I've recently bought a cambridge azur 504A amp and 540C CD player along with some MS 902 bookshelfs
my current set up is to have it bi-wired (recommended by the retailer)
The amp has the ability to run to sets of speakers and i was told to wire up the bass for left and right to speaker set A and the treble for left and right to speaker set B
My head tells me this is wrong. It sounds fine but just seems strange that i should do it this way.
with true bi wire amps do the hi and low feeds from the amp carry different signals or is this handled at the speaker end by the crossovers/hi and low pass filters
also will the set up i have put any undue strain on my amp
No, you're doing it correctly. Whether it is actually any better than using a single run of wire is for you to decide! True or 'proper' biwiring involves rewiring your speakers, ie taking out the crossovers and either running external ones or putting in new ones. In my own experiments into 'basic' biwiring, the way you are doing it, I found that only certain speakers responded well. In a lot of cases a good quality run of single wire was actually better than a double run of biwire worth the same price - ie it's often better to spend more on a single run of good quality speaker cable than to spend the same amount on two runs of bi-wire. Makes sense to me.
Someone else posted a similar question about Cambridge Azure integrateds and said that Cambridge actually recommended to not bi-wire. Something about A and B were only designed to be used together for a short period of time, and not permanently. It sounded weird to me, but I remember seeing it in one of these posts.
Personally, I'd see what the manual says, and if that doesn't clarify it, I'd e-mail Cambridge.
Patrick - 99% of the time bi-amping isn't a problem. I can't find where I read that it wasn't advised for these amps. It may have been another Cambridge Azure amp, but I felt compelled to give you a heads up.
i've been on the cambride audio forum and found a similar posting that was already there and everyone seemed happy about the idea so i can only assume that its a safe thing to do.
Bought the CA Azur 640a and 640c both in v2. Bi-wire the 640a with my years old PSB Century 900i floor standing speaks without any problem.
Yesterday I changed the PSB to Kef Q1 and did the same bi-amp but 640a CAP5 protection light went on flashing 6 times during start up and the 640a just didn't get back to ready mode.
Once experiement i did was to just connect Kef Q1 to the 640a on speaker a which runs fine. When i just ON the speaker B button then 640a protection light went 6 times again and stop.