifier work between the woofers and combining the 8" mid & tweeters together or between the woofers and 8" mid and separating them from the tweeters ? Obviously, the crossover points would be QUITE different and may give us further insight as to what amps would be most suitable for each range. Sean
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Dr Sean has asked the important question. BTW, gossip has it he tri-amps, so he probably knows a thing or two on the subject.
My speakers are factory-made "bi-amps". The division is b/ween woofers (8 x 8") & the rest.
What I think in this situation that you face the problem where you only need one crossover point for your bi-amplification and you have I believe much more than that in your speakers.
-- What has to be done in this situation?
-- What will be result if the "rest of drivers" will be driven with no crossover?
-- Will impedance change take place in this case?
Greg, i am tri-amping with monoblocks in one system and bi-amping another system. Sean
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There is no easy answer... the way that the signal is split also plays a role; is it an opamp xover, tubes or what? This is a critical component. It also matters what the system sounded like to begin with.

IMHO, if there is a big advantage to bi-amping with a system like this it is that you *might* be able to finess a bit of the overall sound by employing amps with suitable characteristics for each range. It would seem like the ideal for this system if it could be tri-amped and if that was the case I'd opt for a set of very clean, and well done p-p 300Bs for the tweets. Depending upon how the bass sounds now, you might opt for finding an amp that happens to have the right "sound" for the room and your ear in the bass region - you can't do that with a full range amp, unless you get lucky. Then in the mids, you'd look for something that is kinda clean, mid power range and dynamic...

The interesting part of bi-amping or tri-amping is that an amp which would otherwise be awful for full range operation *can* be simply marvelous when applied in a limited bandwidth application.

The fact of the matter is that name brand means next to nothing for this... performance does.