Should I bi-amp or bridge my amps to feed my speakers


I have an older pair of Audio Physics, they have woofers on each side and a mid and tweeter on the front. I have (2) identical tube amps running in triode mode at 35 watts each. I was thinking to bi-amp the woofers on one amp and mids, tweets on the other. Wonder if anyone here has experience with this? Any advice or input is appreciated..

kellymack

I love AP speakers.  Sounds like you may be talking about the original Virgos?  If so, here’s what JA had to say about them in the “Measurements” section in that review…

The Audio Physic Virgo is a reasonably hard load for an amplifier to drive, as shown by its plots of impedance magnitude and phase against frequency (fig.1). Not only does the impedance drop below 4 ohms for pretty much the entire midrange, but the phase angle is also moderately high in the upper bass and low treble.

If this is the case I’d certainly try bi-amping as there’s no chance either amp in triode mode will drive them sufficiently unless you’re in a small room listening at low volumes, and even then it’s probably a big stretch.  If you’ve got the amps just try it — it’s free and you’ve got nothing to lose and maybe a lot to gain.

 

Bi amping with keep the upper frequencies from getting clipped, and more sore if there is some active XO happening.

So I would bi-amp with an active XO, or some active XO type of filter, if been a Harrison Labs RCA job.

But bridging is probably better if you need more woofer notes.

Have you considered a subwoofer, and using some filter to scrape off the low notes so that the speaker do not need the amp to play them loudly?

If they are mono amps then you have to run one amp per speakers.

if they are stereo amps are you sure they are capable of bridging? 

i will assume they are stereo amps, i wold try one amp for the left and right woofers

and one for the mids and highs. 

clipping should not be an issue because tube amps soft clip, they just run out of steam.