Should I bi-amp or bridge my amps to feed my speakers


I have an older pair of Audio Physics, they have woofers on each side and a mid and tweeter on the front. I have (2) identical tube amps running in triode mode at 35 watts each. I was thinking to bi-amp the woofers on one amp and mids, tweets on the other. Wonder if anyone here has experience with this? Any advice or input is appreciated..

kellymack

Showing 1 response by mulveling

Which amp were you planning to bridge? Stereo tube amps aren’t usually bridged; their sides are run in parallel for mono. My VAC 200iQ tube amps are like this, and it results in a huge upgrade in performance (at the cost of 2 amps versus 1). I’ve tried bridging a SS amp I really love (Phison A2.120SE), and it honestly sounds better in stereo mode. Bridging is much more tricky, and more likely to degrade sonic performance for the extra power.

I tried bi-amping instead of bridging SS amps, and that was fun but nothing life changing. Tried both vertical and horizontal bi-amp. You need identical amps for vertical, and (at least) gain matching for horizontal. I simply still prefer to run that amp in stereo (single amp). Biggest difference I’ve heard so far was running the tube amps in mono/parallel mode (haven’t tried bi-amping them).