Biamping Triode Tubes No Feedback With Solid State

Jeff, this is the most robust explanation I have ever heard on how to do proper biamping. I am humbled, honestly. I could not picture myself doing half of what you described in a million years. (Even if I was retired...) Not that I would not like to, but I simply don't have the knowledge nor the expertise. It is too bad. I just feel that in this hobby of ours one has to choose between the amazing warmth and presence you can get from SET (specially if they are zero feedback, ie. Viva amps) and the real bass you can get from SS. Honestly, I like both. I wish I shouldn't have to choose. With your set up, you got it. I am sure. But very few people know how to do it properly. It shouldn't be so hard.

PS. One last question, what do you thing about transformerless amps?

Unless you can match the input specs. and power differential, in otherwords if your top end of the speakers are like 95 db and you have 50 watt triodes, and the bottom end woofers are 89 db with like 300 watt solid state and all it is matchable, its near impossible to biamp a system using different amplifiers on one speaker together with Passive Crossovers, those are hypothetical #'s by the way... The only way to achieve this goal is with An active bi-amped system running your preamp into an Electronic 2, 3, or 4 way crossover and being able to handle different volume levels and crossover frequencys feeding each amp into each set of drivers... this would also require stripping the Speaker of all passive components(filters and crossovers) and leave the drivers only with straight wire to binding posts or out of the cabinet all together back to each amp. I could be wrong but this is the only way to do it right, without dissapointment.

I agree with Matrix's point that biamping with passive crossovers and 2 different kinds of amps is difficult.

I disgree that one needs--or even that it's a good idea--to strip all passive 'crossover' components when actively biamping. Doing so with a 3-way speaker requires one to triamp; biamping actively is difficult enough. Also, most 3-ways have band-pass filters--those that block lows from the bottom and highs from the top--on the midrange driver. Removing it from the crossover requires one in the active crossover.

Also, some speakers have equalization networks in them to level their response. Removing all passive components eliminates the very real benefits of these eq. networks.

I'm all for biamping actively, 2-way, and with the fewest number of components and IC cables and mechanical and solder joints, all of which degrade the quality of the sound to varying degrees. My active high-pass filter has NO mechanical connections and only one extra solder connection per channel. The four pieces of interconnect cable are hardwired to my Dalquist low-pass filter; that eliminates 4 mechanical and at leat 4 solder connections from the low-frequency section. Those who think that active filtering is all good and has NO negative affects on sound quality are wrong IMO.

Good listening.
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Well yes you could keep the simple tweeter circuit in there true, and go 2 way bi-amp I was just simplifying, bottom line it gets tuff and expensive to do it for real. and the efficiency of running 2 totally different amps for bi-amping drops quickly with cost and simplicity of system.

The only real way is to go with 2 Already excellent matching stereo amps and Verticle Bi-amp then you could leave all the passive components alone.. but this is not what you are looking for, you want basically to turn the lower woofs into solid state Sub's(not literaly but essentially) and the top to run on the sweetest tubes, this cannot be done without a very good Active Crossover and full active bi-amp system, with speaker modification. and even then getting it all to be peak level and optimize all other problems gets complex sometimes.

I am serious about the Cary 300 sei.I was thinking about using the Vandersteen Quatro with its powered bass or the Zu with powered bass.Any other speakers like these and has anyone gone this route?
I know Aurum has a system only set up where a 300 b amp and a solid state amp are combined as one amp but this only works with their optimised speakers.But, what beautiful sound.