HI,
Check first that you like the sound by moving red to tweeter (upper raw) and black to woofer (lower raw) in X configuration leaving the jumpers on.
That will give you increased highs and more forward presentation.
Simple before spending for Biwiring. |
It doesn't improve the sound. I just use the jumpers. |
There’s technical reasons it works and you can search around and read them all and decide for yourself how much of the Kool-ade you want to drink. If any. Because the fact is it works, and does sound better, at least sometimes. So what? The question is never does it work. The question is how good? And compared to what??
Those are always the questions you should be asking. Because unless the bi-wire is just sitting there in a drawer or something for free, then what you really want to know is what will get me the best sound for the money? And the answer is never buy another set of cables just to bi-wire. Buy a better set of cables. Period.
Oh by the way, "unless the bi-wire is just sitting there in a drawer" that was me back in the beginning. Wire then was cheap hookup wire. So I tried it. It worked. Twice as much wire, 10% better sound. Okay 5%. Whatever. Point is better. So it does work. Twice as much wire is one thing when its coming off a reel. When you get to $500, $1500 and more, well you do the math. Not worth it. |
To explain , when I said converting to bi-wire I meant adding
speaker posts and re-configuring the crossover wires .
One guy did a test using individual wires of 18 gauge ( 1 @ for per post )
after liking the bi-wire configuration he re-wired the crossovers back to a single wire setup and then used both 18 gauge wires ( 2 @ per post )
he like the sound of the bi-wiring better !
so increasing AWG was not a factor in his conclusion .
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Lol! To explain, my post is so clear it doesn't need to be redone even in the face of this new information. |
There's no reason to add extra binding posts on the speaker to simply bi-wire, if you were going to bi-amp that's different. There is no technical reason bi-wiring works there's scientific reasons it doesn't. |
It does seem to work for those who have tried it
but there is no way to measure or prove why it seems to work .
This is why I am asking the question .
As for kool-aid It worked for the Grateful Dead !
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No it doesn't necessarily work for those who have tried it. I've had bi- wired speakers never made any difference there's no reason it would. |
I wont even comment on the benefits of bi-wiring, + or -. I have my biases and i have not done it it too long to feel confident.
But i will say that Millercarbon's comment is the most important one that we should all keep in mind, and almost no one ever asks.Many things work. The question is always "where can i get the most benefit for s given expenditure"
Right now i am placing most of my effort and money on sources (DAC, low jitter/noise sources, cartridge) and on room/setup. The sound, as it sits, is frankly amazing so I'm not out to change any fundamentals.
I believe most people can get the biggest changes from setup, room and source material (e.g.: the best recordings). Oh, and i make (or more accurately have and will) the costly electronics stuff i'm down-playing :-)
The great thing about bi-wiring is that with many speakers you can do a low-cost test -- even if the test is with lesser cables than the ones you own. This way you can separate two effects: a) wire sound (if any) and b) bi-wirign affect (if any).
G
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As for kool-aid It worked for the Grateful Dead ! Well, that kind of kool-aid may improve the sound of any system. I know for a fact i prefer the sound of my system after a glass of good wine or Scotch. really. |
I go by the fact that if some speakers have the capability, then why not use it in that manner (biwired), can’t hurt...the speakers with just one set of terminals, well then, I have nothing to fret about as there is the one option. I can’t say that I’ve heard an astounding difference, if any, in sound quality, but I’ll use the speaker in that manner if the design allows. Plus I’d rather biwire where applicable rather than use the crappy metal jumpers provided any how. |
Not that it would directly pertain to your situation, but simply improving the jumper situation can have a noticeable improvement...or change, rather. I say this for perspective, as I would not conceive of going to the trouble of changing a crossover to add extra posts. Just improving the crossover with better wire/connections, caps, resistors alone should be more than sufficient. I’m sure I’ll receive some flac for suggesting this, but would it not seem that a biwire configuration would be taking into account cabinet and driver design? Some of the very best speakers out there only have one set of posts. But my current speakers (totem arros) have two sets, and when I simply changed out those factory brass honkers with silver plated audioquest wires...wow, a real improvement (to my ears, anyway). So maybe just some improvements to the existing crossover, unless those parts are already pretty fancy to begin with? |
It doesn't make a difference. And the whole diagonal wiring thing is another nonsensical myth. I implore you to try it for yourselves, but make sure no alcohol is consumed between the time you start the wiring experiment and the time you sit down to listen. |
Richard Vandersteen insists his speakers are bi-wired per his design, so I bi-wire mine, and have never used jumpers on my Vandy’s. Not sure what the big deal is. I’m certainly not going win an argument on the subject with Richard, and have never seen anyone who has when confronted with the subject.
