Is Bi - amping worth the trouble?

What Jsadurni says seems to make sense to me with the 4JRS since the mid-high box and the bass box are independent. If you can adjust for gain differences you should be able to bring the drive of SS to the bass and the strengths of tubes to the mid-high. I guess I was thinking that the DB99 essentially did this with an independently amplified woofer (I am guessing it is crossed over on its own).

This is what the 4JR manual says:

BI-AMPING THE VR-4 SERIES: If the tightest bass is desired, use a solid state amplifier on the woofer modules. If you value “image float” and liquid-sounding midrange/treble response, use a tube amplifier on the M/T’s. You will not need an outboard crossover, since the crossovers in the speakers will still continue to work. Although it is true that louder output can be obtained by high-pass filtering the tube amp, the loss of transparency is usually not worth it, and the clean volume obtainable without a high-pass crossover will be usually satisfying for anyone but a metal head.

Blindjim, you want a plug and play? Cheapest possible? Here you go, simply run your BAT on the Mid / High section.. Remove the jumpers of course on the speakers, and By a CROWN K series digital Pro power amp, it has about 1k watts per channel so you will have no problem with bass slam and transparency, and they can be found cheap on ebay and things(around 600 plus used).. Also it is digital so it runs dead quiet, No heat, tons of power for Live concerts because that is what they are used for, many people use these for subwoofer setups in real hiend theaters and 2 channel.

Now it also has Level knobs built right into it so you can adjust the gain on the amp to match up to the bass output you want without effecting the output of the Bat or anything at all for that matter.. However you will need to run a balanced cable cause they only have XLR and maybe 1/4" connectors on them. It is possible however unless your preamp has 4 volt output which it could very well be if using balanced XLR outputs on it, than you might not get full gain output of a PRO amplifier, cause most consumer products could be only 2 volt output which is half and I believe the crown will be looking for a 4 volt signal for 100% gain from it.

This is as plug and play as it gets, you just need another outlet open on the wall to plug the new amp in, and another pair of balanced cheap XLR cables, and another pair of copper 10 gauge lamp cord speaker cables... It will be damn powerfull that much is guaranteed.

Undertow -- that's actually a very good plan! Go for it, Blindjim...

We need to pull this thread together into a general concensus, because I think we all agree true-biamping is the best. Have I got this right? Short of tri-amping, the best way to biamp is to remove the bass and midrange crossovers in the speaker, dedicate the best bass amp to the low frequencies, the best mids/highs amp to the upper frequencies. Then you need to buy an active crossover with independant frequency and level adjustments, between the preamp and amps. For someone who doesn't want to spend this kind of money, nor the listening time to compare various amps, the question still remains about just how noticable bi-wiring is with two identical stereo amps. Someone called this passive bi-amping. Then you just buy another amp, just like the one you already own, plus a y-connector and duplicate pairs of short speaker and long interconnect cables. Each stereo amp can sit right next to each speaker (just the LOOK of this is worth something). No volume settings nor optimizing of amps will be necessary. I have heard the benefits of running separate speaker cables to the highs and lows, even though any electrical engineer will tell me it only my imagination. And, I can hear EVEN MORE of the same benefits, when I run different amps in the same type of bi-wire configuration. Try it... it sounds more lively, more dynamic, more detailed. Maybe its the reduced intermodulation distortion, maybe its musical karma. I don't care, it works. My technical friend tells me that whether the crossover is before the amp or after, either way it still eliminates the current at those frequencies through the amp. The amps and the wires have less frequency bandwith to contend with.

Well, I'm certainly impressed. haven't done anything yet, but still given the level of informative thoughts and experiences that have presented themselves herein... I am way impressed. As said above, and with no attrmpt to have the last word or bring a hlat to this strem of thought, formulating or making cohesive the question to the responses, the answer thus far needs be dependant upon waht a person views as "trouble". If I may be so bold... and I will.

Apparently one does not escape subjectivity. Be it in practice or methodology. Equating the value or difference between two parts derives the sum of it. What is the level achieved? What is the effort involved? Was there even one summary dismissal of the project? I don't recall it. I do recall some explicit recounts of knowledgeable folks, passionate about audio who were satisfied, ultimately, with the end product. I recall unselfishly how many told of the areas to be aware of, the pitfalls and prerequisites, and the proceedures to reach a proper end with either path, be it active, or passive bi-amplification.

I get the overall feeling at this 'juncture' (if I can quote a former chief of staff), that it's a viable task. One that the results have outweighed the sweat and expense along the way. For me I am sold on the notion to fulfill both a desire and a dream. Though formerly struck near dumb by the avalanche of steps, and the coincidental expense of them to boot, I have recovered sufficiently to grasp the reins and once more move towards that end. (…can’t you just hear Ray Charles in the background softly doing America The beautiful?).

So I’d say just now the posts here say resoundingly, “You bet cha!” But there’s more to it than just buying a second amp and some more wires…. Perhaps. The keys being as I understand them thus far:

Matching the gain of both amps
Limiting amplifier bandwidth for dynamic improvement in the loudspeakers performance… given their particular applications.
Addressing the networks of the loudspeaker dependant upon the choice of an active bi-amping application.
Buying more peripherals.
Buying lots more peripherals.

….not a problem. I thought I was seeing a light at the end of the tunnel… then I thought it was a train. The light is much dimmer now. This tunnel has a curve in it! Fine. I’m good. I’m also looking forward to the whole shooting match. Because from what I’ve seen here, bi-amping is worth it. For regardless the results, my inventory of equipment willhave increased and there will be lots more to play with from time to time. How can you not see that as a plus? (…well there’s that buying it all, part, I guess).