What would you say if you could have both monoblocks and biamping in the same pair of monoblocks ?? Best of both worlds !!!! Here in Denmark there is a company called LC Audio (www.lcaudio.com) and they make som very special amps. I use a pair of their ''The End'' monoblocks myself and they are real high end amp at a budget price. But let me explain how they work (hopefully it will not be to technical): Each monoblock contain a mainboard and 3 extension boards. The signal from the preamp is fed to the mainboard that contains the inputstage, driverstage and ONE pair of output transistors. This pair of output transistors is connected to a set of binding posts - you connect the mid/tweeeter from your speakers to these terminals. The 3 extension boards each contain an output stage similar to the one on the main board and the 3 extension boards are connected in parallel for maximum current delivery (that's what's needed in the basss). The extension boards are connected to a separate pair of binding posts - you connect the bass section of your speaker to these. The extension boards get their input signal from the driver stage on the main board, meaning that the input and driver stages in the amps are shared between the ''mid/tweeter'' amp section and the ''bass'' amp section. The above construstion is very unique and also answers many of your questions: Even though you level match your bass and mid/tweeter amps you will have phase shifts between the bass amp and the tweeter amps if you use different amps - not good. That's why many speakers designers doesn't offer the possibility to biwire/amp their speakers (Thiel, Avalon etc). The risk of making a complete mess of the sound from the speakers is to big and the chance of getting a good blend between the bass and tweeter amps is very small. If you use monoblocks (no biamping) you might loose some top end detail and sweeetness compared to the biamping set-up. But if you use the LC Audio amps (or similar if any) you get it all because you have a dedicated tweeter amp and a dedicated bass amp that share the same input and driver stages without any of the downsides mentioned above.
Bi-amping versus Mono-blocks
Wondering if there are varying positive reasons for bi-amping versus mono-blocks. I know that bi-amping is usually hooked up horizontally (one amp for lows and one amp for lows) and that mono-blocks are one amp per each speaker. I also know that if you want to mix amps with a SS amp on the low end and Tube on the high end, you bi-amp. My question is ............ which method is best for an amp being able to drive the speakers (least pull on the amp)? Is it easier/better for an amp to handle the complete frequency range of only one speaker .... or better for an amp to cover only a portion (low frequencies or high frequencies) of the frequencies of two speakers? Does each have it's place because of certain reasons/circumstances? Thanks for any input.