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Heresy III: to bi-wire or not to bi-wire...


ironman

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There was a short thread on this a few years ago, but I would like some more opinions...

 

For those who have the Heresy III's, do you have them hooked up bi-wired or just with regular wire/cable keeping the jumpers in place?  Does it make any discernible difference?

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IMO, ”bi-wiring” is akin to cable platforms, audio rocks, and the like; in other words, useless.  Removing the jumpers to bi-amp might make sense, but the insignificant alteration of electron delivery resulting from bi-wiring is, IMO, meaningless.

 

Years ago I read the entire collection of PWK’s articles called, The Dope From Hope. IIRC, PWK felt bi-amping his speakers to be a waste of time.  I feel he would disparage the use of Monster Cable as marketing hype, over the pedestrian zip cord used for decades.  He would spin in his grave if he knew Klipsch was now encouraging bi-wiring.  Those who knew him better, @JRH, @HDBRbuilder Or @ClaudeJ1 might have different opinions.

 

Finally, as an unrepentant DIYer, I recognize that many things PWK did, such as rear mounting drivers, and rotating the K-77/T-35 tweeters to horizontal, were done as engineering production decisions regarding choices he felt didn’t make, “ a dime’s worth of difference.”  Just because PWK didn’t embrace something, does not mean improvements are not possible.  

 

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I'm no expert, but intuitively I agree that using a bi-wire cable should make no significant difference, especially when it runs from a single amplifier (two leads) to a bi-amped speaker (four leads).  Maybe when using two separate amplifiers and two separate cables to feed the bi-amped speaker, it would make more of a difference, IDK.

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16 minutes ago, ironman said:

I'm no expert, but intuitively I agree that using a bi-wire cable should make no significant difference, especially when it runs from a single amplifier (two leads) to a bi-amped speaker (four leads).  Maybe when using two separate amplifiers and two separate cables to feed the bi-amped speaker, it would make more of a difference, IDK.

 

Exactly!

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34 minutes ago, DizRotus said:

Those who knew him better, @JRH, @HDBRbuilder Or @ClaudeJ1 might have different opinions.

Yep, bi-wiring is a marketing decision, much like having Monster Cables in the Khorn Xovers. When I asked PWK about it, at the time he was not in charge of running the day to day in the company he stilowned, his answer was: "Waste of good copper to drive a 30 AWG voice coil in a woofer."

 

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Do what I did...

 

Biwire one channel, push your speakers right beside each other and have someone use the balance control on your receiver (or pre-amp) to switch back and forth b/w the speakers while playing a mono recording as you listen very carefully.  Better yet, have your volunteer biwire one of the speakers w/out telling which. 

 

I did this.  ..Not me, nor anyone in my house was able to hear one speck of a difference.  ..Honestly, I was disappointed to find that my new CW III's had 2 sets of binding post b/c it meant that PWK's no bull$hit approach to speaker design had been broken.

 

Biwiring is a total myth, IMHO.  Please report back the conclusion you come to if you try the experiment I described.

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3 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

Wire = wire

 

All amps sound the same 

 

All CD players sound the same

 

No tweaks allowed

 

ok, did I miss anything, disciples?

 

Shakey

 

You are suggesting that because amps and CD players are not all equal, it follows that bi-amping and bi-wiring speakers results in improvement of output.

 

You sure you want to stick with that?

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9 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

ok, did I miss anything, disciples?

You must have missed school the day they taught tact and good manners.

1 hour ago, Shakeydeal said:

The responses to this question are somewhat disappointing but oh so predictable.

Because you disagree?  Why don't you just say that?

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17 minutes ago, ironman said:

 

You are suggesting that because amps and CD players are not all equal, it follows that bi-amping and bi-wiring speakers results in improvement of output.

 

You sure you want to stick with that?

 

I am suggesting that many here believe anything but the cheapest (insert whatever) is overkill and that includes wire and electronics. I have heard what good cable can do for a system, as well as good electronics.

 

So I'll leave you cable naysayers to bask in this thread. OP,  consider yourself "educated" about all things wire related.

 

BTW, if you already knew the answer, why even ask the question?

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If you want to try the difference for yourself, audio advisor sells all kinds of single or biwire cables and you have 30 days to return it free of restocking fees.  I biwire mine with audio quest type 8 cable, only because it was the same price as the single wire run.  When I experimented in the past side by side, I heard SUBTLE but audible difference on a pair of Dali Ikon 6 speakers.  I am not a cable naysayer, but I don't believe in multi thousand dollar cables either.  A quality set of speakers IMO can benefit from a reasonably priced set of quality cables

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Single vs. biwire is one audio belief that is soooo easy for each and every audiphile to test for themselves - just as I outlined in my post above - yet so few do it.  ..Again, this hobby's distain for empirical evidence is maddening.

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People can believe what they want, it is called free will, if someone wants to believe they hear a difference then so be it, and if someone does not then again so be it

Every single one of us hears differently, case in point some people love tubes and others love solid state

At the end of the day their opinon is there opinon

[emoji4]

Sent from my LG-H990 using Tapatalk

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14 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

I am suggesting that many here believe anything but the cheapest (insert whatever) is overkill and that includes wire and electronics. I have heard what good cable can do for a system, as well as good electronics.

 

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of this thread, which is whether or not bi-amping and bi-wiring make a discernible, significant difference in speaker output.  Concluding that they don't does not equate to believing that anything but the cheapest (insert whatever) is overkill.

 

 

14 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

BTW, if you already knew the answer, why even ask the question?

 

I stated in my opening post that "I would like some more opinions" on whether or not bi-wiring a Heresy III results in discernibly improved sound.  Pretty clear, don't you think?

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4 minutes ago, Deano1974 said:

People can believe what they want, it is called free will, if someone wants to believe they hear a difference then so be it, and if someone does not then again so be it

Every single one of us hears differently, case in point some people love tubes and others love solid state

At the end of the day their opinon is there opinon

emoji4.png

Sent from my LG-H990 using Tapatalk
 

 

Yes.. Of course.  ..People are free to believe what they want.  ..But people are also free to express a point of view that challenges others' believes.  

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23 minutes ago, Westcoastdrums said:

I am not a cable naysayer, but I don't believe in multi thousand dollar cables either.  A quality set of speakers IMO can benefit from a reasonably priced set of quality cables

 

Agree totally about cables.  There is no doubt that the use of higher quality cables results in improved speaker performance, but for real-world purposes the point of diminishing returns is heavily skewed toward the cheaper end.  A $100 cable may be worth the money.  A $1000 cable most certainly is not.

 

But to my original topic, I believe that bi-wiring speakers that are driven by a single amp is 100% snake oil.

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On a side note, small story for this thread. I bought a pair of klipschorns from a gentleman who had spent quite a large amount of money in cables, amps and TT/ other sources, all PREMIUM.  However, within about 5 seconds, I could hear that one tweeter was blown.  I pointed it out, he had been using them for years and had no idea....

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