Am I wasting money on the theory of Bi-amping?

Erratum :  …”containment rolloff,…” would be most typically done with equalization rather than the suggested …”with passive parts.”… 

@elliottbnewcombjr , I had the courtsey of reading the other posts, including yours before jumping in with mine.

Experience has led many away from mixing amplifiers as the passive crossovers will still allow bleed from the amplifers into the other side of the crossover region. The effect of which will vary with the slope of the crossovers used. I think most have concluded that using identical amps advantageous. Most of the modern active loudspeakers are not using tubes in the mix.

Though biwiring typically shouldn't be confused with biamping, mixing cables might have similar effects.

@lonemoutain, I think we are seeing the same thing from a different angle. The OP seeemed to suggest that he was considering biamping his speakers that have passive cross-overs already included, not active loudspeakers, as that would probably be moot.

 Acitve loudspeakers have existed for some time now, though they seem to be more prevalent in the pro sound market than in the home audiophile market. Though there has been more recent growth in available active speakers geared towards the home market, What you have stated regarding active speakers and true DIY projects are certainly true. But I think that for the home market, speakers with passive crossovers have traditionally domiinated the market place.

Passive speakers can be designed with equaization and/or with compensation for driver irregularities, impedance smoothing, containment rolloff, time and phase corrections with traditional passive parts. I'm not suggesting that this built in compensation is typically user adjustable. Most traditional off the shelf active crossovers only give a number frequency bands for drivers and slope options. Newer digital crossovers offer much more customization.

@lonemountain, Perhaps you might want to reread my posts.Typical off the shelf active crossovers traditionally have not offered such compensation. The active crossover manufacturers would have had to know in advance what specific speaker parameters were to be considered. The possible variables would be nigh well infinite. As I previously posted; with DSP (and with appropriate measurements) post corrections become a much more practical proposition.

^While active crossovers could certainly have advantages. Where as passive crossovers often have implementations to compensate for specific driver anomalies, impedance smoothing, phase and time considerations. Off the shelf active crossovers are typically rather clumsy in those regard, as well as potentially adding noise. Again, active crossovers can certainly have advantages. As was posted DSP could make active more finessed and practical.

Multi-amping could have advantages even if done before the cross-overs, and even more so if each channel has its own power supply.

If a speaker has a challenging impedance / phase angle above or below the frequency range of the cross-over the amplifier will often run with more strain and corresponding deviation from ideal performance at these points. A single amplifier channels performance can be dragged down across the entire frequency range by these demands, where as multi - amplified frequency ranges will only be compromised at the particular point of the challenging load, freeing up the other ranges to be powered more optimally. This might be especially true in cases of so called Class A/AB amps where more of the more optimum purported Class A bias will be allowed to run longer before resorting to the less optimum purported Class AB or Class B (these classifications are somewhat nebulous, but the results are somewhat the same).

That these challenging impedance / phase angle loads are more typically found in the bass region where the power needs are greater but where our hearing is usually less sensitive, so meeting the power demands might be more important than ultimate fidelity. On the other hand the power demands of higher frequencies ranges are typically less, but our hearing is usually more critical, and the greater purity of amplification is appreciated more.