rainsoothe said:
If I ever were to switch, Accuphase, Jadis and Bryston would be my top contenders. Accuphase are just wonderful amps.
On the subject of bi-amping, I recently found that what most of us consider it to be is called "fool's bi-amping" - simply using 2 (or, in the case of tri-amping, 3) power amps into the speaker's 2 (3) sets of binding posts and removing the links. And for this, the general consensus is that most of the time it's not worth it. As far as I understand, real bi (or tri) amping involves active crossovers, which bypass the passive crossovers in the speakers, and there are real benefits to this method - the speakers are turned into active speakers.
The active crossover is the big plus here.
They do their work at line level using regular components, there is no 'insertion loss' and techniques such as high rolloff rates, response shaping and dsp can all be implemented in a manner far easier than with passive crossovers.
The signal fed to the amps has already been 'crossed over', in that it is already bandwidth limited to the frequency range in question and is of course fed directly from the amp to the driver with no passive crossover in the way.
The better designs integrate all this seemlessly, the advantages include better power transfer, better control and, very often, the ability to adjust for room positioning and acoustics. You can even take it further if you like, use a measurement mic and appropriate software and you can have room correction as well, not that common as yet but Genelec do complete packages from around £1500.
Much as I love playing with hi-end amps like the Accuphase and matching them to great speakers, we are often talking serious money here, plus of course the difficulty of getting hold of such components to try.