Bi-Wire - Tweaks… (1 Viewer)

[Bowster]

A friend of mine asked me if I thought bi-wiring each speaker to each channel would make a difference, (i.e. two speaker wires from the speaker bi-wire input posts fed, twisted togeteher, to the appropriate single amplifier output post).
At first I said no, because it is the same as using a speaker cable that is twice the diameter, (at short distances there would be no discernible difference). He tried it anyway and claims the sound improved dramatically, especially the lower end.
I gave this some thought and maybe it does make sense.

What he did was to run two speaker wires from each of his 5 output channels. At each speaker, he pulled out the bi-wire shorting strap and plugged in the four leads. Essentially what he has now is a ten speaker system driven by 5 channels. The speakers are in parallel so the impedance is cut in half and the power drawn from the amp is much higher (i.e. 140 watts at 8 ohms and 210 watts at 4 ohms).

Is this really what's happening?

Or is it all smoke and mirrors and the tweak should make little or no difference as I first thought?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Is there a God?
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?


The world may never know . . .

Seriously, like most tweaks, there are ideologues on both sides who will argue forever without any change in stance. It's probably best not to argue, unless an argument is what you want.

 

[Bowster]

So you don't think that this would lower the impedance?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

It won’t change the impedance that would be seen with single wiring. Removing the shorting strap merely gives access to each side of the crossover.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Allan Jayne]

I am skeptical about any audible change in the sound but:

1. The portion of the crossover still connected to the woofer and the portion of the crossover still attached to the midrange/tweeter may behave differently when separated (and fed by separate speaker cables) compared with when connected together with a single speaker cable.

2. A system in operation for several years may have some oxidation at the various jacks and terminals, and when the cables are undone and redone, the contact is improved.

Video hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[chuckg]

Are you talking about biwiring (two sets of wire from each amp channel out to each speaker) or biamping (active crossover, with separate amp for low and high end, connected to separate inputs on a speaker that has no crossover, but high and low sections)?

Bi-amping may well improve things, but bi-wiring is just a gimmick.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

That is correct. Nothing has changed except that he has twice the gauge going to the speaker. All you've really done is moved the straps to the output of the amplifier.

 

[bassman99floyd]

I have B&W Nautilus speakers, which are bi-ampable(?). My Rotel amp has bi-amp outputs. In this situation, bi-amping the speakers makes a difference.

Most people don't have bi-amp outputs on the receiver, so having four wires on the speaker end, going to two wire connection on the receiver end, won't improve sound.

 

[JohnRice]

Jimmy, unless you are using up 4 channels of amplification to power 2 speakers, you are still just bi-wiring. Despite your impression, I suspect this is the case because amps don't have bi-amp outputs. You just connect the outputs from either physically or electronically discreet amps, and it's bi-amped. What you probably have is bi-wire outputs, which is essentially no different from hooking two sets of wires to one output, except it is cleaner and easier.

Now, I have no doubt you will vehemently tell me how wrong I am, but I think Wayne can confirm this. The exception may be if you are referring to a receiver which allows a "remote" amp, as in, an amp for a "B" set of speakers to be used for bi-amping, which should be easy enough.

 

[SteveOak]

A speaker is a motor. If you apply an electrical signal to the speaker it will attempt to move the pole in or out corresponding to the electrical impulse. As the pole moves from its "at rest" the mechanical resistance increases and the poles' response varies to an ever increasing delta from the intended motion. This is the non linear response of the speaker. The impedance of the speaker is not fixed but varies as a function of frequency. An identical signal as observed with an o'scope, would appear differently if applied to two speakers of different characteristics. Also, a speaker, moved significantly from its "at rest" position will try to return and in doing so will act like a generator or microphone and send an electrical signal back out of its connectors and to anything connected to it. This might be seen as some cancellation of the signal coming from the amplifier or as interference signal to other connected speakers.

It would seem that any decoupling of two speakers, (read as reduction of coupling not necessarily isolation) as would be accomplished by changing from being strapped at the speaker cabinet to bi-wiring would improve the linearity or rather reduce the speaker to speaker interference.

If as was mentioned above, the crossover was still involved, wouldn't it have been shunted by the shorting bar?