Bi-Amp Power Rating

Why are you doing this? Biamping will not offer any power advantages over single-amping if the single amp has adequate power to fully drive the speaker. As for what power the speaker can handle, it doesn't change.

Bi-amping and bi-wiring not the same thing. Bi-amping may have some advantages, not associated with more power but more current and also better separation. And too much power is typically less of a problem for the speakers than too little. Many more speakers fried from clipping than from too much power, unless you like the volume high enought to make your ears bleed. OTOH, I am sort of interested intellectually in the actual answer; i.e., for 2 amps rated at 100 wpc each, how much power are you delivering if you vertically bi-amp?

"OTOH, I am sort of interested intellectually in the actual answer; i.e., for 2 amps rated at 100 wpc each, how much power are you delivering if you vertically bi-amp?"

The answer depends on the frequency distribution of the signal and the power handling of the upper and lower frequency drivers.

Hi all. Honestly, I guess my question stems purely out of curiosity. I understand that bi-amping and bi-wiring are not the same thing. But, to bi-amp speakers, would they not need to bi-wireable?

Anyhow, I had come across a set of dual bi-wire speaker cables and got me thinking about this, since, presumably, the amp end could be connected to two sets of binding posts. In short, I was basically looking for a better understanding.

Yes, bi-wiring is a necessary but not sufficient condition for bi-amping.

To amplify on kr4's answer (no pun intended):

If you biamp a speaker with two 200wpc amps, you could theoretically be sending 400w into one speaker. But it's pretty rare to drive full load into the tweeters, for example - it simply doesn't take that much energy to move a 1" silk dome a small distance. Even in a regularly powered setup with a 200wpc amp delivering an actual 200w to the speaker, very little of that power was going to the tweeter. (Let's imagine for this discussion that the speaker is a 2-way design, although the principles apply to any design.) That tweeter probably couldn't take 200w anyway, whether from an amp shared with the woofer or powered independently in a biamp configuration. I'm not sure whether my ears or the tweeter would blow first at 200w, but I'm not interested in finding out!

On the other hand, I'm sure it's possible that the woofer might draw 200W, but I think that usually that's where the design gets its power handling rating anyway. In such a state, the speaker might well be receiving maybe 220w and handling it quite well, since the tweeter probably is taking a few watts to run at a volume commensurate with that much bass.

Clearer?