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To Bi Wire or not to Bi Wire that is the question?

Just brought home a new pair of KEF R3 bookshelf speakers. This is my first pair of serious speakers. So far I'm pretty happy, but I'm still breaking them in. After listening for a while I decided to research the bi wire option. I did a bunch of reading on the subject, the opinion seems to be 50 /50, so I decided to try it for myself. Immediately I heard a difference, the mid range was more pronounced and the low frequencies were deeper and tighter. I'm not sure about the high frequencies, they were pretty good to begin with.To make sure I wasn't imagining this, I asked my wife to listen, she said it sounded richer (her words). I only used 12 awg wire I had laying around, but if I like this better, I'll invest in some money in more serious cable. I thought I would put this out there and see what other peoples experiences were.
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gdnrbob
4,442 posts
 
Yes, biwire often helps with sound and imaging. Designers like Vandersteen believe in it, too.
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hifiman5's avatar
hifiman5
1,832 posts
 
As usual, a big +1 for @gdnrbob!  I have had Vandersteen's for about 30 years now and every model has been biwired as Richard is quite insistent on it if you want to fully realize the beauty of his designs.  If you do biwire, use the same cable geometry for the mid/treble and the bass.  

mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
Bi-wiring does nothing except changing the impedence the amplifier sees by a small amount. It is impossible for it to impact imaging, which is the off-axis response interaction between the speakers, it is impossible to alter the off-axis response relative to the on-axis.
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