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Does Bi-Wiring make a difference?


usmcavenger

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I don't see how that adds any weight to the discussion besides you dont like Monster Z-1.

I thought it was relevant when Monster Z-2 cable was referred to.

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/82731/828806.aspx

Interesting thread. You must have earlier model Lascalas that Klipsch hadn't switched over to yet.

And the comment of "made my system sound so bad" is a generic comment which doesn't help anyone who reads this thread.

I was elaborating on my experience not recommending monster cable to everyone on the planet.

Here are a few reviews with some Klipsch owners.

http://www.audioreview.com/cat/cables/speaker-cables/monster-cable/z2-biwire-speaker-cable/prd_116530_1584crx.aspx

To the OP good luck on your quest. As you can see some hear no change and others do. It's just the way of audio.

But don't be bullied into one way or the other buy what you enjoy.

Bullying is what killed most of the 2 channel boutiques in this country anyways imho.

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My question is, does Bi-wiring really make a
difference that you can actually hear and should I keep them Bi-wired
now regardless of if I feel they made no difference?

I
deal with the parasitic effects (undersired behaviors) of "wire" on a
daily basis at work, and the physics of this behavior is extremely well
known. It is absolutely possible to find wires that make an audible
difference, but then I would suggest they aren't very good wires.
Certainly there will be those where other problems in the system can be
partially compensated for with wire selection, so it is only natural to
attribute the differences to the thing that changed (the cable).

As
an engineer, I would far sooner address other problems at the source
(like padding down a hot tweeter in the xover) and then just stick with
the cheaper cable that has no parasitic behavior in the audio band.
Also, as an audiophile, I want the finesse of a precisely tuned system
where the solutions actually fix the problems....which means fixing the
source of the problem.

As a philospher, I believe that if you want
to hear a difference, then you will genuinely hear a difference. What's
happening is your expectations are changing your point of reference, so
the same thing compared against two different references does in fact
sound different. The fact that you didn't hear a difference in your
experiment means you're either open-minded or skeptical. If you were
honestly being open-minded, then I would say forget the bi-wiring and
save your money...especially since the physics indicate that you
shouldn't be able to perceive a difference with good wire.

Btw, the new RF-7 II's are awesome. I've not had a chance to hear the SW-311, but it sounds like you're digging it? Will you be posting pics of your setup?

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My question is, does Bi-wiring really make a

difference that you can actually hear and should I keep them Bi-wired

now regardless of if I feel they made no difference?

I

deal with the parasitic effects (undersired behaviors) of "wire" on a

daily basis at work, and the physics of this behavior is extremely well

known. It is absolutely possible to find wires that make an audible

difference, but then I would suggest they aren't very good wires.

Certainly there will be those where other problems in the system can be

partially compensated for with wire selection, so it is only natural to

attribute the differences to the thing that changed (the cable).

I would say forget the bi-wiring and

save your money...especially since the physics indicate that you

shouldn't be able to perceive a difference with good wire.

I wonder which wire is bad in my system Liberty or Monster.

I know which one I like the sound of better.

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My question is, does Bi-wiring really make a difference that you can actually hear and should I keep them Bi-wired now regardless of if I feel they made no difference?

I deal with the parasitic effects (undersired behaviors) of "wire" on a daily basis at work, and the physics of this behavior is extremely well known. It is absolutely possible to find wires that make an audible difference, but then I would suggest they aren't very good wires. Certainly there will be those where other problems in the system can be partially compensated for with wire selection, so it is only natural to attribute the differences to the thing that changed (the cable).

As an engineer, I would far sooner address other problems at the source (like padding down a hot tweeter in the xover) and then just stick with the cheaper cable that has no parasitic behavior in the audio band. Also, as an audiophile, I want the finesse of a precisely tuned system where the solutions actually fix the problems....which means fixing the source of the problem.


That makes sense, Mike, but is there actually something you can call a truly "neutral-sounding" wire? Some of the "hi-fi" cables are designed to work as tone modifiers and that seems like something to avoid, but finding a wire without a tone is a bit like finding a person who speaks with no accent.

One would think that basic pure copper wiring of sufficient size would be a baseline, and anything else would be a "modification". Does that make sense?
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I wonder which wire is bad in my system Liberty or Monster.

I know which one I like the sound of better.


Sometimes it seems like some kinds of wire are meant to sound good in the sales pitch ("Check our cool and exclusive materials and geometry"), or good in the listening room ("fuller bass, extended highs, just what you want, right?"), but as Dr Who points out, the wire should be inaudible, carrying the signal from component to component without adding or subtracting any part of the sound.

As I asked in an previous post, is that truly possible, or do we just declare the simplest type of wire to be the most neutral-sounding, and any other type to be a modifier?
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I wonder which wire is bad in my system Liberty or Monster.

