Best Pre-amp for Bi-amping?

I'm in the same situation, and I'm currently using Y adapters in my biamp setup (passive biamping, by the way). I guess I'd get some improvement with an active setup (though I'm a bit worried about altering the internal crossover that was built precisely for these speakers), which would allow me to lose both the Y-adapter degradation and having to send full range signals through each biamped channel. However, I'm biamping primarily to give more juice to my speakers (and at the same time, getting the benefits of biwiring, not true biamping). I'm surprised that more manufacturers don't cater to biamping. I thought it was just my quandry...

I have a conrad-johnson pv10a. I biamp using mogami rca y adapters available for $10 from my local audio store. I emailed c-j and they said this should work fine. I probably lose some resolution, but for my system it seems to work ok. It is a cheap solution to try and see if you like it. Paul

Levinson 32 has two balanced (XLR) and two unbalanced (RCA) per channel. I don't know rest of your stuff, but it is the best I've ever heard in my system (all-ML & B&W).

The Marsh Sound Design's P2000 SS preamp has four outputs for the very reason that you mention. While i'm not saying that this could replace your preamp, Marsh does make a hybrid tube preamp that "might" have four outputs also. Just a thought. Sean
>

Oooops. I meant the GFP 555 II, of course!

I have been thinking about this recently. One thing to consider, in addition to the other excellent suggestions, is a preamp with regular and "bypass" outputs. For example, the Adcom GFA 555 II has "tone bypass" outputs that could be connected to the bass amplifier, and regular outputs that you could connect to the treble amps, but you could turn the bass down on these (to not amplify the unwanted power-hungry bass frequencies) and to level-match. This in no way would affect the other outputs. Very interesting. This to me is similar to having an active x-over, but without the hassle, and is a more elegant solution. The down side is that only lower quality preamps have such tone controls and "bypass" outputs. You would need to get an adcom or perhaps a Hafler or luxman or parasound. Hey, its just and idea worth considering. It appears to be the most economical and elegant solution, you could level match by using the tone controls and your single volume control would control all 4 outputs.

All Sonic Frontiers Line series pre-amps have four active outputs for biamping or whatever. They sound good too, neutral, accurate rather than tubey. I'm in the process of dong what you are proposing-- hope it works out for both of us. Craig.

You are probably better off sticking with your pre-amp and getting an active cross-over. This does depend on your speakers and how they are set up, but the best bi-amping works with an active cross over and the internal (speaker) cross over bipassed. With some speakers this is not possible (or very difficult). If your speaker will allow this option then I would suggest either the Bryston 10B crossover or the Marchand crossover. The active cross over gives you the ability to tailor the output of the high vs low pass, which can be a big plus if you ever go with different amplifiers for top and bottom end (not necessarily recommended--but it does leave you with that option). The other advantage is that the amplifier is driving the top and bottom end directly without another circuit in the way (since it has been handled at the line level). Hope that helps.