Biwiring -- Help

[buylow]

OK, I think I may be dumb as a post. If I were to biwire my RF-3's do I just remove the jumper on the 3's and run 2 pr. of wire from the receiver to the speakers?? Or is it more complicated. Also, what might I expect to gain by doing so?

Your input would, as always, be greatly appreciated

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Mains: RF-3

Center: RC-3

Rears: RS-3

Sub: KSW-12

A/V Receiver: Yamaha HTR-5250

DVD Player: Yamaha DV-6280

CD Player: Yamaha CDC-506

VCR: Toshiba

TV: Toshiba 55" Projection

This message has been edited by buylow on 08-04-2001 at 02:29 AM

[jeffgeorge]

buylow,

You are correct... just make sure you are using the two seperate wires in the same terminals on your receiver. For instance, don't wire one strand in "A" and the other in "B". They need to be combined in "A". As for the benefits, the opinions vary. I have tried it with mine and have not been able to tell much difference. The true benefit to two seperate terminals on the RF-3's is bi-amping. In that scenario, you send the same signal to two seperate amps and feed one into the upper and one to the lower terminal. This gives you seperate amplification to both the tweeter and woofers.

I hope this all makes sense, I have not yet had my first cup of coffee.

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RF-3's : mains

RC-3 : center

RS-3's : surrounds

KSW-12: subwoofer

Receiver: Denon 2801

DVD: Panasonic DVD-A120

CD: Yamaha CDC-765

Cables: Tributaries

Sat Receiver: Hughes Direct-TV DD5.1

-------------------------

Family room:

RB-5's (Mahogony)

Receiver: Denon AVR-2000 (2ch.)

CD Player: old Sony (vintage 1986 - needs replaced)

[HornEd]

Well put, jeffgeorge, at least as understood by this eddennis after his first cup. Kinda makes one think that their might be a bi-amping market for paired channel amps that have more output capacity in the lower end... five such "paired amps" would make more sense to my 5.1 notions. HornEd

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"Where Legends Live! Klipsch Powered HT"

FOREGROUND SOUND STAGE:

KLF 30 Center, KLF 30 Mains, KLF 10 Front Effects

BACKGROUND SOUND STAGE:

KLF 30 L&R Side/Surrounds, KLF 30 Rear Effects

LARGE MOUTH BASS:

Twin SVS CS-Ultra sub with Samson Megawatt Amp

SPEAKER SUPPORT SYSTEMS:

Mitsubishi RPHD1080i 65", Yamaha RX-V3000 Receiver

and such... Tweakin' On!

2-Channel Music Respite Room ala Cornwall under construction...

[buylow]

Gentlemen: I thank you.............

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Mains: RF-3

Center: RC-3

Rears: RS-3

Sub: KSW-12

A/V Receiver: Yamaha HTR-5250

DVD Player: Yamaha DV-6280

CD Player: Yamaha CDC-506

VCR: Toshiba

TV: Toshiba 55" Projection

[buylow]

Whoops -- Jeff, I just noticed you have the same set up I do except you have a Denon and I have a Yamaha. I am one of the "harsh sounding Yamaha" people. I am thinking of switching to a Denon. Have you, or your ears, had any questions in this area??

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Mains: RF-3

Center: RC-3

Rears: RS-3

Sub: KSW-12

A/V Receiver: Yamaha HTR-5250

DVD Player: Yamaha DV-6280

CD Player: Yamaha CDC-506

VCR: Toshiba

TV: Toshiba 55" Projection

[Colin]

Heres what I gained:

Twice as much wire doubles the sound

A another tweak to my big old Klipsch Cornwall speakers was to double up on the Monster Cable. This was another idea suggested by the insane posters on the Klipsch BBS. I doubled up on the new cable that I recently added, just three months ago.

This was not a bi-wire arrangement, which is separate wires to separate drivers, but merely a second run of the same cable, joined at the amp end with Radio Shack gold spade plugs. Monster Cable is the only cable the local audio store sells. Often recommended brands, like Tara and Kimber, were not available for testing on a convenient, risk free basis. Monster Cable, at least, could be returned if the improvement was not worth $50. I already had one run of Monster Cable. I liked the newer Monster cable compared to the thick gauge wire that I ran for decades. Running a second set of speaker wire was a risk free proposition: I could always take them back.

