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| Bi-wire speaker cables, do they work? |
| yes, I've tried them and it made an obvious difference |
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53% |
[ 7 ] |
| I've tried them and didn't hear a difference |
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15% |
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| No I haven't tried them but I'm convinced it's just audiophile baloney |
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15% |
[ 2 ] |
| I'm not sure or I can't afford stuff like this,I have no opinion |
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15% |
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| Total Votes : 13 |
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kal
Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 17860
Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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 Link Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 1:56 am Post subject: |
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| draganm wrote: | | kal wrote: | | I bi-wire all of my speakers (Paradigm Signature S8 fronts, C5 center, ADP surrounds). Mostly because it was so cheap to do with the Home Depot 12 gauge wire I use and takes the gauge down to around 9 thus reducing the resistance in addition to any sonic benefits. My runs are all around 50 feet long. |
well, not sure about the zip-cord but 50 feet to each speaker is 200 feet bi-wired x 3 = 600 feet of speaker cable for L/C/R. If this is how you ran it then even with the cheapest audio specific wire out there at $2. a foot you would need $1200. to wire the front end  |
Your math is incorrect.
You mention 600 feet to bi-wire the 3 fronts 50' away. Bi-wiring means x2 not x3. So 50 x 2 x 3 = 300 feet not 600.
This is Home Depot 12 ga in-wall rated speaker that (at the time) sold for less than $1/meter (1 meter = approx 3 feet). (The price of copper's gone through the roof since then). This is the stuff that a lot of people use for HT installs if you follow the AVS design/build sub-forums.
So with my 2 rear speakers too I spent around $250 to wire them all up. My speakers cost me x40 as much (and that was an excellent discounted price at that) so $250 is insignificant.
I don't use any tweaks, bannana plugs or other things. Just straight wire.
Kal
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draganm
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 8990
Location: Colorado
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| Link Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: | Your math is incorrect.
You mention 600 feet to bi-wire the 3 fronts 50' away. Bi-wiring means x2 not x3. So 50 x 2 x 3 = 300 feet not 600.
This is Home Depot 12 ga in-wall rated speaker that (at the time) sold for less than $1/meter (1 meter = approx 3 feet). (The price of copper's gone through the roof since then). |
I was figuring 2 seperate wires per high/ low , I'm assuming the HD stuff is 2 wires inside the jacketing?
| kal wrote: | I don't use any tweaks, bannana plugs or other things. Just straight wire.
Kal |
bare wire is better than Gold plated Brass connector. Really good connectors get pricey.
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Tom.W
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 6637
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draganm
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 8990
Location: Colorado
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| Link Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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you can't really take anything from the asylum too seriously. For one thing, most of the replies are to the effect of, yes you can bi-wire but what you really should do is bi-amp or tri-amp, LOL  So in other words according to the geniuses over there I should take my $1000. pair mon-blocks and and 2 more pairs at only $2000. Um yeah, OK that's a good idea fro people with money to burn. Anyway there was one really good link there to a free DIY site from and electronics engineer named John Risch. Here is a graph showing the tweeters SNR response between single and bi-wire.
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Mark_A_W
Joined: 15 Mar 2006
Posts: 3068
Location: Sunny Melbourne Australia
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| Link Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:33 am Post subject: |
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| Curt Palme wrote: | | My only beef with bi (or tri) amping in the consumer world is that a lot of tweeters can't take a lot of abuse. If you cross over say at 3Khz or so, and you turn your system off in the wrong order, you can get a large 'POP' through the power amp, which can take out a tweeter. I've seen that happen both in large commercial installs as well as home installations. |
7 years so far, and the tweeters are intact.
The Pioneer A400 amps are well behaved. They have relays and don't thump.
The Focal TC-120 TDX2 tweeters are relatively robust, but it hasn't been an issue.
The fact that the amps are 65 watts or more, and the tweeters only handle ~10w is desirable.
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Mark_A_W
Joined: 15 Mar 2006
Posts: 3068
Location: Sunny Melbourne Australia
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| Link Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:37 am Post subject: |
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| draganm wrote: | you can't really take anything from the asylum too seriously. For one thing, most of the replies are to the effect of, yes you can bi-wire but what you really should do is bi-amp or tri-amp, LOL So in other words according to the geniuses over there I should take my $1000. pair mon-blocks and and 2 more pairs at only $2000. Um yeah, OK that's a good idea fro people with money to burn. Anyway there was one really good link there to a free DIY site from and electronics engineer named John Risch. Here is a graph showing the tweeters SNR response between single and bi-wire.
