Do you Bi-Wire, if you can?


This topic came about in another post.

If your speakers allow for bi-wiring, do you use this feature? Or, do you use good quality jumpers and single wire cables? Or, do you just use the jumper plates that come with the speakers and single wire cables?

(If you are bi-amping, then that's completely different.)
128x128mofimadness
Bad idea...by doing so, you would short your amp as the current would take the least resistive path. Nothing would reach the crossover/drivers.
Chris, no, that's not correct. Using biwire cabling at the same time as jumpers are in place is little different than paralleling two sets of cables, and will work fine. Albeit with the resulting sonics perhaps being somewhat different than if the jumpers were removed.

Also, FWIW, the commonly stated belief that current follows the path of least resistance is an oversimplification. If current is presented with two paths between the same points, or between points that are shorted together, it will divide up between the two paths in inverse proportion to their resistances. Since in this situation the resistances of both cable paths and the jumpers would be near zero, as a rough approximation the current will divide up pretty much equally between the two paths.

And regarding "nothing would reach the crossover/drivers," keep in mind that the jumpers would not be shorting + and - together, they would be connecting + to +, and - to -.

Regards,
-- Al
Its like every other thing in Audio, you need to try it in
your system with your speakers in your room with your music .
My suggestion to try connecting bi-wired speakers with jumpers at the speaker terminals was intended as a way for folks with bi-wire cables and dual speaker terminals to easily hear the effect of single-wiring their speakers. Some might say running the bi-wire cables to the two terminals and then connecting (the two positive terminals and the two negative terminals) at the binding posts with jumpers would be better than single wiring the speakers, since the magnetic field from the woofer signal would be separated from the MF/HF cable right up to the binding posts. Advocates of bi-wiring usually say separating the woofer's magnetic field from the higher frequencies is the primary advantage of bi-wiring while opponents sometimes quote a lack of coherence and phase issues. I wonder if the jumpers might improve on the coherence/phase issues?
09-22-15: Mitch2
Some might say running the bi-wire cables to the two terminals and then connecting (the two positive terminals and the two negative terminals) at the binding posts with jumpers would be better than single wiring the speakers, since the magnetic field from the woofer signal would be separated from the MF/HF cable right up to the binding posts.
Yes, some might say that, Tim (Mitch2), but they would be wrong. Per the second paragraph of my previous post, in that situation both the low frequency content of the signal and the high frequency content of the signal would divide up between the two sets of conductors in approximately equal amounts.

Therefore, assuming good contact integrity for all of the connections that are involved, whatever sonic differences may occur between single wiring and biwiring with twice as many similar wires but with jumpers in place are likely to mainly be the result of the factor of two difference in resistance and inductance that results. With the magnitude and character of the resulting sonic difference being dependent on the impedance characteristics of the particular speakers that are being used.

Best regards,
-- Al