I'd have to second marcvh's opinion on passive 'bi-wiring'. I really fail to see the need for it, especially with a powerful amplifier like the 200. In reality, bi-wiring (or more accurately, "parallel amping") a speaker just puts twice the amount of active electronics in your signal path, which is not necessairly a good thing. All it buys you is the ability to independently adjust the levels of the high and low frequency drivers if the amps have level controls. If they don't, the high / low frequency balance can get messed up if the amps have different sensitivities. As long as you leave the speaker's crossover network in there, you're still asking the amplifier that drives the high frequency drivers in the speaker to amplify the entire frequency spectrum. The speaker's crossover just filters the low frequencies out, that's all. Nothing is really gained. Actual bi-amplification is when the frequency division into highs and lows takes place in an external low level crossover. The benefits of this are that each amplifier has to reproduce only a limited bandwidth, and therefore the power is utilized more effectively, and distortion (harmonic and intermodulation) is reduced. Also, more precise crossovers can be made using low level electronics and components, verses big passive inductors and capacitors used in a speaker enclosure. Since each amplifier is connected directly to the driver's terminals, damping factor is increased, there is less likelihood of interaction with the speaker wire, and the amplifiers are presented with a much easier load. The downside of doing this however is that if you rip out the speaker's crossover, you loose any 'voicing' that the manufacturer may have done, but this can be overcome by using an active equalizer.


[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited January 16, 2003).]