Bridge or not to bridge


Someone please help!!! Do I buy a Parasound 3500 at 350 watts/Adcom GFA 565 at 300 watts or do I bridge a Parasound 1500A, Carver 500xTHX, Adcom 5500, or acurus a200 to drive a pair of CItation THX subs. Pros and cons please...thank you in advance!!!
as3411
I've questioned bridging myself. I have 2 Krell KAV-250a power amps bridged output 1000 watts per channel driving a pair of Martin Logan Monoliths bi-wired. Should I bi-amp the speakers feeding 250 watts to each of the 2 woofers and the 2 panels? I'd go from 2000 watts to 1000 watts total, but would I gain detail and control? What do you think? Henry
Personally, i would recommend against bridging and just shoot for a bigger amp if you really need that much muscle. Most of the reasons have been previously stated.

As to Trollmuse, if you can't do it with 1000 wpc, you're not going to do it with 2000 wpc. I would always take quality over quantity and you should have a very fair measure of both running it at 1000 wpc. Sean
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I had the same questions when it came to my pair of Jeff Rowland Model 1's (bi-amp or bridge). I posed the question to Jeff R., and in this situation, he recommended that bridging them would be much better. His reasoning being that the amps were designed from the ground up as mono (hence the 'bridged' switch on the back of the amps). I am currently running them in bridged mode (& bi-wired) to drive my Snell Type A/IIIi's. I did (per Jeff R.'s recommendations) have to bump up the internal fuses as the amps are seeing a 2 ohm load (Snell's are 4 ohm speakers). I guess it all depends on the amps. -John R.
I'm in a similar situation, and am purchasing a Bryston 7B to run the one sub I have now, and possibly a better unit or two in the near future. My research agrees with the advice above. I had considered buying the 4B and running two subs from the stereo channels with the option to bridge, but a Bryston tech told me that in his opinion the 7B would be better because of it's ability to handle low impedances and deliver high current.
Trollmuse: I have the Monolith IIs bi-amped. They are incredibly better bi-amped because you don't have the low impedance of the panel competing against the high power requirement of the woofer. In your case there is no question--take the amps out of bridged mode, buy an active cross-over (you have to do it this way with the monoliths--as the bi-amping poles completely bypass the crossover), and enjoy the music. You will be amazed at how much better your system sounds.