Mit Terminator 2 speaker cable, to bi wire or not?

[johnymac]

I have a pair of KLF 30's and a pair of Forte ll's.

I enjoy them both very much.

I am thinking of buying a set of MIT Terminator 2 speaker cables. If I buy a non bi wire set up then I can use on both sets of speakers. If I buy the bi wire set up, then only the KLF 30's.

I am curious if anyone out here uses these cables?

I am also curious if using the bi wire cables, if the speaker will really benefit from this.

The I have a tube preamp and a SS amp.

Thanks very much for any suggestions here.

Thanks!!

[jt1stcav]

I can only speak from my experience...I bought a pair of MIT Terminator 2 standard cables for my Magnepans years ago. They sounded fine, but really not any better than the original Monster Cable 14(?) AWG cables they replaced. Even with their networks, nothing really stood out amazing about them. I never used the MIT's with my Cornwalls, so I cannot comment on how good they would sound on Klipsch horn speakers. The Terminator 2's might just be what you're looking for, and at their blowout prices on www.audioadvisor.com, they're cheap enough to try out and see if they work for you.

As far as bi-wire cables for your KLF-30's, I don't know what sound advantage bi-wiring can do, since you're still using one amp to power your loudspeakers. Bi-amping I can understand that advantage point...two seperate amps, each powering the woofers, while the second amp powers the horns. It can't hurt to try...lots of audiophiles do it, so give it a shot.

I had an AMC CVT1030s tube preamp and a McIntosh MC7200 SS amp...great combo!

[Deang]

If you are going to stay with a solid state amp, then I highly recommend the MIT Biwire 2's. I used them for a long time.

With a solid state amp and horns, the MIT's known tendancy towards warmth and a slight softening of the treble is welcome.

Biwiring, good for SS, not so good for tube amps.

There is a much longer version of the following by Jon Risch, but trust me -- you need to know how to use a freaking slide rule to know what the hell he's talking about.

*What is bi-wiring?

Bi-wiring is where the crossover inside the speaker has been separated into it's HF and LF sections, and separate pairs of connecting terminals provided to access those separate sections independently. Normally, the LF and HF crossover sections are in parallel, connected internally to the same single pair of binding posts.

For single cable use, a set of jumpers is provided to bridge the terminal pairs, paralleling the separated crossover sections outside the cabinet instead of inside.

Then, separate speaker cables are run from the same amp output to these separated pairs of terminals at the speaker.

*What good does bi-wiring do?

Some say that any improvement in the sound it makes is strictly due to the decreased total DCR, and this makes the speaker less prone to frequency response variations due to cable resistance. According to this view, simply running the two cables in parallel at both ends will do the same thing. In my opinion, this is a very simplistic and incomplete way of looking at the situation.

Once the crossovers have been electrically separated, they present different impedances (loads) to the power amp within their passbands and outside of their passbands. The woofer and corresponding low frequency crossover section will present a low impedance at low frequencies and a high impedance at HF, while the tweeter section will present a low impedance at high frequencies, and high one at LF's.

With the electrical separation, differing currents will flow within the two cables that make up a bi-wire set. For the separate cable feeding the woofer section, a lot of current will flow at LF's but not much current at HF's, and the tweeter cable will have some current flow at HF, but very little at LF's. A division of labor has occured with bi-wiring, whereby a single cable does not have have to carry the HF currents simultaneuously with the LF current.

Two things happen due to this:

1. The losses in the cable due to "eye-squared-are" losses (current squared time the resistance equals voltage drop) are reduced for each frequency band, so that any tendency for the woofer to modulate the tweeter due to current draw is greatly reduced. This form of IM would be in lock-step with the original signal.

2. The magnetic fields due to the HF and LF currents have also been separated out, and any tendency for them to intermodulate and cause sonic artifacts has been greatly reduced. This form of IM would be occuring both at the same time, and in a time delayed form due to mechanical resonances and motor/generator action.

[Yossarian]

I have used bi-wired Terminator 2's with both solid state and tube amps and with Planar Magnetic and conventional speakers and I have found them to be quite good. I certainly don't feel they have ever degraded the performance of any of the gear I have used them with. I must confess, however, that I have grown a little skeptical about the overall relevance of cables and interconnects. I am currently using good ol' 12 gauge copper on my RF 3II's. I'm going to hook the MIT back up eventually, but I don't feel that I'm suffering with the 12 gauge.

[Mighty Favog]

I'm using Terminator 2-BiWires on my KLF-20's and have never had a regret. Their being used with an SS preamp (McIntosh C33) and SS amp (Rotel RB1080). The bass extension is incredible (and no subs).

The only minor gripe I have about them is this: I have to insert the spades in the amp's termial going from top to bottom instead of botton to top. The cables are too thick to be inserted the traditional way. I called MIT and asked them if they make 90deg. (small) spades and they said no. Since I'm running them "upside down" like this one of the black vinyl insulators split. IT offered to fix it but I didn't see what the point would be if it's just gonna happen again.

[Mighty Favog]

Update:

I kept the cables but got a pair of 84' Cornwalls and modified them to have Bi-Wire terminal inputs. Great enough by themselves, I did the Cornscala conversion with all current model McIntosh SS front end gear. The soundstage and frequency extention is incredible.