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Is Bi - amping worth the trouble?

Hello all...

I'm on the fence with the thought of bi amping. A big part of me wants to go ahead with it... the 'wallet' part says "Not so fast".

There should be lots of folks who've biamped speakers before... When it was all said and done, "Was it worth the time and expense?"

I'm inclinded to add a tube amp for the upper end of my VR4 JR's ... or any other speakers for that matter... though in any case and reardless the speakers, tube amp on top, and SS on the bottom.

...and then there's the thought of keeping two dissimilarly powered amps matched at the same volume level... and the added IC's, PC, and stand... it does seem to add up.

... and at this point, I'm thinking BAT to keep things all the same... and am not sure there, wether even that matters too much...

I sure do appreciate the input.
blindjim

Showing 1 response by paulfolbrecht

paulfolbrecht
603 posts
 
FWIW, you cannot in fact say there is a "consensus" here or in audio in general that bi-amping is simply superior (active or passive).

Bi-amping has one theoretical disadvantage: the loss of coherency due to mixing two different amps with their unique sonic characteristics. There will always be freq-overlap of the two amps with any crossover. This is assuming different amps top and bottom, but as has been pointing out, that's the only way to do it unless you're just down on power.

I'm not saying that bi-amping isn't better in nine out of ten situations (though I'm not saying it is), just that you can't make a blanket that it's always better with this potential/theoretical weakness (which many feel is very real in practice).
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