Now, if your speakers only have one set of binding posts, I see no good reason to add them if that is how they were designed. |
The only benefit of bi‐wiring is the increased speaker wire gauge equivalent you get running two sets of wires. Running a twin set of wire is equivalent to increasing the speaker wire guage by 3. For example, running two 14 guage wires is equivalent to running a single 11 guage wire. I have tried both routes and I would say If the cost is minimal, there is no harm in running a bi‐wire setup. I wouldn't go to the trouble of adding dual binding posts to a set of speakers though to accomplish this. |
I bi-wire because the speakers are so designed & mfr encourages & already had the wires from last setup. Adding a second pair of binding posts just to enable bi-wiring strikes me as nutty, as others have said.
Nobody thinks bi-wiring is harmful, so if you've got the stuff already, go for it. |
No! Bi-wiring does NOT improve the sound if your speaker gauge is sufficient to the situation. As mentioned doubling the gauge of the wire “could” help... but maybe not. It is probably the least expensive “Audiophile” tweak you can try but do try and let the rest of us know it it actually works for you! I’m willing to bet it will make no difference in the actual sound.
** actual results may vary :-)
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Some years back I had speakers that could be bi-wired or bi- amped.
The only advantage I see now from bi- wiring is you will already own the wire if you decide to Bi-amp,Which I eventually did do.If that isn't a future consideration, don't bother. The money is better spent on upstream components, not wire or speaker mods. |
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I have always bi-wired my speakers.
The concept makes perfect sense if you consider that the voicecoil is kinda like an electric motor.
Give it power and it goes.
but an electric motor is also an electric generator if the movement is caused by an exterior force.
The driver doesn't comes to rest instantaneously after being driven by the amplifier.
momentum keeps it going and that can cause the creation of current which feeds back to the tweeter. potentially.
Bi-wiring gives this current a place to go as it is drawn to the ground of the amplifier.
Path of least resistance and all that. |
It all depends on your listening preferences like a new cart, or a new set of speakers. I am enjoying my "bi-wirging" experience. Some music sounds more open to me bc my ears are different than anyone elses. Good luck with your search bc it's your search, and it's awesome that it's your search alone |
I tend to agree with several other respondents, especially regarding adding terminals to the speakers if they were manufactured with just one set — I don’t think I would bother. But the Martin Logan 60XT’s I bought allow bi-wiring/bi-amping. I had one good amp and didn’t feel the need to buy a second amp, but the speaker cables to allow bi-wiring weren’t much more expensive than the standard cables, so I thought “why not?” I don’t know whether the bi-wiring improves the sound, but it was inexpensive to check that box, so I went for it.
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In my experience, my Silverline Sonata-III speakers with biwired cable sound more analytical, even if the cable is warm (like the Silverline's own biwire cable). |
I own bi-wireable speakers. I also had a hard time accepting that
splitting one cable would possibly make a difference. At that time I was
using some heavy gauge, copper Monster wire and planned an upgrade of some kind.
I was in the Kimber Room at a show in 2019 and asked "Who here might best counsel be on which Kimber cable to buy"? The gentleman I asked said "I think I can do that".
After asking about system and my listening style he suggested
an 8 biwire product. A 3 meter run was about $280.00 and could be made and delivered in 3-4 days.
The 8 wire strand would be split as follows: 3 to treble, 5 to bass.
This was Mr Ray Kimber himself assisting me.
Interesting side note: My counselor/mentor/friend who has the same speakers as I do was recently listening at my home. He was trying to figure out why my system produced better sound than his. He does not bi-wire.
So I feel I have an improvement thanks to the bi-wire.
Did I do a blind test? No.
Has anyone got some scientific blind test results?? |
Oddly my girlfriend and I just spoke about this last week while she was painting my fingernails. Coronavirus social distancing is getting to her.
