Why bi-wiring is bad


From a link at the Chris Van-Haus website:
THE DISADVANTAGE WITH BI-WIRE

One thing that happens when you biwire your loudspeakers is that the input of the high- and the low-pass filters are fed with different input signals. The difference is a result of the high frequencies and the low frequencies being forced to travel different paths, perhaps through different types of cables, but under all circumstances through cables who have seen different loads (a tweeter with a high pass filter has a completely different impedance response compared to a woofer with a low pass filter!).

What happens is that the drivers will work less good together than when their filter halves were fed with equal signals. The result is a generation of more static and stochastic phase error sounds at different directions from the loudspeaker. The stochastic phase error sounds appear because there may be different types of unlinearities in the low- and high-frequency paths.

What does this sound like? Well, usually, just as you may expect from physics, it appears as a change in the reproduction of space and sound stage. Often, the first impression is that the "biwired" sound presents extended "dimensions", more "air", and is more "living". The impression after a week or month, however, is that all recordings sound very much alike, and the "airiness" appears on all records. It does not even sound like air anymore, instead more like a slime that pollutes every record you play. No wonder, since it is not a real, recorded quality but a "speaker characteristic" added to all reproduced material. "Sameness" is another word for it.

I just went back to bi-wiring over the weekend. The first thing I noticed was cymbal-like instruments shimmer much more. Secondly the bass now seemed to be less perhaps due to the greater high frequency information.
On orchestra music the orchestra is now well behind the speakers instead of right at the speaker. Like the article said, this may be a phase or time shift error and the depth may become wearing over time.
Finally there is slighlty better separation between instruments. It's easier to pick out each instrument.
cdc

Showing 1 response by psychicanimal

If you ask the wrong question, you are likely to get the right answer to the wrong issue.

This is taken from the Cobalt Cables website:

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BI-wiring is a technique becoming quite popular in speaker applications. However, in our opinion, there are only a few situations where BI-wiring makes sense, and MANY situations where BI-wiring is just hype. Here are a few "qualifiers" to tell if BI-wiring makes sense for you:

• Your amplifier or receiver AND your speakers have two distinct sets of terminals per channel.

• You are running higher than average (200W+) power to each BI-wired channel.

• You are running longer than average (20 ft.+) cable runs to each channel.

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I have orederd a pair of Bi-wireable Wharfedale Diamond Anniversary edition and do want to experiment w/ them, since they were $78 a pair brand new.

I also have a pair of Swans M1 which have separate crossover boards and only one set of binding posts. The manufacturer does not recommend Bi-wiring. They have bi-wireable speakers to satisfy the demand for such.

Time will tell...