I know which one I like the sound of better.


Sometimes it seems like some kinds of wire are meant to sound good in the sales pitch ("Check our cool and exclusive materials and geometry"), or good in the listening room ("fuller bass, extended highs, just what you want, right?"), but as Dr Who points out, the wire should be inaudible, carrying the signal from component to component without adding or subtracting any part of the sound.

As I asked in an previous post, is that truly possible, or do we just declare the simplest type of wire to be the most neutral-sounding, and any other type to be a modifier?
Yes..simple copper wire has always been the base line, anything else is modifying the signal. Whether the individual see's this for better or worse is up to that individual....Pure and simple....Bi-Wiring is voodoo..[;)]
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Well that's pretty dissapointing that there's really no benifit then. But since I've already Bi-wired them, I'll probably just leave it. I used Monster brand 12 guage speaker wire and the GLS Audio plugs I found on Amazon for a pretty good price. Had a BBQ just last night and these speakers were the center of attention. I think there were a good 7 or 8 iPhones all trying to send music to my Apple TV at one time because everyone wanted to hear their favorite songs through some of the best speakers for the money.

As for the SW-311, I can honestly say (and I'm an amature in all of this so its just my personal opinion) that it puts out a lot more bass than the KW-120-THX I have! That is when you have the volume on the subwoofer turned all the way up of course! But on another note, since I've only had my set up for all of a week now I haven't had the chance to really sit down and spend some quality time making my adjustments and fine tuning everything to get that perfect sound.

I'm all about posting pictures of them though. My only problem is I don't know how, haha. I think I did a pretty good job photographing their arrival and offload from the delivery truck to the placement and wiring of them and then the finished look after the wife had her way and re-aranged her decorations and what not. I currently am stationed in Okinawa, Japan so finding someone to ship them out here and then finding an address to ship them to was a complete nightmare. (I live on a military base and the max weight a single box can be in order to be shipped to me is 70lbs) So when they finally arrived almost 2 months after purchasing them I had my camera ready! haha. So if someone could please fill me in on how to post a few I'd be glad to. Thanks again for all the helpful info and knowledge. Oh I do have 1 more question though, what exactly is Bi-amping and how do I know if I need to do that? Thanks again everyone!

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As

an engineer, I would far sooner address other problems at the source

(like padding down a hot tweeter in the xover) and then just stick with

the cheaper cable that has no parasitic behavior in the audio band.

Good points all. So lets say I just bought my 20,000 buck dream pre-amp and my system still needs a small tweak to get the system just perfect. For me, I'm going to buy the 200 buck cable long before I start re-engineering internal circuits or crossovers. Cables are a cheap final tuning device. Let's face facts, our stereos are far from being the pure music reproducer, so a little tweak is really not that big a deal.

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That makes sense, Mike, but is there
actually something you can call a truly "neutral-sounding" wire? Some
of the "hi-fi" cables are designed to work as tone modifiers and that
seems like something to avoid, but finding a wire without a tone is a
bit like finding a person who speaks with no accent.

One would
think that basic pure copper wiring of sufficient size would be a
baseline, and anything else would be a "modification". Does that make
sense?

Ya, I see what you're driving at...the problem is
that it is a bandwidth specific problem that moves around with source
and load impedances. In other words, there is no one cable that is best
for all applications. However, for any one application, there will be
exactly one cable that is the best.

Using that best cable as the
baseline (or rather its theoretical behavior), you can extrapolate back
to any other cable and quanity the difference - I doubt we'll find
universal consensus on the audible thresholds, but you can easily reduce
the differences down into the 0.01 dB range, which I personally would
consider completely inaudible. If nothing else, those minute differences
would be swamped by things like the temperature/humidity of the room
changing, or even moving your head 1mm.

If you're seriously in the world of fine tuning with cable, then
you better have drastic environmental control over the room and keep
your head in a vice. You should also make sure your hair is always cut
to the same length too (especially them nose and ear hairs) and also
wear the same clothes. In the meantime, you're lucky if your speakers
are matched to within 0.5dB - especially considering the effects of
positioning the speaker within the room. If we're gonna claim insane
levels of finesse, then we need to take care of all the variables that
have just as large of an impact on the sound. Thankfully I personally
can't hear that well, so I don't need to worry about such things.

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Nicely said: Bi-amping makes more sense. Due to the varying opions on bi-wiring, you can conclude that this practice does not make that much of a difference. Theorectically bi-amping makes more sense. But, once again is the difference worth it or do we just like playing with our systems?

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Theorectically bi-amping makes more sense. But, once again is the difference worth it or do we just like playing with our systems?


