Bi-wiring The question that can't be answered?

[Dusty Chalk]

1. Do you Bi-wire your speakers?
   Not currently, no. (None of my current speakers support biwiring.)
2. Have you ever tried it?
   Yes. Spendor S3/5's from a single amp -- sometimes a Musical Fidelity A3^CR, sometimes a Jolida JD102B, using Kimber 8TC.
3. Did you notice any difference?
   Well...no, not really. I noticed a bigger difference when I had the speakers jumpered and I moved the speaker wires from the upper posts to the lower ones, and bi-wiring seemed to be somewhere in between, but was not able to A/B as quickly, so it was outside the bounds of the error of my experiment.
   
   On the other hand, I noticed a nice psychological effect -- I could stop worrying about whether to connect the speaker wires to the upper or lower terminals. And that pleased me enough to maintain the arrangement for as long as I kept the speakers.
4. Please catagorize your system:
   
   1. Normal (Your neighbors rarely comment)
   2. Exotic (Your neighbors say wow!)
   3. Insane (Your neighbors question your ability to make financial decisions)
   
   Somewhere between Exotic and Insane.

[E-Stat]

...I bought a set of Polk Cobras on an impulse ...although they may have been the reason my amp went poooof!

Quite likely. They were among the first cables to achieve ultra low inductance by trading off high amounts of capacitance -- causing some amps to oscillate. Mind you this was taking place between 1 and 5 Mhz. Nelson Pass investigated this back in the early 80s when the use of this cable caused his amps to blow fuses. He later added a simple damper circuit to respond to this scenario.

rw

[jneutron]

Okay, I misunderstood your sincere question. I read it as "Now who's model is falling apart." I apologize. Spent > 31 hours driving this weekend, still a little cranky..

31 hours...yuck
No problem. simple misunderstanding..lots of that on forums due to lack of face to face or history..

And I don't see that it's important who's model it is -- I was just criticizing the model (I try very hard to leave ego out of arguments like this). If you read kexodusc's post (#103), that last post was just trying to answer that question. The fundamental question, "how does a speaker output two sounds at the same time", is the one I tried to answer. From the speaker's perspective, it's not two sounds -- they've already been mixed together at the mixing desk, and are now one sound..

Who's model is not important with respect to ownership..But I needed you to point a finger at which model you were considering as falling apart.

I'm just saying, if one is stumbling across the concept of how two signals can flow across one wire, then maybe it's time to take a step back and reevaluate..

Well, I'm not exactly stumbling, and I've identified an anomoly which is inconsistent with the currently accepted model of analysis of branches with respect to superposition. Not a violation of superposition, but a situation which does not follow it to the letter at the instantaneous level. And a violation which may be transparent to FFT analysis.

You might even come to the conclusion that this is still the appropriate model (especially if you're analyzing it to the level of detail where the skin effect comes into play). After all, I said beginning to fall apart, not that it had fallen apart completely already.

Skin effect..yuck. I hate approximation models when they are used outside their relevant domain. Talk about your "falling apart"...sheesh.

Cheers, John

[Carl Reid]

Ok It's time to take the plunge into total audiophile insanity and take a crack at bi-wiring...

Frankly I've always thought the concept sounded like total crap...but having read this thread today and having nothing to do and all the equipment on hand to conduct another mad audio experiment, I decided to give bi-wiring a shot...

Since I have ridiculously long speaker wire, and a Rotel RB1080 Amp that has dual binding posts (I assume for either bi-wiring or running a parallel set of speakers)... I cut my speaker wires in half... and ran them from both sets of terminals on my amp to both sets of binding posts on my Mission speakers....

Result:

My sweetspot seems to have expanded.... but it's not a huge difference.... and I must point out that there are several problems with my experiment that may account for the difference rather than bi-wiring... 1) I am now using half the length of cable I was using before from amp to speakers.... 2) I moved my speakers to attach the wire and so my speakers may not be in exactly the same position they were before I bi-wired (though I think they're back to the same position) 3) The fact that my amp had dual speaker terminals may result in a different sound than from hooking two wires to one terminal (no idea whether that's possible) 4) It could just be pyschological... I'll never rule out the possibility that I'm just imagining a difference...

Anyway, in conclusion... I think if you have excess speaker wire lying around, then bi-wiring is worth a shot, but don't expect too much....

[hifitommy]

numerous industry intelligentsia about this who nearly all feel bi-wiring makes an audible improvement in clarity and nearly none of them have had any vested interest in cables.

one day i will conduct my own listening tests and draw my own conclusions. for the here and now i will not endorse nor denigrate biwiring. my spendors support biwiring so it wont be much of a project.

yes i hear differences in cables and greening CDs does make a positive difference. no i dont green my CDs as it is too much of a pain.