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I know of John Risch.
But that graph is just wrong. Edit: oh, it's a SNR chart, not frequency response.
BTW, Dragan you misunderstand. The point of biamping is you don't spend $1000 on monoblocks. You spend $1000 on 4 gainclone amps and an active crossover - the result is better. It's engineering, not audiophoolary.
And SC, I wouldn't (and haven't) biamp a surround speaker either - only my LCR are active.
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kal
Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 17860
Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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| Link Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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| draganm wrote: | | kal wrote: | Your math is incorrect.
You mention 600 feet to bi-wire the 3 fronts 50' away. Bi-wiring means x2 not x3. So 50 x 2 x 3 = 300 feet not 600.
This is Home Depot 12 ga in-wall rated speaker that (at the time) sold for less than $1/meter (1 meter = approx 3 feet). (The price of copper's gone through the roof since then). |
I was figuring 2 seperate wires per high/ low. I'm assuming the HD stuff is 2 wires inside the jacketing? |
Yes.
Bi-wiring means running two sets of speaker cables to each speaker. Speaker cables have 2 wires in them.
So if you have 50' to your three front speakers you need this much wire: 50 feet x 2 runs x 3 speakers = 300 feet.
| kal wrote: | I don't use any tweaks, bannana plugs or other things. Just straight wire.
Kal |
bare wire is better than Gold plated Brass connector. Really good connectors get pricey.[/quote]
Yup. That's why I did it.
Kal
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 4901
Location: Flower Mound, TX
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| Link Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| draganm wrote: | you can't really take anything from the asylum too seriously. For one thing, most of the replies are to the effect of, yes you can bi-wire but what you really should do is bi-amp or tri-amp, LOL So in other words according to the geniuses over there I should take my $1000. pair mon-blocks and and 2 more pairs at only $2000. Um yeah, OK that's a good idea fro people with money to burn. Anyway there was one really good link there to a free DIY site from and electronics engineer named John Risch. Here is a graph showing the tweeters SNR response between single and bi-wire.
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I don't know where the graph came from to check, but, did he do a materially similar test? In other words, did the bi-wire and single wire use the exact same guage wire, or did the single wire use a heavier guage (i.e. one that would be equal to the guage of the two bi-wire runs put together)?
My guess is the former. If so, this is what you would expect to see. The later is the REAL test.
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A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station....
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cmjohnson
Joined: 03 Apr 2006
Posts: 5180
Location: Buried under G90s
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| Link Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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The important features of my audio setup are a pair of Krell KMA-160 monoblocks feeding a pair of Aerial Acoustics 10Ts. Since I have adequate cabling handy, I can biwire and I DO biwire. The result is noticeably better bass performance, which can actually be measured.
My cabling is Vampire ST-2 for the mid/tweeter enclosures and Kimber 8PR for the bass enclosures.
A very recent addition to my system is a QSC MX1500A professional power amplifier. I picked this up specifically because the Krells run
very warm, being pure class A amps that draw nearly a kilowatt apiece when just sitting there turned on, and the QSC is actually a slightly
more powerful amplifier but it runs practically ice cold. It allows me to watch movies without having to turn the air conditioner way down
to the "it never shuts off" setting.
Sonically speaking, to be really honest about it, the QSC doesn't give much ground to the Krells. In some respects they're equal.
But there are some differences. For one, it's obvious that the QSC is more powerful. The QSC seems to have a bit of extra emphasis
in both the treble and the bass, but it's still very clean treble, not grainy or spitty.
The bass performance will knock your head off, if you crank it up, too. But the Krells are also very solid in this regard. It's a difference
in level, not really a quality difference.
I'm ALMOST convinced that the QSC just might be a tiny bit transparent, but frankly I'm not sure I can detect this when I'm actually
listening for it. I can only say that when I run it, sometimes I find myself really listening to some very interesting tonal characteristics,
like of a closed high hat cymbal of a specific sort, that I never really noticed before...but to be fair, it's on music I haven't listened to for
a long time. Sort of unfamiliar territory.
I'd like to biwire off the QSC, or even consider biamping with all these amps, but the QSC has only one pair of binding posts per channel
vs. the Krell's FOUR pairs per amp. And the QSC has those awful crappy "touchproof" binding posts that are very Euro-Politically-Correct
and don't allow me to use spade lugs.
The QSC does a very good job of standing up to the Krells. I would highly recommend QSC amplification if you're looking for very high
quality and high power in an amplifier but don't have a Krell budget.
CJ
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