biwire question

[InVeNtOr]

this might be a dumb question but i am going to ask it any way.

i was under the assumption that klipsch speakers are very efficient. with that understanding in mind, i asked a sales person this question: "why is there two sets of wires connected to these (klipsch) speakers?"

he explained "you hook up the speaker with both sets of wires to double the wattage."

when i mentioned that klipsch are very efficient and don't need much wattage, he then replied, "then why did they make them bi-wireable?"

so long story short what is the purpose of a klipsch bi-wire speaker? is there any benifits to it?

[nezff]

I have mine biamped. My receiver has a spot for this. The back rear surrounds inputs are used for this. I thought double the wattage, but not sure. My onkyo is 90 watts per channel, so biamped, I have no idea how much im giving them. I know they can take upwards of 500 watts each though.

[djk]

Bi-wiring makes a small inprovement in clarity, nothing more.

Passive bi-amping does not increase the power in any real way (it takes too long to explain). Do a search on 'fools bi-amping' and djk if you want to read an explanation.

Passive bi-amping does get you bi-wired, and allows you to alter the driver levels in speakers that do not have adjustable level controls (Klipsch). Radical changes in speaker placement can cause changes in frequency response that you may be able to help by changing these levels (if the amps have level controls).

[LoudnClear]

I'm sorry, but your dealer is 'stupit foo' and is not to be dealt with unless there is no other choice. Sounds like he can always go back to best buy once he gets let go from this place.

[PrestonTom]

Well, that salesman sounds like one of the 19 year olds at my local Best Buy. Such simple wisdom .....

[BuyOtherSoundEquipment]

Well, that salesman sounds like one of the 19 year olds at my local Best Buy. Such simple wisdom .....

Ouch, I'd almost take that personally if it wasn't so true of almost every OTHER 19 year old salesman at Best Buy (or any big box retailer, for that matter).

I can play the devil's advocate and provide some evidence, as well. My "audiophile" co-worker (i.e. has a degree in music) stated to a customer that, although he was going with Klipsch F2s, the Bose VCS-10 center channel would be superior to the Klipsch C2 because: "The Bose center channel has smaller woofers, which better accentuate the details of the human voice."

Needless to say, I had a little "WTF" moment with him afterward....

[InVeNtOr]

LMAO! what i left out of that story was i was in best buys magnolia center and the guy i spoke too couldn't be over the age of 24!

[InVeNtOr]

so the basic purpose is, you get a little more clarity.

[djk]

That's about it, a small improvement for a small price.

Most people I have done this for have something like 12ga Monster cable. I use this for the lows and twist a pair of suplus 18ga Teflon wire together in a drill for the highs. Costs maybe $5 to do it that way.

[Jeff Matthews]

Lamp cord works well, too.

[djk]

Plain old magnet wire sounds better, and is cheaper than lamp cord.

I prefer Teflon to lamp cord.

[Andy W]

http://forums.klipsch.com/blogs/andyw/archive/2007/09/07/bi-amplifying-or-bi-amping.aspx

Don't even get me started on bi-wiring.

this might be a dumb question but i am going to ask it any way.

i was under the assumption that klipsch speakers are very efficient. with that understanding in mind, i asked a sales person this question: "why is there

two sets of wires connected to these (klipsch) speakers?"

he explained "you hook up the speaker with both sets of wires to double the wattage."

Nope. no such effect.

when i mentioned that klipsch are very efficient and don't need much wattage, he then replied, "then why did they make them bi-wireable?"

so long story short what is the purpose of a klipsch bi-wire speaker? is there any benifits to it?

The bi-wiring posts are there because the market requires it. The benefit will be debated as long as the sun rises, the argument is that since the tweeter wires carry only tweeter current and woofer wires carry only woofer current, there will be an improvement in sound quality.

There is ZERO benefit in bi-wiring. Actually it's a negative benefit... since you have to pay for twice as much wire... and since "you will never be able to hear the difference if you use cheap wire," so they say, it's doubly negative.

(disclaimer: the comments in this post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Klipsch or any of it's subsidiaries)

[djk]

Gee, you're late.

All food tastes the same(if you have a zinc deficency), all women kiss the same(if you're a eunuch), VHS and Beta look the same(to Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder), and all amplifers sound the same(to the deaf old men at Stereo Review).

WHO?

Tell the deaf/dumb/blind kid to go play pinball.

[DrWho]

Wouldn't the seperation of tweeter and woofer currents be a lot like the seperation of large ground currents from the lower ground currents on PCB's?

I would think the distortions transmitted should be relatively small since drivers are high impedance in their stopband, but I think I saw a "study" once that measured distortions about 40dB down as a result? From one perspective, -40dB doesn't seem to make much difference when your speakers are pushing over 1% distortion, but I guess that wouldn't mean someone could learn to hear the difference...the difference between engineer and audiophilia?

[djk]

Distortion that is harmonically related to the signal is not objectionable unless very, very high in level.

Non-related distortion products can stand out like a sore thumb.

I heard this distortion in an installation over 30 years ago, and didn't understand it at the time (even though it was plainly audible, so much so that the club owner wanted me to repair his JBL compression drivers).

I have Jon Risch to thank for explaining what was going on here.

[fudjud]

I do like the mild improvement in detail/clarity of biwire. I have also use large ga stranded for woofers and solid core for tweeters. The question I have is: shouldn't it be limited to 2 way crossover speakers? It would seem a 3 way with a midrange driver would get a confused signal. Any ideas on this?

[djk]

In a three-way the bi-wire points are usually between the woofer(s) and the mids-HF.

The first experience with this type of commercial speaker set up this way was with the Boston Acoustics A400, over 20 years ago now. The bi-wire points were at about 400hz. These things were not very efficient, and a nice improvement could be heard when run in bi-wire mode.

It may be only a small improvement, but it doesn't cost much to try either. If you can hear it, fine. If you can't hear it, fine. You haven't got a big investment in time or money at stake.

[Tag 1.7]

I can understand if people can not tell any difference between biwiring and single cable connection but with my new DIY Cornscalas I can actually hear an improvement in the single wire connection over biwiring. I'm using Bob Crite's Cornscala crossover and I initially removed the jumper wire between terminals 2 and 10 to biwire. Two weeks later I put the jumper wire back in and hooked up the speakers for single wire connection and was astounded by the all round improvement. Is this possible or are my ears playing tricks on me? On this experience I would have to advise to not waste your money on extra speaker cabling.

[djk]

No, your ears are not deceiving you.

A friend of mine had a similar experience with the Belle. The speaker had more detail in the mids and HF and no longer sounded balanced to him. He went back to a single wire as well.

"On this experience I would have to advise to not waste your money on extra speaker cabling."

One trial and you can speak for every situation in the audio world?

I'm impressed, and must bow to your superior experience.

[John Warren]

I would argue that it's difficult to predict what bi-wiring will do to the sound. At the fundamental level, it appears that it would alter the DC resistive component the motional impedance of the woofer sees thus changing damping. In terms of magnitude, I would think a change of a few tenths of a Ohm would be expected. With regard to audibility?, I'd say if Dennis says it's audible, it's audible.