[BillyB]

I believe I was in this thread at a much earlier date so I'll try and keep this short.My new Quad 22L's owners manual highly recommends Bi-wiring their speakers.Their theory is that the woofers need much more power to drive them than the tweeters do so separate leads actually helps equalize the power distribution between the higher and lower frequencies thereby improving sound.Of course they go on to say that bi-amping is the better way to achieve this same goal.I'm not an electrical engineer and there have been a couple of guys on this site who are probably more knowledgable than me that have said there are all sorts of holes in Quads theory.I do know current is directional and even connected to the same source two different wires should reduce the power fluctuation between woofer and tweeter unless the heavier draw of the bass speakers actually creates a reverse current flow which I guess is also possible.(in other words maybe bi-wiring reduces the problem as opposed to solving it)I will simply say that since my previous B&W's were bi-wired with Tara Lab Prism Bi-wires it was a no-brainer to bi-wire the Quads.I connected them both ways playing back the same CD and there was a significant improvement in the sound when bi-wired.I'm not the best when it comes to the technical terms for the differences in sound quality but I do have a good ear and they simply sounded better.They are amazing speakers which isn't hurting things any either.My theory for what it's worth is that it truly must be an individual speaker thing because I'm hard pressed to believe that serious speaker manufacturers put the second set of terminals back there just for marketing purposes or to wow the customer.That's a theory that was thrown around a lot on this thread.Sorry as I got long winded after promising not too.

[Dusty Chalk]

I do know current is directional...

DC current is directional; AC current flows both ways.

...in other words maybe bi-wiring reduces the problem as opposed to solving it...

Most likely.

they go on to say that bi-amping is the better way to achieve this...

With good reason. I have a pair of internally biamped (I.E. powered) 12Ls, and even those little guys benefit.

[Carl Reid]

My theory for what it's worth is that it truly must be an individual speaker thing because I'm hard pressed to believe that serious speaker manufacturers put the second set of terminals back there just for marketing purposes or to wow the customer.That's a theory that was thrown around a lot on this thread.

The idea that bi-wiring effects or lack there of are due to individual speaker differences is intriguing.... Too bad I don't have any extra speakers lying around to conduct that experiment with...

As for your belief that serious speaker manufacturers must have a legitimate reason for putting the second pair of binding posts on their designs.... well.... I wouldn't be sure about that one if I was you... Dual Binding posts is practically an industry standard at this stage.... So it's not as if serious speaker companies have to justify having them... HOWEVER.... if a serious speaker company does not have them, then they have to be able to justify to the market, why the chose not to include dual posts... which will likely mean insulting and losing the business of any hardcore bi-ampers/bi-wirers/bi-curious consumers...

So rather than thinking that serious manufactures include the posts because they really believe in bi-wiring, you could just as readily conclude that they are just afraid to lose market share (which is not quite the same as trying to scam customers)...

Interstingly, I've been to several mid to high-end audio stores in the last few months auditioning speakers and was intrigued by the fact that none of them actually had their speakers bi-wired or bi-amped in their listening rooms.... Despite the fact that all the speakers (with the exception of Dynaudio) had dual binding posts...

[Geoffcin]

Is that bi-wiring produces twice the contact area for your cable's connectors. It seems to me that the connection is the weakest link in the chain.

[BillyB]

[QUOTE=Carl Reid]The idea that bi-wiring effects or lack there of are due to individual speaker differences is intriguing.... Too bad I don't have any extra speakers lying around to conduct that experiment with...

As for your belief that serious speaker manufacturers must have a legitimate reason for putting the second pair of binding posts on their designs.... well.... I wouldn't be sure about that one if I was you... Dual Binding posts is practically an industry standard at this stage.... So it's not as if serious speaker companies have to justify having them... HOWEVER.... if a serious speaker company does not have them, then they have to be able to justify to the market, why the chose not to include dual posts... which will likely mean insulting and losing the business of any hardcore bi-ampers/bi-wirers/bi-curious consumers...

So rather than thinking that serious manufactures include the posts because they really believe in bi-wiring, you could just as readily conclude that they are just afraid to lose market share (which is not quite the same as trying to scam customers)...

Interstingly, I've been to several mid to high-end audio stores in the last few months auditioning speakers and was intrigued by the fact that none of them actually had their speakers bi-wired or bi-amped in their listening rooms.... Despite the fact that all the speakers (with the exception of Dynaudio) had dual binding posts...[/QUOTE

You may be right about the marketing part as maybe I'm being naive in thinking the really good speaker companies are so dedicated to their craft they wouldn't needlessly put them there for show.Still unsure on that one.I have noticed the same thing in regard to High end audio shops not having their demo speakers bi-wired.That could easily be about the extra labor and cable cost in running dedicated bi-wiring to all or most of their demos.I'm not positive but wouldn't true bi-amping create all sorts of source and connection issues with their amps,unless their mixing board was literally designed to handle that. If they're not bi-wired they can always sell you on the idea that things can only sound better not worse if you take it to the next level with bi-wiring.(even if they do or don't believe it will make a big difference)Not looking to just be contrary by the way as I figure we're just kicking this subject around a bit and that is how I've learned some neat stuff on this site.