Anyone try this way to wire your loudspeakers?


I have just rewired my Mcintosh XR100 loudspeakers by running one pair of Cardas Golden Reference cables from my amplifiers 8ohm leads to the speakers woofer connectors and a 2nd pair of identical cables from the amplifiers 4ohm leads to the speakers mid/treble connectors. The result was just fantatstic. Without going into all the audiophile adjectives all I can say is that it far surpassed all my other experiments with bi-wiring and jumper cables. Wondering if anyone else has had the same experience. I am one
happy camper!
ranchomirage
Jjreman,

Have not reversed leads yet, but after a house full of guest depart next week I will have the quite time to experiment and listen.
I reversed the leads last night and it was clear to me that I lost some bass only, with highs unaffected and mids just undecided. Listened most of today with same conclusion and that the swap was not that dramatic so I just switched everything back to my personal contentment. However, as originally stated the big gain with these loudspeakers and cables was wiring them separately from the 8ohm and 4ohm outputs dual shotgun - rather than my previous bi-wiring and also trying straight shotgun with jumper cables. Ah, now time to pour a whiskey, pull up Diane Schurr and listen to Louisiana Sunday Afternoon and other cuts from her COLLECTION album. Best to all AudioGoner's
Hi Ranchomirage,

I just purchased some MC2301's and was faced with the exact same dilemma as you. My previous amps, Octave MRE130 had two pairs of speaker out for each mono amp and I was able to use two pairs of double shot guns, ala biwire to the B&W Nautilus 800's. Now, facing the same issue as you, I also did exactly the same thing, running the mid-highs to the 4 ohm taps and the bass to the 8 ohm taps, sounds great to me. I thought about swapping, but based on your experience, I think I will stick with the current configuration.

On audioaficionado there are lengthy discussions regarding bi-wiring macs and many more enthusiasts there than here or asylum.

Glad you are enjoying your new macs. I am in music heaven with mine.

Ciao,
Audioquest4life
Not to take away anything from the enjoyment you're experiencing . . . but I thought I'd point out that the 8-ohm taps have about 6dB more voltage gain than the 4-ohm taps. There's no problem with doing this from the amplifier's standpoint, except with the possibility of somewhat increased distortion should the loudspeakers' high-frequency section present significantly less than an 8-ohm load through part of the frequency range.

But the sonic effects are overwhelmingly akin to simply cranking up the bass relative to the highs - very simply a tone control, that has frequency characteristics of the loudspeakers' crossover slope(s). The configuration of the cables themselves are unlikely to have anything except a miniscule effect when compared to this change in gain.

Again . . . if you like what you hear, that's great! For those that don't have multiple amplifier taps or loudspeaker bi-wire inputs, a very similar result could be had with a simple twist of a well-designed tone control.