How does bi-wiring work?

@tomic601 

Yes. I think I was in my kick drum stage… when I thought that a concussive kick drum was the mark of a good system. But the AMTs had a really smooth and beautiful midrange… which is why I bought them.  

Hello jmeyers!  If you already have two sets of wires going to your speakers, you have an intereting option. It requires some bravery and will surely void your warranty. It's easy if you have a seperate preamp & power amp. So far, I have been shocked by the poor quality of parts used in the internal crossovers in most speakers. Quality parts can easily cost way over $100 per side and most mfgrs don't use them. So you pay for nice boxes and fine drivers and get poor sound. So forget passive crossovers! Take the grilles off your speakers, loosen the screws and remove the woofer. (Dont forget to put them back later on.) What kind of wire did they use? Thick or thin? Check it with a magnet. Is the wire magnetic? If so, get rid of it. You can buy an electronic two way crossover for $100 or less from miniDSP. Most of us have an "old" stereo amp sitting around; probably less powerful than the one you are now using. Does your current speaker cabinet only have one set of terminals on the back? Open them up and add a pair of terminal to the back. Run new, non ferrous, heavy duty wires from the tweeter to those terminals. Discard the internal crossover. Connect the woofer directly to the original terminals (replace them if the magnet sticks to them) with suitable heavy wires. Twelve guge is heavy enough; (copper or silver of course). Many would point out that it's a good idea to put a protective capacitor in the tweeter's path to protect it in case your amp goes haywire; but your old amp works, doesn't it? And you're a careful person, right? You aways shut off the amp before changing wires, right? So, don't worry. Most folks wouldn't know what size or brand to use anyway. (Mundorf, 20 mfd would be about right). But dont worry, send the high's directly to your old amp (the tweeter amp, getting the output from the electronic crossover's high output terminals). Your current amp feeds the woofer directly, getting its signal from the low output of the electronic crossover. Now, the woofer amp is never troubled by bird whistles or picolos. The tweeter amp is nerver called upon to put out cannon shots; drums punished by over zeaous madmen; or the roar of lions, waterfalls; or electronis aliens (only the overtones). It will probably never need to put out more tnan15 watts. Try it! You will never go back. Enjoy the music! 

Now that multiple people have told the OP bi-wiring doesn't do anything for their setup, I'll kick in my $.02. With my speakers, I get a subtle but definite improvement. Less so with decent quality jumpers replacing the OEM plates, but still a slight improvement. Try it with your speakers and see if it does anything in your rig. All it costs is a little time. If you have to buy cables to do it, the difference, if any, probably isn't worth that much.

The main advantage I have found of bi-wiring is the maid occasionally deep cleans the house and somehow manages to unplug very secure connections.

She pulled one of the negative cables to my B&W 800 out and I didn’t notice for a week.  Ran fine.

Electronically, it does nothing.  I bi-wired because I have a giant spool of 12g pure silver wire from a military aircraft rebuild (they use silver or silver tinned copper for fire reasons, apparently).  And I enjoyed making it.  My daughter liked braiding it, so we talked as she did that.

 I also may jump to quad monoblocks.

@davetheoilguy 

The main advantage I have found of bi-wiring is the maid occasionally deep cleans the house and somehow manages to unplug very secure connections.

She pulled one of the negative cables to my B&W 800 out and I didn’t notice for a week.  Ran fine.

You should have lost output from a driver if you bi-wired correctly with a different set of cables to separate inputs of  independent drivers.  Are there still jumpers of some sort between the inputs?  

@tomic601 I don't think he can.

@curiousjim 

you are correct in the positive poles.  Neutral (“ground”) is common.

Maybe I need more coffee, but ???

Biwiring works and you can hear subtle differences in a high resolution room. All my speakers are biwired.

Bi-wiring "works" by paying for two pairs of speaker cables, connecting them to a pair of terminals that send the signals to the crossover network, which then sends the signals from BOTH pair of terminals to the same drivers. 

