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Are these hooked up right?

Back story: I'm a non-audiophile. Essentially inherited a hifi (or maybe midfi) system that I'm trying to get hooked up. It was in an inlaw's basement for years and is pretty beat up but functional and consists of:

Rotel RSP-1066 Surround Sound Processor
Rotel RMB-1075 Five Channel Amplifier
Two Bowers and Wilkins CDM-9NT tower speakers
One B&W AW 650 powered subwoofer
One B&W CDM SNT speaker which I think was used for the center channel

I posted about this in the home theater forum to work on settings within the surround sound pre-amp and I've got those narrowed down. In one of the surround sound modes I can get it all sounding pretty good.

But without the sub-woofer and the center speaker I just can't get the two tower speakers to sound good in 2 channel mode. (I'm comparing the SQ to another much nicer system that is now in my home). And that is bothering me because I would prefer to have this set up just with the two towers.

These speakers (and the center speaker) have two sets of poles for hooking them up. So do my Aerial Acoustic towers but they came with bi-wire cables. These B&Ws do not have bi-wire cables so I have the speaker cables hooked up as shown below:

https://images.nikonians.org/galleries/data/500/IMG_10511.jpg

The gold colored bridges (?) can be removed.

Would bi-wire cables improve the sound? I made my own bi-wire(??) using two sets of cables to the speakers using the same two poles on the back of the amp but that did not make a difference.

Any help appreciated.
n80
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Look, Johnny, the Euro-nator is back in town.
tomcarr
1,501 posts
 
Insert your two B&W speakers into your other much nicer system. If they sound good then, then you know it's your second-system front end that is the culprit, not the speakers.

Tom
n80 OP
2,116 posts
 
That makes sense, of course, and I thought of that but have been too lazy. The B&W towers are fairly heavy and awkward to carry but the Aerial Acoustic 7Bs that I would have to move to make room for them are very heavy and extremely awkward to lift....they are basically a perfect rectangle with a slick finish....very pretty but nothing to hold onto and they weigh 125# each and have spikes on the bases.

But now I'm curious again and may do it tonight. I'm not an audiophile yet but I think I do have the fiddling gene.
n80 OP
2,116 posts
 
I hooked the B&W towers up to the Proceed HPA2, Transparent Super-bi-wire cable, AR LS16 pre, all in the right position, etc and they did sound a lot better and would definitely stand on their own without a center speaker and maybe even without the su-woofer. But they did not sound anywhere near as good as the Aerial Acoustics towers.

In comparison they sounded a little distant and less full. Bass was okay, midrange was lacking.

An observation: I do not like spade connectors. They work fine on the back of the Proceed amp where there is lots of room. On the Aerial Acoustics the spade connectors twist even when the pole nut is tight. On the B&Ws the pole is wider than the spade and had to be jury rigged in place with one arm of the spade through the wire hole in the pole. On several components like the Onkyo the connectors have a plastic rim that prevents using a spade. It seems to me bare wire would be better all around. I don't know anything about banana plugs but seems like they would be easy to use. The Proceed amp will not accept them though, neither would the B&W speakers.
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