Crossovers vs bi-amp/SAMS

Two questions here, first what is SAMS? I emailed Kicker asking about a kicker key running in tri-amp. They referred to it as SAMS. What does that stand for?

With that out of the way, what is the point in using a bi-amp configuration if you have a crossover and decent EQ?

 

1) Just a WAG, but maybe "Stereo And Mono Simultaneously".

Here's an old Rockford Fosgate example.




2) Bi-amping (with an active crossover) gives you adjust-ability of the crossover point and slope, as well as the individual speaker levels.

 

He is correct in “stereo and mono simultaneously”

the wiring would be different than the Rockford diagram, but that’s a cool throwback to some old school tech!

for most amps, you would do front left and right amp channels driving front left and right speakers, then bridge the rear channels to power a small sub.


As far as the purpose of bi-amping,
It allows you to essentially run your front components as active instead of passive. This can gain you a tremendous amount of power compared to driving both a woofer and tweeter with a single amp channel and the included passive crossover.

An amp channel (for good brands, at least) will be rated for RMS power from 20hz-20khz (the spectrum of human hearing)
However, if you limit the frequency range that amp channel is powering, it can produce far more power.
So if we set it in bi-amp mode, we not only double our original power, but we split the frequency range as well. So now instead of the 45w RMS per channel it’s rated for, we might get 70w RMS per channel (that number is made up in my head so do the math and/or verify with kicker to see what potential amp power might be)

that was a very rushed explanation, but hopefully you get the general idea