Single vs Bi-wire Speaker Cable

Anyway you could buy both, try each one, keep the one that you feel works best and return the other one. Everyone will have a somewhat different opinion on this. It’s not very clear cut. Sorry. 

Re-post from last month in another prior single vs bi-wire  thread last month 

Without prejudice to the effects that the absolute benefits are always system dependent, the high-end quality build OEM’s are moving away from bi-wiring in favour of shotgunned single runs and jumpers. (Bi-amping ... Different story.)

E.g. NORDOST
http://www.nordost.com/downloads/NorseJ ... ctions.pdf

CHORD
http://www.chord.co.uk/help-and-informa ... ngle-wire/

".... Many hi-fi and home cinema loudspeakers have two pairs of binding posts. This allows the speaker to be either bi-wired using two sets of loudspeaker cable or bi-amped using two amplifiers.
As a general rule (and there will always be exceptions) we tend to find that bi-wiring will open out the sound stage and increase perceived levels of detail. However, single wiring will often sound the most musically coherent.

There is also an issue with single and bi-wire speaker cables. In all the research we have carried out, a single wire speaker cable out-performs a bi-wire cable of equivalent cost.

This makes a lot of sense; the single wire speaker cable has two high quality conductors and the bi-wire cable requires four. So for a given budget, we believe that a single wire cable will always out-perform the equivalent bi-wire cable, so much so that we no longer produce dedicated bi-wire cables..."

For me, in my prior “pre-HARBETH” system, the shotgunned NORDOST Frey single-runs with matched FREY jumpers bested all bi-wire comers - full stop. The differences were not subtle.

Q what are the potential benefits if you go from a 4x4 configuration to a doubled-up 2x2 configuration? ( intuitively, a thicker single cable configuration benefits need not be expanded here )

A From Alan Shaw ( owner and designer of HARBETH)

” … So, the moral of the story is this: the most important factor of the loudspeaker cable that you should select is the amount of metal in the cable core.

More metal means lower resistance.

If the core is round (as most are) then the correlation is simple: the fatter the diameter of the metal core the better because the electrical resistance between amp and speaker will be lower.

Thin and really thin cores should be avoided regardless of how exotic the metal material is claimed as the lack of metal in the core conductor will increase resistance. That will reduce amplifier damping, effect the frequency response of the speaker and give unpredictable results that will vary from amp/speaker combination.

Do not be fooled by the diameter of the external plastic sheath: what matters is the metal content of the core. The more the better, without exception….”Without prejudice to the effects that the absolute benefits are always system dependent, the high-end quality build OEM’s are moving away from bi-wiring in favour of shotgunned single runs and jumpers. (Bi-amping ... Different story.)

One great cable is better than two lessor cables. 

Yeah, I’d have to vote for the better cable with good quality jumpers. 

I can only speak to my experience with bi-wired Vandersteens, and they recommend true bi-wire (not one cable set up with internally divided wiring)... TWO separate cables. They don't like using one cable with jumpers, if true bi-wire is available. FWIW.