Digressing. We have this Plate Lunch equivalent purchase values. She freaked when I bought MIT biwire cables. We could have eaten takeout twice a week for a year on what I spent on them. However, when I installed them, she immediately heard the difference (good) when she walked into the room. Not even in the sweet spot. She does have a really good ear. So we spoke about it. Why? I gave her my 40 years in electronics reasons why it should not make a difference. But it does. She came up with this ordering take out analogy. I order shrimp scampi and she orders a caesar salad. The restaurant puts them both into ONE container (one cable). DoorDash delivers, she will have scampi on her salad and I'm going to have caesar dressing on my scampi. That would not happen if they are placed into two different containers. And the longer the trip, the greater the contamination.
That's a blonde non audiophile thought. And I now have red fingernails. |
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Alan Shaw, the designer of Harbeth speakers, has typically strong views on the topic. These three quotes were taken from three separate posts on the Harbeth forum. "I really wish this subject of biwiring would just disappear up its own terminals. I don't have many ambitions in life but killing this discussion by deleting the biwire terminals and reverting to just one input pair is going to be at the top of my 2011 New Year's Resolution list for the remaining models that still feature biwire legacy terminals! You've given me a real motivational boost!
"The terminals were fitted for one reason and one reason only: to give the user choice. Have I ever used them at exhibitions? No. Have I ever used them for critical listening? No. Have I ever used them during the design of the speaker? No. When we were offering the biwire terminals, right at the end of the design process (which has all been with single wire) I took a saw to the prototype PCB, cut in in half to isolate the bass and tweeter sections and then made a pretty PCB layout based on that. Did I listen to the biwired crossover before authorising production? No. Do I believe that even 0.00000001% of enhanced performance can be gained? No.
"Of all the subjects ranged over in the speaker arena, this one is a complete and utter waste of time - in my opinion. But what do I know about it? I only design the speakers ....... !
"Biwiring does do one thing very well though: it introduces the one and only, much appreciated 'fiddle factor' to allow individuals a physical and psychological interaction with their speakers. What else can you do to them other than dust and polish them?"
*** "A biwire link is gold plated brass about, say, 30mm long. The claim is that this particular 30mm long piece of highly conductive metal is somehow, magically, more important than any other 30mm piece of perhaps less highly conductive metal anywhere else in the chain between the loudspeaker drive units and the power station a hundred miles away which is supplying the current that causes the cone to move and a sound to be generated. Does that sound logical? Does that sound an intellectual argument that a professor of engineering at a university could or should set his students studying? Of course not. It's a daft fixation on what is, from a point of electrical conduction, probably the best "link" in the chain from the point that the mains supply enters the house.
"The biwire link has this fascination for one reason and one reason alone - it's accessible by the user. So it lends itself to being fiddled with and to all the associated gratification of adjusting ones hifi.
"This is a non-issue. Pick a genuinely 'weak' part of the signal chain and experiment, but this big, fat brass part with countless billions of surplus electrons isn't the hold grail. Of that I am totally and absolutely certain as I've stated. You'd be better off paying attention to, let's say, 30mm of copper track on the printed circuit board that the binding posts are pressing onto which is vastly less conductive because it is thousands or millions of times thinner than the biwire link. But of course, that would involve opening the speaker and voiding the warranty." *** "Do the exponents of this biwire mania have any concept at all that a current is a circulating concept? Circulating from the power station, through your amp, cables, crossover, voice coil and back again to the power station? Anyone into biwire connectors grasping that concept please? That concept of how electricity actually works is why there is a live and neutral pin on your wall socket. There has to be a flow. And what impedes the flow is resistance. And resistance is associated with thin parts, like the voice coil (about 6 ohms). So the fact that the biwire link has a resistance of perhaps 0.000001 ohm compared to the voice coil's 6 ohms means that as a component in the circulating loop, what dominates the resistance by a huge factor is the voice coil.
"If the concept of a circulating current is unclear or distrusted then the whole scientific world we live in collapses." |
whipsaw,
Excellent post.
Yes, you'd like to think those unambiguously clear words of such a highly respected designer such as Alan would carry some weight with audiophiles.
