Monoblock or Bi-Amping?

larkone

Another 'which is best' question that is so broad that there is no definitive answer. You will always be able to find an amp in either category that has the potential to sound better than the other because there are no budgetary restraints stated. Some will swear by valve amps outputting less than 10w or Class A amps at 50w or monoblocks with 500w. You have to look at the system as a whole and the 'system' needs to include the room and its effect.

Nico72

Thanks to all for your comments.
I asked the question because I am going to re-decorate the living  room next weekend. I will tidy the trunking for the cables of the AV system, and I will lay new speaker cables for some second hand floor standers I just bought off eBay. The floor standers are for music only, and will run alongside the AV speakers. For now they are powered by zone 2 of my AV amp, but I’m planning to buy a dedicated stereo amp for them later. Basically I wanted to know whether to lay two pairs of speaker wires now, with the idea of bi-amping the speakers in the future.
Reading all your comments, I have decided not to bother with bi-amping.
There are some multi channel power amps on the second hand market that can be had for less money than their stereo siblings (eg rotel 1506), and I was thinking that they could be used to bi-amp the fronts.
In the end it sound as if my budget is better spent buying a single stereo amp that has enough power to do the job, and keep it simple.
But I learned about horizontal and vertical bi-amping in the process, which was fun.
Many thanks.
Nico

Ugg10

You could get a stereo amp which has HT Bypass (processor mode, power amp mode etc.) and use that to run the fronts and connected to your av amp. The av amp will need pre outs.

So you connect the front speaker and any music/2 channel sources to the stereo amp. Connect the centre, rear, atoms etc plus surround sources to the av amp. Connect the front pre outs on the av amp to the ht bypass input on stereo amp. When the ht bypass input is selected the volume of the fronts is controlled by the av amp, the stereo integrated us now effectively a power amp. You will obviously need to run the setup on the av amp to reset speaker volumes and delays.

This saves having two sets of front speakers and allows music to use the dedicated stereo amp.

Just a thought.

Nico72

Thanks Ugg. I have decided to keep the AV and stereo completely separate, for a number of reasons.
1) Front, centre and height channels if the AV are all Monitor Audio Radius and they blend well together. Also they are relatively discreet in the room and take little space.
2) the family will use the AV system while I am out, and 90% of the time they will forget to turn on the stereo amp and set it to AV bypass. I am absolutely certain of that.
3) the stereo system will have only one source or two: My Logitech squeezebox classic for FLAC, and potentially a chrome cast audio for internet radio and deezer. So I may only need a good quality DAC with volume control, and a power amp for stereo. I don’t need the many inputs offered by integrated amps. And even if I go for an integrated, choosing one with AV bypass limits the choice and adds to the cost.
I hope that makes sense?