I thought I'd update this thread now that a few years have gone by and I've had a bit more experience biamping. I still have Legacy speakers and still use a Proceed AVP as my preamp and DAC. However, I have changed amps several times. I write this for those of you who, like me, must use one system for both your music listening desires and for movies.
For someone on a limited budget, I still find the Proceed a fantastic tool for both music and movies. It has a great DAC that can decode for two channel music, it also does Dolby Digital (or DTS) for movies, and it has a lot of options for configuring one's system, including biamping.
So, after trying a little Jolida on the top end of biamping, I tried a more powerful tube amp so I wouldn't have to biamp, but it never did handle bass the way I wanted. I then went the other way, trying to find a SS amp that had a tube sound. I wasn't happy with that either. IMHO no SS amp can do what a tube amp does best, and no tube amp can do what a SS amp does best. Thus, I was right back to considering biamping again.
I'd sold my McCormack DNA-1 some time ago, but I still have a McCormack 3 channel HT-1 (225 RMS @ 4 ohms), and I recently acquired a Cayin a-50T tube amp. I also have a 100 watt Parasound. So my plan was to use the Cayin for the mids/highs, let two of the McCormack's channels drive the Legacy's woofers (and the remaining channel handle the center channel as normal), and then use the Parasound for surrounds.
Another part of the plan is to use the Proceed's controls so I can adjust gain as necessary between the two main amps. I use the subwoofer out and one of the "auxiliary" channels which can be configured as L&R stereo subs; that way bass can be adjusted as necessary in relation to the less-powerful Cayin handling the mids/highs. Very cool also is that the Proceed allows you to choose the crossover point from between 70 and 120 hertz. Since my speakers' woofers cross over at 100hz, I set the crossover point there and thus using the Proceed is like having an electronic crossover without having to reconstruct the speakers. All that's left to do is set the Proceed to crossover for my main speakers.
I am really pleased with this set up. An added bonus is using the system to watch regular TV. Since most TV is center channel, and I leave the McCormack on all the time (and the Parasound too), I can watch TV without turning on the Cayin; it sounds great using just the center, subs, and the surrounds. And then when I listen to music, I turn on the Cayin and simply choose "no surround" on the Proceed for normal two channel music.
One last thing I've tried that works well. I use MIT Shotgun S1 cables throughout my system, but I couldn't afford another pair of speaker cables and ICs just for woofers. In the past I've noticed silver cables, done right, produce very tight bass. So I used Signal Cable's Silver Resolution for the woofer cables and ICs. I have switched between the Signal SRs and my MITs to test them, and I think the Signal SR cables produce equal or even slightly tighter bass, and (compared to MIT) at a bargain price.
For someone on a limited budget, I still find the Proceed a fantastic tool for both music and movies. It has a great DAC that can decode for two channel music, it also does Dolby Digital (or DTS) for movies, and it has a lot of options for configuring one's system, including biamping.
So, after trying a little Jolida on the top end of biamping, I tried a more powerful tube amp so I wouldn't have to biamp, but it never did handle bass the way I wanted. I then went the other way, trying to find a SS amp that had a tube sound. I wasn't happy with that either. IMHO no SS amp can do what a tube amp does best, and no tube amp can do what a SS amp does best. Thus, I was right back to considering biamping again.
I'd sold my McCormack DNA-1 some time ago, but I still have a McCormack 3 channel HT-1 (225 RMS @ 4 ohms), and I recently acquired a Cayin a-50T tube amp. I also have a 100 watt Parasound. So my plan was to use the Cayin for the mids/highs, let two of the McCormack's channels drive the Legacy's woofers (and the remaining channel handle the center channel as normal), and then use the Parasound for surrounds.
Another part of the plan is to use the Proceed's controls so I can adjust gain as necessary between the two main amps. I use the subwoofer out and one of the "auxiliary" channels which can be configured as L&R stereo subs; that way bass can be adjusted as necessary in relation to the less-powerful Cayin handling the mids/highs. Very cool also is that the Proceed allows you to choose the crossover point from between 70 and 120 hertz. Since my speakers' woofers cross over at 100hz, I set the crossover point there and thus using the Proceed is like having an electronic crossover without having to reconstruct the speakers. All that's left to do is set the Proceed to crossover for my main speakers.
I am really pleased with this set up. An added bonus is using the system to watch regular TV. Since most TV is center channel, and I leave the McCormack on all the time (and the Parasound too), I can watch TV without turning on the Cayin; it sounds great using just the center, subs, and the surrounds. And then when I listen to music, I turn on the Cayin and simply choose "no surround" on the Proceed for normal two channel music.
One last thing I've tried that works well. I use MIT Shotgun S1 cables throughout my system, but I couldn't afford another pair of speaker cables and ICs just for woofers. In the past I've noticed silver cables, done right, produce very tight bass. So I used Signal Cable's Silver Resolution for the woofer cables and ICs. I have switched between the Signal SRs and my MITs to test them, and I think the Signal SR cables produce equal or even slightly tighter bass, and (compared to MIT) at a bargain price.