Alas, not all of us can be so readily persuaded - amazingly enough not even all Harbeth customers! Hence the tone of almost exasperation in Alan's voice.
We audiophiles do seem to be a suspicious, superstitious lot. Almost anything said by anyone regardless of their authority or experience, is regularly challenged and attacked by us. I should know, before I escaped this compulsion, I used to spend more time with tweaking than listening for many a year. Oh, how my fingers used to ache from the endless weekly routine of cleaning all the possible signal and electrical contacts me and my pipe cleaners could reach!
Nowadays I hardly bother at all, and guess what happended to the sound? Nothing, nothing at all.
Market forces and vested financial interests do also have a lot to answer for this confused state of affairs, but there's no denying the sheer persistent hardheaded arrogance of certain of us audiophiles.
As Alan says with a hint of sarcasm,
"But what do I know about it? I only design the speakers ....... !" |
Maybe biwiring is akin to the color of your favorite car? I have my tried bi-wiring with my Sonus Faber Venere 3.0 because I purchased bare wire with 4 wire construction and I had the banana clips on hand to wire up the neighborhood.
At the time I had a NAD C375 BEE and I hooked tested single wiring versus biwiring with one set hooked up to speaker A and one set to speaker B. I thought the sound from the biwiring was fuller - akin to the old days of turning on the loudness button.
My next test was to biwire from the Speaker A terminal and the sound was identical. I moved and decided to try Blue Jean Cables and purchased the internal bi-wire configuration and have been happy with the my sound even as I upgraded my equipment to a McIntosh preamp and amp set-up.
In the end I have a choice - to enjoy listening to music or aspire for 11 to magically appear on the volume knob. While I'm open to magic, I'm enjoying the music. |
So Alan Shaw says it doesn't matter and Richard Vandersteen says it absolutely matters. Two very respected speaker designers with completely different views of the same subject. Do you just cherry pick one because it supports what you believe or fits your experience? What a logical fallacy. I would not add a set of binding posts to a set of speakers just to try it out. If there are already two sets of binding posts, give it a try for yourself and make your own decision. |
The crossovers in your speaker virtually split your cable into multiple cable of different frequency bands. Unlike the speakers themselves through mechanical non linearities and Doppler induced IM distortion or amplifier non linearities creating IM distortion, cables don’t have those mechanisms, certainly not within many orders of magnitude of anything else in the system. Resistance is not a non linearity so it does not contribute to IM distortion. As mentioned previously other than increasing gauge, makes no difference. Bi amping can reduce IM distortion which can justify multiple terminals. I don’t believe or not believe either, I work on the soundness of the arguments and I have yet to hear a solid argument other than increased gauge for biwiring. If you are purposely trying to change the frequency response with cables then it would be easier with a biwiring setup, but cables make poor tone controls. Do you just cherry pick one because it supports what you believe or fits your experience? |
I only bi-wire when I'm using speakers that have that capability. I will say that if the straps are gold plated brass, you should replace them with some good wire or the Cardas copper straps. |
"So Alan Shaw says it doesn’t matter and Richard Vandersteen says it absolutely matters. Two very respected speaker designers with completely different views of the same subject. Do you just cherry pick one because it supports what you believe or fits your experience? What a logical fallacy. I would not add a set of binding posts to a set of speakers just to try it out. If there are already two sets of binding posts, give it a try for yourself and make your own decision." There are several problems with your post. First, assuming that you were responding to my post, I didn’t cherry-pick anything. I simply reproduced some posts of Shaw’s that explain his position. Secondly, can Vandersteen actually demonstrate HOW it matters? Shaw explains why, in his view, it doesn’t, and is typically rigorous in his scientific approach to such matters. That doesn’t mean that he cannot be mistaken about something, but it does mean that he can explain, with a scientific foundation, why he holds a particular position. With a quick search, I found anecdotal claims by Vandersteen that bi-wiring sounds better on his speakers, and this: Additional experiments with a Hall Effect probe revealed that high-current bass frequencies created a measurable field around the wires that expanded and collapsed with the signal. We believe that this dynamic field modulates the smaller signals, especially the very low level treble frequencies. With the high-current signal (Bass) separated from the low-current signal (Treble) this small signal modulation was eliminated as long as the cables were separated by at least an inch or two. (To keep the treble cable out of the field surrounding the bass cable.) Note that he says "We believe...". Not exactly hard science, though perhaps he is on to something. I found a related article (on "qacoustics" UK) with some experiments appearing to support the ides that bi-wiring confers benefits. Don, a regular and knowledgable contributor to the audiosciencereview.com site had this to say in response: Because a single wire carries woofer and tweeter current; bi-wiring means the woofer wire carries only woofer current, tweeter wire tweeter current, though voltage is the same for both. A plot of voltage would show the same voltage applied to woofer and tweeter (less changes due to wire loss, insignificant in practice).
