Mono Blocks on a Budget, is it possible?

Tomorrow I'm going to go pick up a pair of the Crown XLS 1502's and try them vertical bi-amped with my Nautilus 801's that I picked up last weekend.  My Schiit Saga is supposed to be delivered tomorrow.  My Schiit Vidar is supposed to arrive on Saturday. 

I'm currently running my Meridian Explorer directly into my Velodyne ULD-15 then to my Yamaha M-85 (not optimal.)  Something in the ULD-15 processing or just adding the sub makes the system sound OKish right now.  I'm looking forward to the pre-amp getting here and I expect to remove the sub from the system.  It's a band aide at the moment.  

So I'll have four amplifiers to experiment with this weekend.  I can also try the Crown XLS 1502's in bridged mode with jumpers and compare that to bi-amped.  I like that the 1502's have a Y-mode so I only have to run one pair of RCA's from the pre amp to the amps.  That's incredibly helpful.

I have a Audioquest headphone->RCA cable, Transparent Audio Labs Musiclink Plus RCAs and an Anticable 2.2 RCA on order.  Assuming that I wind up with a pair of amps, I intend to order 3' Anticables speaker cables (probably 3.1s) for bi-amping.  It's a pretty efficient use of cables, I think.  Less than $500 total cable cost if they sound good is excellent.

I suspect I'll wind up trying a Schiit DAC in the future. 

This thread seems like a better place to post all of this information rather than my own thread since it will be comparing several of the things mentioned in this thread.  And this thread got me looking at the Crown amps.  They're available for pickup at Guitar Center according to their website and they should be able to price match to $349.  They even have a 14 day return policy if I decide that some combination of the Schiit amp or my Yamaha is better.

Should be a fun weekend!

Get two stereo amps and bridge them to mono 

I really like my Outlaw Audio M2200 monoblocks, only $379 each.

@ron1319 wow 801s are good speakers. When you get your Vidar please post your thoughts. Even with all my other equipment off I get a mechanical hum from both of them. The left one is a little worse than the right one but still. I’m using the same outlet etc as I did with the NAD but the noise floor seems higher unfortunately. 

I have a Yggy, it is probably my favorite past of my system next to my aurender which I absolutely love!

great idea with the crowns- I have a guitar center locally as well so I might be able to try them out before I commit to them. I think they are made by Harmon which invests a lot of $ into R&D.

If your new speakers can sing with 40-50 WPC the Quicksilver Audio Mid-Monos can be purchased for a low price, new or used....