I alternated between selections from one of my all time favorite's: the amazing "20 Bit Taste of DMP" sampler CD (http://www.dmprecords.com/dmp_collections.htm). This is one of the CDs I carry with me to test other systems. It is clear - it is clean. There is more silence in the quiet passages than almost all of my other CDs, while the highs provide ice-cold contrasts to the deep and rich bass plunks. I love almost every song on this silver disc and play it regularly. All other systems always sound their very best when playing this CD. It has deep and fast kick drums that punch and shake, deliciously high and sweet chimes that are closed miked in the foreground, silky smooth female vocals and resounding pianos. I listened for contrasts and tone.

My initial notes say "bass notes with this improvement seem to sustain a fraction longer, while the mid range sounds more like B&Ws at the audio store (that's good), cymbals seem better, kick drum has a little more kick."

But that is not what sold me on this improved cable arrangement. After one of the switching sessions, I noticed a weakness in the right channel. It was as if the right channel was playing at half the volume of the left channel - like the balance control was swung over to the left - all the leads vocals were singing from left of center for some reason. But, instead, a cable connection was loose. That sold me. When hooked back up properly, the increased resolution was immediately noticeable. There was more definition to the tom-toms. Guitars, especially, came to life.

I found myself adjusting the equalization on the Klipsch 200 watt sub-woofer less - preferring to leave the settings where they were, rather than jumping up and changing them for each new CD or movie.

Double wire, with the gold spade ends, gave better focus and fuller sound across the spectrum on an infrequently used Earl Klugh's Greatest Hits CD. On Diane Krall's wonderfully clean and simple CDs, the cymbals come alive - they sizzle like cold water splashed on hot sauna rocks.

Some tweaks remove color from the sound: This one seems to add it. The single best word that I can use to describe it is "lush."

Some tweaks cost a lot of money: This one does not. On a scale of one to ten, where the very best speakers are easily 8s, 9s and even 10s, this tweak is a 'one'. Wrapping my metal horns in soft gray window putty made a wonderful "two" on the scale.

Lasting impression: My big old horn speakers do not sound so different now, they sound better - less the of the 'Klipsch sound' and more of the music.

Recommended to try - results may vary with speaker sensitivity.

Thanks, Klipsch BBS.

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big old Cornwalls, 2A3 tube amps, Dynaco tube pre-amp, Rotel CD player, KSW200 & LF10 subs

[PaulE]

Colin,

Tonight I biwired my RF3s. I wasnt expecting much, but since I had been using 16 gauge generic and wanted to go to something better, I thougtht this was a good chance...So I bought a cheap length of Ixos 6004 biwire...this cable features 13 gauge for the woofers, and 15 gauge for the tweeters. But I wasnt sure which terminals on the speakers were for which....I guessed that the uppermost terminals were the tweeter terminals, so I gave them the thinner cables, with the thicker 2 going to the bottom most...Is this the correct terminal configuration?

Also, I want more cable for my surrounds...Like you, I think I'll run another length of the same 16 awg cable I'm using now...So, I will have 2 x 16 gauge twisted together...Do you know how to figure the combined AWG when combining thicknesses?

Thanks.

[eq_shadimar]

Here is another take on the bi-wiring deal. I am not sure how the crossovers are hooked up in the RF-3's but bi wiring a speaker or as Paul suggested taking a normal piece of zip cord and twisting the wires together to form a single conductor should yeild some benefits. Why? Well wires act as resistors and when you put two resistors of the same value in parallel to each other you half the resistance. Therefore if a normal wire run has a resistance of 1 ohm then performing this simple upgrade will yeild a resistance of .5 ohm. This, in theory, should yeild faster response and of course result in less cable loss.

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HT -

RF-3's

RC-3

RS-3's (white)

Advent Powered Sub

Harman Kardon AVR 510

PC -

ProMedia 4.1

Bedroom -

KG4's

Harman Kardon AVR 20 MKII

[T2K]

Well, that being the case,would anyone whom has experienced this "double" whamy care to comment on what they would think a speaker wire,such as lets say AodioQuest Slate with (8) separate strands,would do insofar as impedance is concerned? Would there be virtually NO impedance?

Another thing.Does anyone remember reading that belief that different frequencies tend to seek different paths

if given the opportunity(multi-strand),and how might this belief relate to the fact that Colin percieved an improvement in sound by running two separate wires on his non-biwire speakers?

Any comments,thoughts,input,beliefs,or otherwise smart *** remarks pertaining to this subject matter are appreciated.

Keith

[Ray Garrison]

Damn. I typed, like, a whole thesis length dissertation on this, hit the "submit" button, and got the dreaded "server not found" error. Lost the whole thing. Will retype edited version.