Yes, it's definitely worth the difference to bi-amp, because you can get into active crossovers and electronic time-alignment, and you'll have noticeably reduced distortion, so you have cleaner sound. You may also hear improved dynamics.
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Yes, it's definitely worth the difference to bi-amp, because you can get into active crossovers and electronic time-alignment, and you'll have noticeably reduced distortion, so you have cleaner sound. You may also hear improved dynamics.

Here we go again.[;)]

Bi-amping can make a huge difference using internal crossovers as well. Some folks call it poor mans bi-amping but it still makes a huge difference.

Horns love tubes keep the tubes on mids and tweets and the ss driving the woofers.[Y]

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For me, I'm going to buy the 200 buck cable long before I start re-engineering internal circuits or crossovers. Cables are a cheap final tuning device.

Well, for the same $200 one can purchase a DBX 231 stereo 31 band graphic EQ, which is excellent for system tuning. If your $200 wire doesn't do what you want, your "solution" is what? Try more wire? That is an arbitrary process with random results. Using the EQ requires some knowledge of it's operation and knowledge of what it is you are trying to fix, but if you know what to do the EQ will do a better job at system adjustment than changing wires or components.

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For me, I'm going to buy the 200 buck cable long before I start re-engineering internal circuits or crossovers. Cables are a cheap final tuning device.

Well, for the same $200 one can purchase a DBX 231 stereo 31 band graphic EQ, which is excellent for system tuning. If your $200 wire doesn't do what you want, your "solution" is what? Try more wire? That is an arbitrary process with random results. Using the EQ requires some knowledge of it's operation and knowledge of what it is you are trying to fix, but if you know what to do the EQ will do a better job at system adjustment than changing wires or components.

Yuck - why would you want to do that? [:o]

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Double wire = two cables to the same terminals; can be good

Bi-wiring = two cables to two terminals; usually better

Bi-amping = two amplifiers with an active crossover; best

Passive dual amplifiers = two amplifiers, but a passive crossover; also best, but not always possible



OLD POST

How Bi-wiring Works by Jon Risch

Bi-wiring is accomplished via separate pairs of terminals on the loudspeaker system, typically one pair for the woofer, and one pair for the tweeter or midrange and tweeter. They are completely separated electrically from one another. The normal function of a loudspeaker crossover is to guide the proper frequency's to the proper driver. Lows to the woofer, and highs to the tweeter. This is done in part for protection from the division of labor that has occured with two disparate speakers: tweeters will be damaged or destroyed if exposed to low frequency's and woofers just heat up when exposed to the higher frequency's, as they are too massive to respond at all. The other function that a crossover provides is in allowing the two speakers to blend together, to mesh with one another to become a single apparent sound source.

They can also provide some passive EQ of the drive units, as long as there is excess energy to throw away.

The fundamental way a loudspeaker crossover works is to vary the impedance seen by the speaker and by the power amplifier. In the case of the woofer, the crossover network for it has a very low series impedance at low frequency's that gets gradually higher and higher in impedance between the amp and the speaker at higher frequency's. For very low frequency's, there is lots of current flow to the woofer, and for higher frequency's, there is little current flow due to the much higher impedance. In the case of the tweeter, at low frequency's the series impedance is very high and very little current flows, and as the frequency goes higher, the impedance of the crossover network gets lower and lets through more current.

The situation is such that when the full range musical signal is applied to the terminals of a full-range speaker system, the woofer only gets sent low frequency signals, and the tweeter only gets sent high frequency signals. Once the crossover networks have been electrically separated, they still continue to function in the same manner, having a low impedance in their passband of application.

This means that if separate speaker cables are hooked up for the woofer and it's portion of the network, and the tweeter, and it's portion of the network, not only have the speakers and the frequency's directed and divided for them, but the two separate speaker cables will now also carry different signals, the woofer cable mostly the lows, and the tweeter cable mostly the highs.

Once the highs and lows have been separated in this fashion, the strong current pulses and surges that a woofer demands when reproducing bass or drums will not interact with the delicate sounds of a flute or cymbal.

The magnetic field of the low frequency signals cannot modulate or interfere with the highs, and to a lesser extent, the reverse is true.

Now that the low and high frequency signals have been divided among not only the speaker drivers, but the speaker cables, these cables can be more specialized for their intended purpose.

The woofer cable can concentrate on low DCR, and not have any big concern for extremely low inductance, the tweeter cable can be designed for very low inductance, and not as concerned about total DCR.