For me bi-wiring makes the most sense. My primary amp is a YBA Integre DT, which has outputs the highs, and outputs for the lows. This is feeding Reference 3A MM deCapo monitors that have bi-wiring inputs. This method is pretty much dictated, not a choice. Sounds good to me.

stealth audio explain bi wiring very well:

"The main reason to bi-wire is to eliminate interaction between cables carrying bass and mid/high frequencies;

There are two main types of bi-wiring: true bi-wiring, and internal bi-wiring.

True bi-wiring is running two separate sets of cables, each of them separate in its own jacket. All cables is this case are individually terminated with a spade or a banana plug. Internal bi-wiring is splitting the conductors (wires) inside a common jacket into two electrically isolated bundles and terminating each bundle with its own spade or banana plug at one end of a cable, or at both ends. Since the bundles are electrically isolated, this type of bi-wiring does eliminate the direct electrical (galvanic) interaction between the bundles, but the electro-magnetic interaction still exists (since the bundles are being run in a common jacket, close to each other). True bi-wiring eliminates both direct and electro-magnetic interaction, while internal bi-wiring still allows for electro-magnetic interaction. As we can see, only true bi-wiring allows to take full advantage of the bi-wiring concept. Therefore, in general, true bi-wiring is clearly superior to internal bi-wiring.

Thus, while our Dream speaker cables are internally bi-wirable, and the Cloude Ninety Nine speaker cables are internally bi- and tri-wirable with very little performance loss, true bi-wiring is still superior with these cables. With other STEALTH cables (Hybrid MLT, for example) we only only "true b-wire" - i.e. bi-wiring with two identical sets of cables, each of them separate in its own jacket.

Yes, it’s not as convenient as having the cables in a common jacket, but performance-wise, true bi-wire is better - because the main reason to bi-wire is to eliminate interaction between cables carrying bass and mid/high frequencies; having bi-wire cables in a common jacket - i.e. too close to each other - compromises the performance;

Please keep in mind that while bi-wiring is a good idea sound-wise, using higher performance cables in a single-wire configuration is usually better than using inferior cables in bi-wire.

In a true bi-wire configuration, you have 4 binding posts of each speaker; to each of them goes a separate cable; Therefore, you have 4 separate cables per side; It’s best for the sound if you keep all four of them separate. But if you do not like the way it looks (4 separate cables), they can be spiraled together and appear as a single thick cable which splits at the ends.

If your amplifier doesn’t have four terminals per side (for bi-wire) - we recommend fitting two spade lugs onto a single binding post at the amplifier end. If fitting two spade lugs on a single binding post is not possible - then the option is to order one set of the cables with banana plugs at one end, and the other set with spade lugs (and fit a spade lug and a banana plug on he same binding post). Another option is to order a custom bi-wire set both wires of which are factory terminated into a single spade lug"

Gentlemen,

Is the discussion + - to + -

or + to ++ and - to --?

Two normal speaker cables can be connected either way.

Gentlemen,

Is the discussion + - to + -

or + to ++ and - to --?

Two normal speaker cables can be connected either way.

Did I mis something?  Was that ever the question?

I'll take Paul McGowan's word for it. Biwiring is a waste.

I'll take Paul McGowan's word for it. Biwiring is a waste.

Who is this man they call Paul McGowan?  Is he a myth, or does he truly exist?

P of PS Audio. Like most of us an interesting cat, sometimes right, sometimes wrong…. 

@soix 

I tried (WBC) jumpers on my AZ Satori Shotguns.  I hear exactly what you describe.  It's not subtle, they're staying!  Thanks for the tip.

@wlutke Very glad to hear!  And thanks for the follow up.  Cables can be a risky thing to recommend because they can be so system dependent, so I’m happy it worked out in your situation.

I tried (WBC) jumpers on my AZ Satori Shotguns.  I hear exactly what you describe.  It's not subtle, they're staying!  Thanks for the tip.

I did the same thing (WBC jumpers) with my shotgunned B&W 805s.  I think it sounds better, but I did a couple of other things at about the same time. It certainly didn't hurt.