[pearsall001]

Has anyone given it a try? And if so what were your thoughts. Did you use 2 identical amps (vertical) or two different amps (horizontal). Did you use an external active crossover & bypass the speakers passive crossover? In the end was it worth the expense & the trouble. Just toying with the idea. I've read many positive comments & a few negatives. Thanks

[Scott F.]

I've been either bi or tri amping since the 70's, before I knew what the heck I was actually doing. I only knew it sounded better.

Personally I use an active XO. I (again personally) don't feel the gains of passive biamping are worthy of the extra cost. When you bypass the passive XO's is where you see real gains. Dynamics, clarity and headroom abound when you yank that life sucking, passive crossover out of the circuit.

Now days, I actively XO using either a vintage Pioneer SF 850 or an AR EC-3 (tubed). I run Lowther PM2A's in an open baffle and vintage Goodman 15"ers on the bottom in a vented box. I cross them at 150Hz. I use 7 watts of SET power on the top and 55 watts of solid state on the bottom. Life doesn't get much better than this IMO. It took well over 30 years to find that perfect combination and now that I've seen the light, I'll never go back. 

[Dan Driscoll]

I've heard several systems before and after they were bi-amped. In every case where the owner went the passive route I felt the improvements were minimal or non-existent and in one case, worse. OTOH, when active external x-overs were used and the speaker's x-overs were bypassed there was a very noticeable (IMO) improvement in sound quality.

Of course, a lot depends on the specific set-up and equipment used. But I've heard enough that if I every get the opportunity to bi-amp my system it will absolutely be active and preferably with good tube mono-blocks driving the mids and tweeters. That configuration has always sounded the best to me.

[Goshwin]

There is one scenario where passive makes perfect sense.
If you happen to have a number of identical amps, but each channel is not sufficient to properly drive your main speakers. Then you can just double up the amps to get enough power to fully drive the speaker. (one amp upper drivers, another on the lower driver)

Not long ago I had this situation, I have a Bryston 9bst and a 3bst (spare) but the speakers needed a little more umph, so I tossed the 3bst on the back channel and biamped the fronts with a pair of 9b channels on each speaker.
Done, and it all matches.

[konut]

I agree with the general consensus that passive biamping using the speakers internal XO is of little or no benifit. It needs to be pointed out that there are at least 3 types of active biamping. The most common is to use a dedicated active XO. Next is a computer driven XO utilizing a dedicated USB or firewire type device that feeds the amps. Least common is a passive line level XO that has fixed slopes and frequencies. There are benifits and drawbacks to each type but are, by far, superior to the passive speaker level biamping method.

[Ethan Winer]

Has anyone given it a try?

I have two huge JBL 4430 speakers in my home studio, and they're bi-amped with a pair of Crown PowerBase amps. The woofers are driven by a slightly larger power amp (320 watts per channel) than the tweeters (200 watts per channel), for a total power just over 1 KW. And Yes, I am bragging!

The improvement with bi-amping in clarity is obvious, which makes sense because bi-amping has the potential to reduce distortion.

--Ethan