Monoblocks, passive bi-amped or passive tri-amped?

I would still recommend you try a bi-amp setup before going out and buying something, technical reasons or otherwise, if your Mirages are anything like mine they loved the bi-amp setup. As I mentioned earlier if you set it up for horizontal bi-amp you don't need two matching amps, just beg, borrow, scrounge, etc to get a couple amps and give it a try.

I am absolutely going to try it. A friend has 4 class D monoblocks that I am gonna borrow to try in both single and bi-amped methods, to see if we can hear any difference. But even he believes that high quality monoblocks, bi-wired, are the better way for me to go. :-)

Please report back with your findings, I would be interested in what the results were.

No report back yet?

I thought I'd weigh in, since I'm vertically passively biamping a very bare-bones system right now. Like others, I lurk the forums looking for firsthand experiences, so I may as well share mine. It just so happened that a couple of two-channel amps and a preamp kind of showed up one day. I got some biampable speakers off of craigslist and started playing.

Anyway, for me, the difference between two-channel with the bridge and four-channel sans-bridge (biamped) was undeniable. I won't say one is better than the other, necessarily. The definition increased a lot, but one person's separation is another loss-of-connection, so . . . Anyway, I liked it so much that I didn't even switch back and forth for detailed testing. I may play around again one day, but I like it for now.

Nothing Special Sony Blu-Ray Player
Lexicon DC-1
Two Rotel RB-980BX ss power amps (2x120 each)
Sony SS M3 two-ways

I've pretty much just assumed that all the untapped power, especially at the tweeters, doesn't really hurt anything. Under-stressed gear often performs better, right? I was surprised to find the volume drop when I switched to a biamp config. I expected the opposite. Turning up the volume, however, I was immensely pleased. All those intangible platitudes came up: separation, forward, lively, etc. I plan to experiment as funds allow, which is to say, gradually. For the sake of this thread, though, I just wanted to add my two cents as someone who has a simple budget setup with just enough gear to try one way and then the other.

Hey thanks for the input @Poprhetor, I haven't had the chance to do much testing yet, as I am a snowbird and away from my main system for the winter. :-(

Before I left, I did try single amping and passive bi-amping from my Marantz. I felt there was a clear improvement when bi-amping. I know that is blasphemy on this forum...but it was a very clear improvement to me. I will definitely bi-amp whenever I have the opportunity.