Single wire:
Amp -> single cable -> woofer + tweeter = single cable carries all current
Bi-wire:
Amp -> woofer cable -> woofer = woofer cable carries only woofer current; crossover reduces tweeter current to woofer
Amp -> tweeter cable -> tweeter = tweeter cable carries only tweeter current; crossover reduces woofer current to tweeter
The crossover makes the woofer look like a higher impedance to the tweeter cable so tweeter current is reduced in the woofer wire, and likewise the tweeter crossover makes a higher impedance to the woofer cable for tweeter current, so there is less interaction in the wire. The net energy the amp delivers, and that the woofer and tweeter each receive, is the same whether you use a single wire or bi-wire. The wire itself contributes negligibly to distortion and so the bi-wire argument is a red herring (is a false argument). The amplifier and speakers dominate (by orders of magnitude) the distortion.
HTH - Don And another commenter on a different site: QAcoustics article cited above shows just how SUBTLE the differences can be between Bi-Wire and Single Wire connected Speakers. Change in IMD Levels are only 1-3 dB, with the IMD voltages being 70 dB below the Fundamental Signal Levels...which is 1 part in 10^7 or 0.00001 %.....probably impossible for even Golden Ears to detect. If someone has a scientific explanation for why bi-wiring may be superior in practice, please do provide it. |
I agree withe writer who said Scotch can affect the sound. I havr found Glennlivet works best. Your mileage may differ depending on how twisted your dna strands are. We at noseyparkerkiller are studying the millions of dna possibilities in your genetic information and will soon be able to send you a list, based on our proprietary scientific studies, which will advise you which of our proprietary tweaks worst best. In the meantime we have found that thunderbird wine works almost as well as the Glenlivet and leaves you with more cash to spend on our dna advice and tweaks.
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Wrt Vandersteen, anyone who thinks it is a breakthrough that a magnetic field exists around current carrying wires and that they collapse and expand with the signal .... Hasn't taken a high school physics course. It is laughable someone would put that in writing.
Absent magnetic materials surrounding the cable (don't use that cable collar :-)) that field is going to be quite linear hence no distortion products AND as the two wires run parallel and opposite direction the field strength is very small wrt the signal size. Two strikes, Vandersteen is out.
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The terminals were fitted for one reason and one reason only: to give the user choice. Have I ever used them at exhibitions? No. Have I ever used them for critical listening? No. Have I ever used them during the design of the speaker? No. When we were offering the biwire terminals, right at the end of the design process (which has all been with single wire) I took a saw to the prototype PCB, cut in in half to isolate the bass and tweeter sections and then made a pretty PCB layout based on that. Did I listen to the biwired crossover before authorising production? No. Do I believe that even 0.00000001% of enhanced performance can be gained? No.
This sure sounds like hard science. Lots and lots of "I believe" in there. He couldn't even be bothered to listen to it. It is no more authoritative than Vandersteen's anecdotal evidence. Is there any evidence that Richard Vandersteen does not use science in his designs? I would say that quite the opposite is true. In fact, he would say that designers that choose to not pay attention to phase in their speakers are absolutely wrong. He does back that with measurements. I am not saying either is right or wrong. I am just pointing out that many people here love to pick out the expert that they want to believe. You know, appeal to authority. |
@vair68robert See http://www.ielogical.com/Audio/CableSnakeOil.php. Jump down to Bi-Wiring if you don’t want to read the whole screed. Bi-Wiring is provable and measurable. Audible depends on myriad factors. Too many with zero technical skill or training hear phantasms, some chemically induced. Their posts are not worth the bits to transmit. As far as millercarbons nonsense, after repairing, recapping & Bi-Wring my 35 year old Spica TC-50, and verifying I liked what I'd done with lesser cables, I spent 8x their original cost on Kimber BiFocalXL. Worth every penny. YMMV depending on hardware and acuity. |
Violating my own promise, I will make a few very simple observations:
For reference my system is quite extensive and has been tuned (e.g.: room, TT setup) pretty darned well, although i am not a maniac about it.