Bi-wiring: Using one much larger unsophisticated cable to achieve the same thing as bi-wiring is just not possible, the separation of work has not occurred, and the ability to optimize each separate run is not available. Additionally, as the gauge of a wire decreases (the wire gets fatter) and the spacing between the pair of wires that constitute a speaker cable gets greater, the inductance tends to go up. Using one larger unsophisticated cable actually makes things worse for the tweeter, as even though the DCR has gone down and the woofer gets more energy compared to the thinner single cable, the tweeter now gets less energy in the extreme highs. The net result is a shift in the tonal balance that can even exceed the criteria held dear by the ABXers.
The current path's I describe can easily be plotted, measured and verified by any speaker or cable engineer. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever about their existence or validity. In point of fact, properly implemented bi-wiring has benefits that can not be achieved by a single unsophisticated cable or even a single exotic cable.
Jon Risch

Tblasing:

According to Straightwaire.com , the level of improvement is proportional to the difference in impedance between the high frequency driver(s) and the low frequency driver(s). For example, If the low drivers are at, say, 8 ohms and high [driver]s are at 3 ohms, bi-wiring would have "X" amount of improvement. Then if the low drivers are, say, 6-7 ohms and the highs are at 8 ohms, the improvement would be "X" amount less noticeable.

I think it's due to the magnetic fields along the wire (which requires current), which with bi-wiring, the wires supplying the high current levels driving the low frequencies are isolated from the wires driving the mids and highs, and inductive interference is therefore reduced. When these currents are combined in a single wire, the self-inductance along the wire causes the magnetic fields of the low frequencies to affect those of the high frequencies, compromising HF performance.

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two separate speaker cables will now also carry different signals, the woofer cable mostly the lows, and the tweeter cable mostly the highs. Once the highs and lows have been separated in this fashion, the strong current pulses and surges that a woofer demands when reproducing bass or drums will not interact with the delicate sounds of a flute or cymbal.

Neither will they interact if connected with a single pair cable. Those are separate frequencies. Frequency modulation distortion can exist when a single cone reproduces both low and high frequencies simultaneously, and amplitude modulation can exist due to non-linearities in amplification equipment. Wire causes neither.

I think it's due to the magnetic fields along the wire (which requires current), which with bi-wiring, the wires supplying the high current levels driving the low frequencies are isolated from the wires driving the mids and highs, and inductive interference is therefore reduced. When these currents are combined in a single wire, the self-inductance along the wire causes the magnetic fields of the low frequencies to affect those of the high frequencies, compromising HF performance.

Most biwires I have seen locate the LF and HF conductors in close proximity to each other. Inductive coupling would still exist in that case. A more serious and real issue is inductive coupling to an external noise source (EMI). Current induced into either hookup wires or the coils in the crossover can be presented via the loudspeaker terminals to the feedback circuit in the power amplifier and amplified. Shielding would help in that case, biwiring would do nothing that would help.

http://www.eetimes.com/design/audio-design/4015821/Loudspeakers-Effects-of-amplifiers-and-cables--Part-5?pageNumber=1

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  • 4 weeks later...

For me, I'm going to buy the 200 buck cable long before I start re-engineering internal circuits or crossovers. Cables are a cheap final tuning device.

Well, for the same $200 one can purchase a DBX 231 stereo 31 band graphic EQ, which is excellent for system tuning. If your $200 wire doesn't do what you want, your "solution" is what? Try more wire? That is an arbitrary process with random results. Using the EQ requires some knowledge of it's operation and knowledge of what it is you are trying to fix, but if you know what to do the EQ will do a better job at system adjustment than changing wires or components.

I would second that motion, for sure. In my case, I use EQ for dummies, called Audyssey XT built into my receiver.

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Bi-wiring donesn't seem to make clear audiable difference to me when exact same pair of cables are used, hmmm, not 100% sure, but I even think it is slightly worse.

But if I use different cables lets say for the upper and lower freq's it can change enough to be heard. Do I find it better - not really, I dont use it.

BTW pay attention not to make some bad connection and damage your gear, always switch the amp off before experimenting with it and check everything twice before switching it back on.

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I was talking to a good friend of mine who is a Sony Engineer and he said there are a lot of myths created to sell expensive speaker wire.

He said the most important thing is that the resistance in the wire is kept to an absolute minimum. Therefore, if you have skinny wires that measure some level of resistance Bi-wiring them will reduce the resistance.

He said that the lower the impedance of the speaker the more impact the speaker wire resistance would have an effect.

So this means that if you have a 4ohm speaker and the speaker wire resistance is 1ohm 20% of your amp power is lost in the wire as 80% of the amps voltage is across the speaker and 20% is across the wire.

If you have a 9ohm speaker and 1ohm wire its 10% loss in the wire.

The amplifiers voltage remains constant. The speaker load impedance plus wire resistance alters the current flow measured in amps generated by the amplifier.

The bottom line is minimise the speaker line resistance between the amplifier and the speaker and Bobs your Uncle.

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"The bottom line is minimise the speaker line resistance between the amplifier and the speaker and Bobs your Uncle."

I do not have an uncle named Bob, and so the inductance and capacitance of the wire will also affect the signal being fed to the speakers.

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