Irrational urge to bi-wire

[Covenant]

I tried it years ago and it did nothing but the manufacturer of my speakers unreservedly recommends bi-wiring. I have some nice silver cable going spare so its only going to cost a little time.The cable I use atm is Van Damme Blue 4mm.
Are there any members who consider they benefit from two runs of cable?

[Puffin]

Try it and see, it's the only way.

[hifi_dave]

The only benefit with bi-wiring is the removal of the cacky brass connectors usually used between the terminals. Replace those with a decent piece of wire and you've done the job for a fraction of the cost.

[brian2957]

I bi-wired my Tannoy 637s and it was well worth the effort

[Reffc]

No. there are no technical arguments whatsoever for biwiring making one iota of improvement, and in fact, it has been shown that it even increases measurable distortion (not audibly, but measurably, and this was demonstrated by Radford Revival some time back). Using heavier gauge for single wiring for longer runs if you must have more copper makes more sense.

Technically speaking, biwiring modifies the impedance with frequency seen as a load by the amplifier, and in some cases, this can modify frequency response. It is usually small by degree, but is there nevertheless. Typically, overall impedance drops at crossover frequencies, power response slightly increases and small anomalies in FR can occur (for say every 0.1R in series with the amp's output impedance you might see something like 0.1dB change in FR, so the results of biwiring are largely INAUDIBLE). Change single to biwiring and an independent load (cable impedance) is seen in series with the discrete speaker loads. The parallel combination is in series with the amp's output impedance, and at crossover, there can be a slight dip in overall impedance compared with a single wired system. The separate changed impedance loads overall change the roll-off profiles of the crossover slightly.

The exceptions to the rule do exist, which are crossover and load dependant, but these are not common place. For the most part, there are more disadvantage than advantages to biwiring.

There is also an argument that the more cables you introduce from amp to speakers, the more chance there is of RF interference.

However, some more unscrupulous cable vendors and speaker marketeers will push biwiring as it sells more cable, simple as.

[walpurgis]

I may be talking nonsense, but I've always wondered if bi-wiring or even tri-wiring and so on, affect the phase relationship between the drivers. Especially if differing lengths of cable are used. After all, no two cables are precisely the same length.

[Joe]

No. there are no technical arguments whatsoever for biwiring making one iota of improvement, and in fact, it has been shown that it even increases measurable distortion (not audibly, but measurably, and this was demonstrated by Radford Revival some time back).
[...]
However, some more unscrupulous cable vendors and speaker marketeers will push biwiring as it sells more cable, simple as.

So, what you're saying is that bi-wiring is voodoo?

[struth]

No your saying that

[petrat]

So, what you're saying is that bi-wiring is voodoo?

No ... voodoo works

[Barry]

No. there are no technical arguments whatsoever for biwiring making one iota of improvement, and in fact, it has been shown that it even increases measurable distortion (not audibly, but measurably, and this was demonstrated by Radford Revival some time back). Using heavier gauge for single wiring for longer runs if you must have more copper makes more sense.

Technically speaking, biwiring modifies the impedance with frequency seen as a load by the amplifier, and in some cases, this can modify frequency response. It is usually small by degree, but is there nevertheless. Typically, overall impedance drops at crossover frequencies, power response slightly increases and small anomalies in FR can occur (for say every 0.1R in series with the amp's output impedance you might see something like 0.1dB change in FR, so the results of biwiring are largely INAUDIBLE). Change single to biwiring and an independent load (cable impedance) is seen in series with the discrete speaker loads. The parallel combination is in series with the amp's output impedance, and at crossover, there can be a slight dip in overall impedance compared with a single wired system. The separate changed impedance loads overall change the roll-off profiles of the crossover slightly.

The exceptions to the rule do exist, which are crossover and load dependant, but these are not common place. For the most part, there are more disadvantage than advantages to biwiring.

There is also an argument that the more cables you introduce from amp to speakers, the more chance there is of RF interference.

However, some more unscrupulous cable vendors and speaker marketeers will push biwiring as it sells more cable, simple as.

It's not quite so straightforward as that: http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...-and-Bi-wiring