What part is confusing you?

This has been discussed in lots of places and you cannot expect anything new here. You have to decide whom to trust.

I will say that it is impossible for the passive bi-amping to deliver more than double power and it is more likely to deliver significantly less than double the power.

Also, if done properly, it will NOT cause a direct short. That only happens if the user stupidly leaves the speaker terminal jumpers in place.

Your move.

David Harper wrote:

Kal..... you can read it and learn something.

I would be happy to read it but it would not be a surprise if it was incorrect. Manufacturers are no more informed or educated than others and some are biased in their own self-interest. I hope otherwise.

As for your statement, it is possible for biamping to deliver twice the power under relatively stringent conditions. However, it cannot deliver more than twice unless the speaker is constructed with such deviousness that it would be regarded as faulty if used normally.

David,

You so far have been a welcome addition to this little world know as the Stereophile forum. However, Kal Rubinson is well, Kal Rubinson. He's not just know in the audio business by those of us who have called this a hobby for our entire adult lives for his opinions, he's known for his technical muster.

The only way that amp, regardless of what Denon says, can provide double the output into a load by using both sets of output's, is if each output has it's own equal and discrete power supply OR a discrete regulated power supply large enough to supply it's load (the amplifiers) without going into thermal shutdown, assuming the engineer has installed a thermal sensor on the heatsink or regulator. Now, because it's called Ohms law, not Ohm's really swell idea, up to 4 volts for full output at each load rated up to 80 watts into 4 ohms nominal, would require 80 amps reserve current - regulated. That means a 10000 W power transformer and requisitly robust regulator chips or valves, and huge filter caps. Now, while you could build such a power supply - even with the best quietest mil-spec valve or or silicon diodes, you're talking about a cost prohibitive solution for such an amp, save class D operation, and probably more than a little noisy, and probably have a tendency to put EMF back into the line supply negatively affecting your other components.

Because of this, power amplifier's output sections (save for SOME class A amplifiers, where regulated can work and indeed be preferrable because the load that the power supply sees is - once the valves achieve operating temp - is invariable) are usually filtered, unregulated supplys. What this means is that, all from a single and in the case of Denon probably ample transformer, the power supply is probably rated to provide as little as 125 - 150% of the current a single channel requires to deliver the rated output, continuous at a benign frequency, say 1000hz. So what does this mean? This means that 2 channels driven MAY provide about 75% 80 watts into the nominal load, and 4 channels about 38% rated output. That's terrible! you might think? No not really. Most speakers will shake your walls at about 2 volts output provided adequate current delivery. You'll likely not hear powersupply sagging under normal conditions. The 1812 Overture with electrostatic midrange/tweater, that's a different story. James Taylor or AC/DC with modern 4-16 Ohm - 89-92db/m @ 2volt, you'll be just fine. Because at that amplifier price point, the engineers will have a fairly NARROW design objective which is, counter intuitively, to drive MOST modern speaker systems, under MOST conditions, with acceptably low distortion, usually under 2% under FULL load all FRONT channels driven. You can't really hear anything short of gross, say 3% or greater distortion in the rear channels. I don't care what anyone says. So take distortion claims with a grain of salt. Because most class A/B output stages, tube or solid state, don't start distorting audibly until a fair amount of power supply sag occurs. That's not to say it's not important. It's just not as important as some manufactures would claim. What's important in that regard is does the distortion kind of work in a musical fashion, like the "distortion" of a Steinway soundboard, or make you run for the hills, like the "distortion" of the top plate of a cheap fiddle.

Where you are likely to see improvement is that, using acceptably low capacitance cables as to not accidentally create a LF filter, you are halving the line resistance of each amplifier being loaded down - assuming you are using the same cables top and bottom. And this isn't unimportant. Also, cables DO sound different - every cable is an LCR network. And sometimes you may find great results mixing cables. I use Kimber Kable on the bottom and Wasatch on the top. Biwired through outputs A and B of a fairly inexpensive Cambridge integrated. And it's really fantastic.

I don't think anyone here would question your trying to get to the technical gestalt of why something might sound how it does or work best - but remember Denon is there to sell you on Denon. And that's just fine, excellent in fact. They make good gear. But unless your power supply comes in a seperate box for power transformer, a box for regulators, and a box for capacitors, I'm leary of that claim. Also not considered in this post is the overhead to power the control circuitry, the likely class a preamp secions, and the processing sections - all likely drawing a fairly high consumption 3-24 volt regulated supply from the SAME transformer.

You ARE bi-amping. That's a fact. You are not going to get appreciably better results unless you have extremely power hungry speakers than bi-wiring from a single very high quality set of stereo outputs. To get that qualitative difference you should look into getting a seperate pair of power amps of equal or better quality.

1. This statement is correct.
2. This statement is simplistic and indicates shallow understanding. Due to the spectral distribution of power in music, you will never get double the power.
3. He is right if you agree that the user is a yo-yo.

As you can see from my original post, I was not intending to get into a discussion on the performance advantages/disadvantages of passive biamping and just wanted to address technical issues.

Your approach is the best one: Just try it. However, I will say that active biamping can make improvements but it is generally not something the average user can implement properly.

Good receiver ? well lets not go that far.

The only way a fairly standard AVR power supply would deliver that rated power is with the possibility of class D amplification? Where did I read that? Oh 5 or so post previous.

/eye roll