How do I biwire? (1 Viewer)

[EricHaas]

Dumb question. I just purchased 250' of 10 gauge oxygen free at an extremely cheap bulk rate. I have Paradigm Studio front speakers, with 2 sets of binding posts for bi-wiring. I am not sure I believe in the benefits of bi-wiring but I see no reason not to since I have way more wire than I need. Anyway, my question is how to do it. I assume I take 2 runs of cable and bind them together with electrical tape. Then I terminate them at the speaker end with either spades or banana plugs, and attach the 2 conductors from one cable to the upper binding posts and 2 from the other cable to the lower binding post. I presume these correspond to upper and lower frequencies. OK, so what then do I do at the amp end, since there is only one set of posts for each speaker? Do I try to terminate the 2 cables together?

 

[Bill_Weinreich]

Basically yes. Unfortunately, two 10 ga. wires will be awfully thick for most binding posts. If you have binding posts on the amp the I would suggest trying to terminate them into a large gauge banana or spade plug. You may also be able to use a smaller gauge wire for the upper freqs. As far as the bennies, Just try it. If you dont here an improvement, then nothing lost but a little time.

 

[KeithH]

Eric, there is a very easy way to do this. Make one pair of speaker cables terminated with banana plugs. Then make another pair terminated with spades. With the amp turned off, remove the shorting straps on the speakers. Connect the speaker cables with the spade connectors to the lower binding posts (or upper) on the speakers and to the amp. Then connect the speaker cables with the banana plugs to the upper binding posts (or lower) on the speakers and to the amp. Thus, on the amp end, you will have both spade connectors and banana plugs connected to each binding post. That's it!

 

[EricHaas]

Thanks! Why do I have to remove those metal "shorting straps"? What are they for?

 

[KeithH]

Eric, the shorting straps bridge the tweeter and driver sections together when you are using a single, standard pair of speaker cables. When you biwire, you are sending signals separately to the tweeter and driver, so you remove the shorting straps. If you use two pairs of cables for biwiring, but leave the shorting straps on, they will defeat the configuration, and it will be like running the speakers with a single pair of cables. Always remove the shorting straps for biwiring (or biamping).

 

[Bill Kane]

Eric,
If you decide your 10gauge wire is too heavy and difficult to work with banana plugs, you may consider a 4-in-one wire to clean up the wire clutter from two separate runs of two-conductor wire.
Premade Monster biwire sells for $5 a foot ("entry level"). You can find a 100-foot spool of 14gauge speaker wire for 35cents a foot at Parts Express that originally is used for in-wall.
I am using some Monster XP in Navaho White bulk for my Paradigm biwires and someday will switch out to all-in-one-cable for neater looking runs. Monster XP reportedly is 16gauge, and I had no difficulty in pairing 2 conductors to one standard banana plug.

 

[EricHaas]

Bill:

I may switch at some point, but I just bought this wire so I am going to make a go of it. I have some long runs (30' feet+ to rears) and so I am thinking that high gauge stuff might be helpful. I wanted 12 gauge, but I found a deal on 10.