Is bi amping worth it ?

@russbutton John Curl designed a number of amps and preamps for Parasound. Cost dictated the parts that would be used to keep most of them at competitive prices. I know he designed the PLD preamps and they are silver wired, dual mono design but do so with a single power supply, not sure how that works but it is a nice preamp. I have a PLD2000 and used it for over 20 years until it began to have problems. Nothing major, the balance pot failed and I can't find a dual mono balance pot anywhere. I finally have found someone who can fix it with or without the pot. 

John Curl also designed the HCA amps, they may also be silver wired, I can't remember. I do remember reading from JC himself saying that if he were to do them again, he would use copper at least for the ic's. He also has many suggestions to make these amps and preamps better with some mods. Again, they were done on a budget and supposedly some relatively simple mods can make them considerably better.........so it is said. JC also designed the JC designated mono blocks and other later Parasound gear. I think the JC1's are said to be some of his finest work. They are not cheap.

I believe Nelson Pass is the designer of the Adcom amps and they have been highly regarded over the years as good bang for the buck pieces that don't break the bank. It seem to me that Pass and Curl have opposite ideas on how to build quality. I think NP also did  the old Threshold amps and maybe others and on to his own Pass Labs. Seems to me that Pass is a keep it simple approach and I like that approach, I've just never had it. Curl designed pieces seem very complicated. I have read that some of the mods, even the ones that Curl himself advocated, involved removing a fair amount of parts. Not sure what that means.

I give up, Agon is running terribly for me today.

@phusis Most of the pro grade active crossovers do not have DSP EQ, particularly the low cost ones.  Active crossovers have been around for at least 60 years.  DSP EQ as a feature is relatively new.  I have a miniDSP DDRC24, so I know what they can do.

 

@erik_squires and @russbotton (as well as OP)

Thank you for your informative input. I have learned a lot from you this morning.

This was a nice read. Unusual in the 'blast' climate we seem to be in.

You both contribute positively to our community and I wanted to say how much I personally am grateful for that . There are others here too that I am missing, but I wanted to let you know as I was reading through this.

Thanks,

Ken

OP - 

I do not have experience bi-amping as I have had a long path with Dynaudio speakers. There is one avenue that has been touched on here that I can offer some input.

As others have stated, adding 2 subwoofers can do a lot of good, and I will give a TLDR explanation in a bit. However, One person above did state what I consider to be the obvious and doesn’t cost much. Room placement, and treatment. Moving your speakers around makes a massive difference in sound. Moreso, sometimes, than different amplifiers. Your amplifiers have an enormous amount of (overkill) power for your speakers. Is it possible that you want new speakers?

TLDR;

Adding two subs will open up your bass regions - read clean bass - as well as increase your overall soundstage in both depth and width.

I truly thought this was ad-speak for subwoofer companies to sell more subs. I bought my first SVS SB-16 when my Velodyne DD gave up the ghost. I was tired of the amps needing to be repaired in the Velodynes, and they seemed to somewhat disappear for quite a while from the Subwoofer manufacturing game. So gave SVS a try. While it wasn’t as good as the Velodyne, it was about 95% IMO, it did go lower and with more output as well as being very easy to integrate. 

Because SVS has very good Client support (I say client as I repeatedly purchase from them) I rang them and asked if there was a real benefit of having multiples of subs. So, after that convo, I agreed to order another SB-16. I did tell them that I was probably going to return that one as I was mentally struggling with the concept as a single SB-16 was already too much sub for my 2.0 stereo needs and it wasn’t in a HT setup.

Long story short - (or long depending on your perspective) I now have dual subs on my main systems and am considering doing that for my office setups as well. It really did make that much of an improvement. 

I would also like to note, that most of my Dyn’s don’t really require subs and I usually don’t mind the subs being off.  Adding the dual subs in my systems is the single most important upgrade to sound next to swapping from a SS Pre to a Tube Pre. It really is that good.

Hoping this helped in some small way and didn’t detract from all of the above very solid input.

Thanks for starting this very informative thread!

Ken

• @hardhattg @russbutton 
• I mistakenly described my set up as vertical bi-amp. I was wrong, and am using horizontal bi-amping. We were having discussions about the various methods of wiring speakers and it got me to thinking that I might not know what I was talking about. First time for everything I guess. :) I now have to wonder if doing the vertical set up would help in some way. Worth a try. All I know for sure is that doubling up the power to my old speakers made a world of difference. It may not in a lot of newer speakers or with newer amps. This seems to be how Paul McGowan feels about it anyway. 
• Note to OP, I also checked my AR9 owners manual and it does address this, offering both methods of bi-amping AR9's. It goes on to say that the AR9 was built such that the woofers and the mid/treble section have equal power requirements and it is critical to use two equal stereo amps or 4 equal mono amps. It also says to never attempt to disable the crossover or ever use an external one. 
• I also read the specs and while the range is given as 18hz to 30khz, it does say that they are off by -3db at 28hz. Just how these measurements were made, I have no idea. All I can say is that the bass literally became twice as good by adding a second equal amp.
• BTW, site is really dragging again today.