1. I have heard small, but meaningful differences between interconnect cables, and much smaller ones for speaker cables. real, but generally small.
2. I mostly heard difference vs cables that we would all agree are crap. That's a technical term, but think generic, 40 year old, from some box somewhere int eh attic
3. I have seen myriad cases, in my system and elsewhere of cables that are basically broken. Corrosion. loose terminations, poor contact etc.
I speculate that sometimes changing wires fixes these issues and is heard, but the reason is sim-attributed.
4. Want to improve wire gauge? Make the wires shorter. Now, to be honest, with an 8-ohm speaker impedance, or 30,000 ohm amp input resistance, does the difference between 0.05 and 0.03 ohms matter? I'll leave that up to you.
5. Construction - e.g. dialectic material, is much more important than many other esoteric factors. I do go out of my way to use interconnects with expanded polyethelene or foam teflon or something similar. Its nto all that expensive anyway.
6. Many cables are so think and stuff that they place significant strain on connections. I have seen many, many examples of bad connections because someone is using $500 cables that that thicker than my thumb and stuff as a garden hose. Oh wait, they were garden hoses, scratch that. In fact i have had to service equipment that was actually damaged by the strains (like expensive [brand omitted] terminals breaking... think about that)
And as MC said, in most cases the money and or time could likely have made a much bigger difference elsewhere.
having had too many Vandys to count, staring in the very early 80s, i never benefited from bi wiring BTW. Of course, since my system is also a test bed, i really hat to have complicated connections, rinnign from lab ot system and spending 20 minuets fighting with wires is not my idea of productive use of time. SO like i said, i'm biased.
G
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I do not hear a difference on my Vandersteen Model 5As but it has been a while since I did a comparison.
Here is the real question that I spoke to Audioquest about. Would I be better buying a more expensive run of speaker cable and using a set of their jumpers or buying a lower priced run of their speaker wire already set-up for bi-wire. They advised me that their new speaker cable bi-wire line was better then a higher priced single run. I did not ask why but that was their advice. I never did try it though.
Happy Listening.
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Thank You All
I mentioned that 3 people converted ( added 2d pair of speaker posts )
to bi-wiring and liked the results . All three had already upgraded the crossovers with higher quality components ,
I just got to the speakers yesterday ( after having installed the same 9.5awg wire from the amp board to the new Cardas speaker posts,
the same 9.5awg wire I used to put together my speaker wires )
when I installed Cardas speaker posts with the next upgrade it will be the wiring to the crossovers ,
one step at a time to evaluated the effect , the bi-wiring if I go that route
would be the last thing I do .
It seems the experiences , opinions and even the manufactures are
on both sides of the benefits or lack of .
I just have to wait until social distancing over so I can go over to my friends house and listen to his newly bi-wired speakers .
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Several thoughts, all tempered with real world listening to a variety of speakers ( currently I own Apogee, Quad, Thiel and Vandersteen, three of those four vaunted designers sent them from the factory with biwire provisions.
The Vandersteen recommendation is based on science and listening with his products, since 1977. He does recommend an external biwire configuration If possible and get cables spaced appropriate 2”+. He is a pretty frugal designer/ engineer, the Model two in various versions over a quarter million sold, has beat inflation- IF he didn’t believe bi wired sounded better with additional cost to manufacture, it wouldn’t be on his product. Obviously there is hardly agreement on many principles of speaker design. Many a lauded designer cares nothing about pistonic motion and tolerates out of phase breakup in the passband ( see the Vandersteen Utube video on pistonic motion ) ain’t it great to have choices ???
