LCAR's HiFi System

There are lots of threads about whether bi-amping is beneficial or not, with good arguments on both sides. I'm sharing my experience, which overwhelmingly favors a bi-amped configuration in my system, was Harvey 'Gizmo' Rosenberg writing for Positive Feedback back in the 90's that got me interested in under-ten-watt directly heated triode amplifiers and the idea of using an active/electronic analog crossover BEFORE the amps. It's Harvey's fault!

All these years later I've enjoyed various SET amps, but always in a traditional configuration with a passive crossover. Not too long ago, we moved to a larger home and much larger listening space. The speakers I was using were not a good match, so I looked for something larger that could move more air while also being reasonable efficient/sensitive so as to work with my AirTight 300b amp, at about 7-8 watts per channel.

PureAudioProject to the rescue! I was intrigued by the idea of trying dipole speakers to experience that ultra-huge and airy soundstage. Plus, they're fairly easy to drive, especially the Quintet 15s with their 8 wired-in-series 15 inch woofers. Low frequencies galore. Loved the DIY approach that keeps the price reasonable and interacting the PAPs owner Ze'ev was a joy. Great guy. However, it was the active analog crossover offered by PureAudio that made the final decision for me. I had always thought I'd go with the Marchland crossover if I ever wanted to try bi-amping, but PAP had their own specifically built for their speakers and designed by none other than Nelson Pass, the PAP C-1. Done!

After living with the Quintet 15s and my 300b amp for some time, I decided to pull the trigger on the PAP crossover and ordered 2A3 monoblocks from Triode Labs out of Canada. Frank...another great guy to work with. After about 150-200 hours of living with the 2A3s through the normal passive crossover, I was struck how well just 3.5 watts did with the Quintet 15s and further, when I did push them hard, the distortion was so subtle and pleasing. Really nice.

A few weeks ago, I finally tried bi-amping and after many hours of fiddling with the crossover and slope points and the various balancing potentiometers, I am sold on bi-amping. It's not only the best sound in every respect I've every heard from one of my systems, it's the one of the best sounding systems I've ever heard. Just loving it.

I did try the amps both ways, but ended up much preferring the 2A3s on the woofers and the 300bs on the midrange/HF Voxativ speakers. I may try a full 2A3 biamped set up soon, just for fun but for the time being, I'm blown away.

So, if you're interested in trying bi-amping and have speakers that can bypass the passive crossover, I wholeheartedly recommend giving it a try. Not only did I end up with fabulous sound, it is such a fun process getting there. And isn't what this is supposed to be all about? Having fun playing records?!