Word to the wise - until this Code Red thing is whipped and the Internet, the ISP's and everyone is back to their normal, barely adequate level of performance, copy and paste any lengthy posts to notepad before hitting submit, so you can recover them if you loose your session...

I have heard and read two different schools of thought on biwiring (bi-AMPING is a different topic altogether and I'm not talking about that.) One the one hand, we have the "Yes it makes a difference, it's easy to hear. The reason it makes a difference is blah blah blah..." One the other hand, we have the "No, biwiring by itself will not make any difference whatsoever, unless the doubling up of the speaker cables and the assicated changes to the resistance, inductance and capacitance values in and of themselves affect the sound. If THAT'S the case, you can accomplish the same thing by running two sets of speaker cables to the same set of binding posts even if the speaker is not set up for biwiring. The argument that blah blah blah is faulty, simple electronic theory shows us that yada yada yada..."

The blah blah blah argument: A speaker driver, be it woofer, tweeter or midrange, is a motor. When amp pushes current into the voice coil, the cone moves. When the signal stops, the driver's surround and spider attempt to "pull" the cone back to the centerpoint. Pulling the cone moves the voice coil through the magnetic gap, which generates current with some associated potential. This current moves "through" the speaker's crossover, just as amp's current moves through the crossover. The generated current, which we'll call the back electro motive force, or back EMF, will interact with the speaker drivers. It will be at a lower level than the signal coming from the amp (one whould hope so, anyway...), but it will affect the drivers. Imagine a series of short, transient pulses spaced a few milliseconds apart. Each pulse will create an associated back EMF as the driver's cone moves within the magnetic gap after the signal has stopped. The cone will tend to oscillate at the resonant frequency associated with the cone's mass, the compliance of the spider and surround, and a bunch of other factors. Each oscillation produces some small amount of back EMF, which in turn interacts with the crossover and produces some motion in the drivers. The result: ringing, a "smearing" of the sound, loss of precision in transient response, less precise imaging and soundstaging, and other bad things. However, there is good news here; the amp is also part of the circuit, and will represent a load for this back EMF. Now, most amps, especially solid state, have very low output impedences. This means that as far as this back EMF is concerned, the amp looks practically like a very, very low impedence load. The motor assembly generating this back EMF will be unable to push current into the difficult load represented by the amp, and the back EMF is thus said to be "damped" by the amp. The lower the output impedence of the amp, the better a job it will do at damping the drivers. What has this got to do with biwiring? Well, theory goes, if you have, say, a two way speakers, you're going to have two halves to the crossover - the high pass component and the low pass component. If you have one set of speaker cables, and the high and low pass sections of the crossover are wired in parallel, then the back EMF current can "circulate" through the crossover parts in, addition to attempting to drive the amp's inputs. This means that the back EMF generated by the woofer can have some sonic impact on the tweeter, and vicey versey. By separating the crossover into two sections, and connecting each section to the amp on it's own pair of cables, you isolate the two halves from each other, and provide a more direct route to the amp's input (lower impedence) and thus better damping of the back EMF and less ringing and other interactions.

The yada yada yada argument: The blah blah blah argument is fundamentally flawed. It may look as though running two sets of wires from the amp to the speaker, with each set going to one half of the crossover, is different than running one set of wires and connecting the two halves of the crossover together with straps, but this is not true. From the point of view of the circuit, looking at a diagram, there is NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER between (a) running one set of wires from amp to the low pass crossover, then running short straps from the low pass crossover to the high pass crossover, and ( running one set of wires from the amp to the low pass, and one set of wires from the amp to the high pass. The only thing you have done is replaced the short (couple inches) straps connecting the high and low pass crossovers with, like, ten feet of speaker cable. And, at the frequencies and voltages we're talking about here, that is a difference that makes no difference. The circuits are logically equivalent. That is, this:

Amp

/

/

/-low pass

/

/-high pass

is the same as this:

Amp

/

^

||

||

||-low pass

/

/-high pass

(hope the ASCII art makes sense, stupid web applications compress spaces in HTTP/HTML sessions, makes it difficult to draw pretty pictures...)

Me, I don't have anywhere near the background in electronic theory (a basic understanding of Maxwell's equations would probably suffice) to know which answer more correcter.

I think it makes a difference.

Of course, if we're talking about an amp that has two isolated outputs driven by separate output devices, or some sort of buffered outputs that are isolated from each other, then that's a different story.

Ray

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Music is art

Audio is engineering

[T2K]

saywhaaa...............

Keith