Rogue Zues with Vandersteen 5A's at 2004 HE Show

The Vandersteen 5a's are among my favorite speakers. Unfortunately, the setup at HE 2004 did not do them justice...even though they were using great sources and excellent amps. What was the problem?? I think it was the room and not enough attention to setup details. Luckily, I already know how great the 5a's sound.

Swampwalker
When you run an amplifier like that, (vertical) is there any harm being done to the amp as both channels are being driven differently. Obviously, if one channel is driving the woofer and the other channel is driving the mid's and hi's, the loads on the amp are not balanced. I realize it would involve more cabling, but would it not be better to use one amp to drive the woofers of both speakers and the other amp to drive the mid's and hi's. And with regards to the connections on the Vandy's, your saying there are two sets of terminals, one for the woofer and one for the mid's and hi's?
Thanks for your input.

Zippyy--

I've read that Richard is strongly opposed to horizontal bi-amping (what you described), with the claim that it sounds like crap. In fact, most people who bi-amp seem to recommend vertical bi-amping. I have no experience with it, but those who have tried both always seem to end up with a vertical setup.

Zippyy- themadmilkman is correct that RV recommends vertical bi-amping. I have absolutely no electrical engineering knowledge, but I can say that I used a vertical bi-amp system with Vandy 3Asigs with great success for several years. Many others as well. And yes, there are two sets of terminals on each speaker, one for the woofers and one for the mid/tweets. This is true for all Model 2 and 3 speakers that I have seen. The Model 4s, which had a passive sub, had three sets and required bi-amplification (at least). Conceptually, you can think of the 5s are an extension of the Model 4 design, with built-in subwoofer amps, or a 3Asig, with built-in 2Wq subs.

The 5As are designed to be bi-wired, and if you want, bi-amped. Just to digress for a minute, the 3's on down the Vandersteen line are also designed this way. However, with them, the division is between the woofers and the mids/hi's. Since the 5's and 5A's have a powered sub the division is between the mids and the tweeter. There is no speaker wire going to the sub woofer in the 5 or 5A. Which, if I understand some of the above posts, is what is confusing some of you.
When I had 3A sigs. I went from a bi-wire configuration to a vertical bi-amp configuration and the improvement was dramatic. So much so, I would advise anyone with 3A's to give it a try. Since I had the amps available I continued the vertical bi-amping with my 5A's. In this case the difference is very slight and not worth purchasing a new amp to try it.