Two 210 x 2 amps or One 500 x 2 amp.....

That's a hard question to answer because it is gear dependent and there are valid points on both sides of the issue. Assuming that all amps are made by the same manufacturer, it's pretty common to find that the 500 X 2 amp would have better quality parts resulting in better sound. On the other hand, running vertically bi-amped means that you are not subjecting your mid and upper frequencies to back EMF from the woofers.

There is a tradeoff however because, as I remember, I've heard owners comment on the Aerials responding well to bi-amping. My speakers are tough to control on the bottom end and I found that vertical bi-amping was the best way to accomplish it. If I were you since you already have the Citation, if you haven't already, why don't you hook it up and see how it sounds? If you don't like it, or feel you have enough power, then you'll probably want to upgrade anyways, even if it's going to 2 500 X 2 amps.

The effect varies with different speakers (cross-overs with big impedance swings seem to benefit most from bi-amping). As long as the extra money usually required for cases,parts,wiring, etc. doesn't compromise total system needs. It would seem to me that putting the amps before the cross- overs would make the most sense. The promise of digital cross-overs ( correcting driver to driver anomolies, maintaning time and phase coherence, fine tuning room correction not to mention the cost savings to manufacturers in the amount of time and labor to make speakers with tighter tolerances) may promote individual powered drivers in the near future.

Responding to Unsound, I would think you would want the amplifier after the cross over, that way you each amplifer is responsible for only a range of frequencies instead of them all?

I would think biamping is better because it allows isolation of power supplies, transformers, and all that good stuff. Especially is you are running one amp to each speaker. Just my thoughts...

Dan, I own the Aerial 8's and run them with two Classe CA-150's in mono and have found the improvement to be substantial over using one amp. The soundstage and the control of the bass warrants exploration of two amps. Of course, the cables are very important and the folks at Fatwyre are very helpful in that area. I use MIT's and Synergistic and am very happy. Steve

S7horton, Of course you are absolutey correct. My apologies
to all concerned. That is exactly what I meant post.

Thanks to all responding. I spoke with Mike Kelly at Aerial today, and he felt that a single 2 channel amp, the 500 x 2 version would be better suited at loud volumes because there is just so much more power to go to the subs when it needs the pull.

Makes sense to me....

Your thoughts?

D

It's entirely possible and the manufacturer should know. On the other hand I would never give up my vertical biamp setup! :-)

I agree with Dan. Two Classe CA-150's in mono definitly outperforms many single amp set-ups. It's in the seperate power supplies. (Classe rep. made that clear also). I have tried a HCA-3500 and a CAP-151 in bi-mode per channel and could not match the prior set-up mentioned.

I KNOW that two McCormack DNA 0.5s (100 wpc each) biamping my speakers (Vandy 3Asigs) sounds way better than 1 DNA-1 (185 wpc). You might try horizontal bi-amping if the issue is the demands of the subs.