Opinions on bi-amping Linn Espek speakers ?

Karman, Bi-amping is only possible in a passive setup.
If you really want to make them sound their best you must go with an Aktive setup. You must take into account the cost of the speakers, aktive cards and three (3) amps.
Passive bi-amping won´t make a big upgrade as going aktive,
but keep in mind the cost of three (3) amps and the aktive cards. I suggest a trip to a Linn dealer to see is the difference between passive and aktive will surpast the cost. Hope this helps, Hector.

Karman,

I can help you on this... I use the 5140's (older version of Espek's) for the front and rears of my HT. Hepl is right, you can bi-amp them, but it would need to be done passively (the crossovers still in the speaker and no active cards in the amps). I did this on my way to an active setup. Their is an improvement in bi-amping, the speakers open up a bit. Tri-amping does some more of this, though less than bi-amping. When you go active, you really free the speakers up! Yes, the bass extension noticeably improves, as does the ease of reproduction of these speakers!

I personally found it worth it as I did it slowly and it gave me time to play within a limited budget, you will need to decide for yourself if it’s worth it to you, but it sounds like you are where I was… want good speakers and likely will upgrade.

If you go this route, I must warn you. The Linn active cards take a long time to burn in!!!! When I finished setting mine up after putting in the cards, it sounded worse! The highs where rough, bass somewhat boomy… everything I had been avoiding in my stereo, as time went on, say ~200 hours the sound was so far superior to them in passive mode I could never convert them back! You must also know…. Every time I have to break down and move this system I curse it! I currently have 7 amps for my 5.1 system! That’s a lot of IC’s and SC to connect!

If you have any specific questions I’ve not answered, feel free to Email me for more.

Ken

I biamp my Totems with tubes and SS.
All I needed is to adjust gain of an SS amplifier to match tube amp. I did it through balanced line converter with adjustable gain.
The line converter or gain controll you can get from any music store or visit http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/content/g=home/index.html/src=00800
In result I receive a superior top-end and midrange resolution of tubes and rich and controlled bass v.s. SS or tubes alone.
In the summer time I pack my tube amps and listen through SS amp alone so I don't get an extra heat.