Anyone tried active biamping with Martin Logans?


I've just acquired a pair of Aerius i electrostats and a two Adcom power amps and was planning to passively biamp them. But, I have been reading about the advantages of active biamplification and have seen some Behringer active crossovers cheap on eBay. Wondering if this is worth further investigation. Any comments would be appreciated.
jacquescornell
Adcom and ML. Sounds like a recipe for some serious bright sound. I've had ML in the past, Adcom is not the amp that comes to mind for them....however, perhaps the Behringer can produce a miracle.

Good luck!

Paul :-)
I haven't got 'em set up yet, so I don't know if this'll be a bright combo. I'll find out in a day or two and report back. I'll start with passive biamping, but I can't help but wonder if active biamping would yield even faster, tighter bass.
I agree with Beemer.....Adcom + ML= Not good. All you can do is try it and see though. I would seriously consider getting one good tube amp (or at least auditioning something) to see how that goes too.

Chris
What affordable tube amp would you recommend for the MLs? It has to be able to drive the Aerius' minimum 1.7 Ohm impedance, and it's my (relatively uninformed) impression that most tube amps don't handle low-impedance loads well. I don't, however, need a lot of power, as I live in an apartment. One of the strengths of the Adcoms, aside from their generally good performance and the fabulously low price I paid for them on eBay, is their ability to pump a lot of power into low-impedance loads.

In his review of the Aerius i for Stereophile, Sam Tellig wrote:

"Keep in mind that a 60Wpc tube amp will probably put about the same 60Wpc into 4 ohms that it does into 8 ohms—but the 60Wpc Bryston solid-state integrated is said to put out 100Wpc into 4 ohms. This is likely the reason why the Bryston B-60 could drive the Aerius i's with a reasonable sense of ease and why the tubed Conrad-Johnson MV55 could not."

I'm wondering if this is really relevant, as I've heard that ML has successfully driven their speakers with a pair of 20-Watt Quicksilvers.

Any info would be appreciated by this tube-ignorant beer-budget music lover.