Vandersteen model 2 to 7 including the high pass amplifier all have biwire provisions.
your results will always vary
enjoy the music and Libations of your choice, Ripple included
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@bigkidz i have an 8’ set of AQ type 6 shotgun biwire, spades all around w Vandy size spades on speaker end - perfect for your listening session - they have about 50k miles on them as I loan them out to the agnostic for fun. I can put them in mail to you Sunday, chlorox wipe included !!!!
jim |
OP vairrobert- the Cardas posts are awesome and allow for a gas tight connection- essential to good sound over the long haul. |
@tomic601
Thank you for your offer , since you are a Thiel owner you might have read about my theroy on seperation of polarity on the Thiel owner forum.
@chorus
Thank you , 2 of the 3 who converted are using 18 gauge
for the tweeter/midrange and 14 guage for the bass .
This is another thing to consider if I go to bi-wiring .
@mrklasou
You have done testing ! Something that my friend and I have been doing
for many weeks, upgrades or changes on our systems , which in the end is the only way hear what works or doesn't .
I read all the posts and appreciate them all , this hobby is a constant learning experience , at the same time I'm trying not to fall into making it a money pit .
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This sure sounds like hard science. Lots and lots of "I believe" in there. He couldn't even be bothered to listen to it. It is no more authoritative than Vandersteen's anecdotal evidence. Is there any evidence that Richard Vandersteen does not use science in his designs? I would say that quite the opposite is true. In fact, he would say that designers that choose to not pay attention to phase in their speakers are absolutely wrong. He does back that with measurements. I am not saying either is right or wrong. I am just pointing out that many people here love to pick out the expert that they want to believe. You know, appeal to authority. How ironic that you would accuse me of cherry-picking, then pluck just one of a number of quotes from Shaw that I provided, while ignoring those that include scientific reasons supporting his skepticism. The onus of proof is on those, including Vandersteen, who claim that biwiring DOES make a meaningful difference, to support those claims with science. Has he done so? I am still awaiting proof that he has. This: Is there any evidence that Richard Vandersteen does not use science in his designs? is a silly straw man. No one has suggested anything of the sort. And of course the fact that Vandersteen does, broadly speaking, use science in his designs, is irrelevant to the specific question being debated. Shaw and the many other skeptics have provided technical reasons why biwiring does not make a meaningful, audible difference. If you are able to provide evidence to the contrary, I'll be happy to listen to it. |
Hello,
I feel like we flew down the perpetual rabbit hole. That being said I wanted to add or highlight some of the comments. If you have those hard metal factory jumpers please put them away with your manuals and just use some decent copper wire as jumpers. Second is the by biwireing it gives you some advantages. The first being you can increase your amount of wire going to the speakers but more importantly you can use different speaker cables for the two sets of terminals. You could have a thick copper cable on the woofers and a smaller silver cable on the tweeters. It gives you the ability to customize the sound. You do not have to do this but I do. I use a 12 ga copper wire on the woofers and a double up 16 ga on the tweeter. This is Analysis Plus speaker wire. I have tried several combinations and this sounded incredible. Bottom line it gives you the options to add more cable and/or use a different cable to optimize your sound. That being said please do speaker placement optimization and room correction with room treatments first before spending money on these things. Thank you all and I appreciate all of your help and insight. |
Did these discussions exist when audio equipment had tone controls? Everybody talks about changing what you hear with different wires. Wasn’t it easier in the past when if something didn’t quite sound right you could go up to your preamp And make a simple adjustment?
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The above two posts are valuable in that they both touch on what may be useful points. Bi-wiring, for example, with at least some Vandersteen speakers (e.g. 2CE), apparently allows the user to make tonal changes via dials on the back of the speaker. In other words, the speaker is designed to be bi-wired, and to allow the user to adjust the midrange and tweeter levels.
Assuming that the two features are not distinct (i.e. completely separate), then of course the combination will allow the user to change the sound. Considering that to be an advantage is one thing, but to argue that bi-wiring alone improves sound is another.
With regard to @hshifi's point that bi-wiring allows the user to "tune" the wires is similar. That would be very different from the claim that a simple bi-wire setup is somehow superior to a single cable. Simply adding "more" cable is not in any way supportive of bi-wire being superior, and for what should be obvious reasons. |
Thank God that on that third swing Richard Vandersteen hit it out of the park in 1977 and continues to do so....
but in the end, nothing makes it into the product without.... listening to music...
OP glad to be of some help and let me know how your listening tests go
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