Is Bi - amping worth the trouble?

As a cost saving measure, remember that when you bi-amp, you need amplifiers of far less power to achieve the same loudness and headroom. With Magneplanars, I was unhappy with a 35 wpc tube stereo amp, but fine with two of these, passively bi-amped (AKA dual-amp bi-wired). So, I could concentrate on fine quality amps, but not necessarily high-power fine quality amps.

Oh, I have a couple more comments: don't bridge! Bridging an amp compromises its technical performance, and I have heard the degradation. If you decide to use one stereo amp per speaker, bi-wiring the two channels separately with a Y-connector up-stream (AKA passive bi-amping) is MUCH better than bridging. To say that "its not worth it" is not in the spirit of high-end audio. We all know that more fussing and more money brings about only incremental benefits. So, if a difference is definately audible, then the reward is achieved.

I have passively biamped various speakers, with stunning results. I call it dual-amp biwiring, not "biamping", because traditionally biamping has ALWAYS meant an external active crossover. I have tried two identical McCormack amps and also two identical Music Reference amps. I would NOT mix different kinds of amps. One stereo amp devoted to the left channel, and one for the right is my favorite way to go. For speakers, I have compared 2-channels vs. 4-channels on Magnepan, Musical Fidelity, and Signet. Each of these speakers is set-up for bi-wiring, with two pair of inputs per speaker. In every case, the fine dynamics and liveliness of the music has increased significantly. In every other way, I hear no significant difference in sound, but increased liveliness is EXACTLY what differentiates a great system from a good one.

We need to pull this thread together into a general concensus, because I think we all agree true-biamping is the best. Have I got this right? Short of tri-amping, the best way to biamp is to remove the bass and midrange crossovers in the speaker, dedicate the best bass amp to the low frequencies, the best mids/highs amp to the upper frequencies. Then you need to buy an active crossover with independant frequency and level adjustments, between the preamp and amps. For someone who doesn't want to spend this kind of money, nor the listening time to compare various amps, the question still remains about just how noticable bi-wiring is with two identical stereo amps. Someone called this passive bi-amping. Then you just buy another amp, just like the one you already own, plus a y-connector and duplicate pairs of short speaker and long interconnect cables. Each stereo amp can sit right next to each speaker (just the LOOK of this is worth something). No volume settings nor optimizing of amps will be necessary. I have heard the benefits of running separate speaker cables to the highs and lows, even though any electrical engineer will tell me it only my imagination. And, I can hear EVEN MORE of the same benefits, when I run different amps in the same type of bi-wire configuration. Try it... it sounds more lively, more dynamic, more detailed. Maybe its the reduced intermodulation distortion, maybe its musical karma. I don't care, it works. My technical friend tells me that whether the crossover is before the amp or after, either way it still eliminates the current at those frequencies through the amp. The amps and the wires have less frequency bandwith to contend with.

Jsadurn has got it very well summarized. I just don't agree with generalizing that ALL tube amps have loose bass and sweet highs, wheras ALL SS amps have great bass and harsh highs. There are amps that do everything right, for a given speaker, NOT because they are tube or SS. And there are amps that do many things wrong, again NOT because they are tube or SS. So, making a rule that the best way to bi-amp is to mix SS and tube amps is an over-simplification.