High end speakers without bi-wiring?

Hi Al, I read the statement you provided by Israel Blume and I find his arrogance overwhelming. I would like to add, Israels statement is only another opinion and I hardly think speaker manufacturers are designing crossovers that require biwiring because they do not know how to design a proper crossover or because they want cable manufacturers to sell more cables.

Stereophile's review of the Coincident Super Conguest Series II is an interesting read.

08-23-11: Johnk
You have the same signal on both runs of biwire. The treble and bass do not just travel on the cable run you pick for them unless actively filtered.

In a bi-wire arrangement the current and the power corresponding to the high frequency and low frequency spectral components of the signal do indeed travel on the cable run that is picked for them, although the voltage waveform that propagates through both runs will be essentially the same.

The high pass section of the speaker's crossover will block (or at least greatly reduce) the low frequency currents that would otherwise flow through the wires connected to its terminals. Likewise, the low pass section of the speaker's crossover will block (or at least greatly reduce) the high frequency currents that would otherwise flow through the wires connected to its terminals.

Your comment would be applicable if the jumpers were left in place while bi-wire cables were being used.

Regards,
-- Al

Signal is the same on both runs unless split by active or passive crossover before loudspeaker. One can hook a loudspeaker up to your supposed treble run and signal will be full range to loudspeaker. Or simple swap of treble run to woofer would prove my point.

John, envision a simple two-way biwired speaker, the speaker having a capacitor in series with the tweeter and an inductor in series with the woofer. An essentially identical full-range VOLTAGE waveform will propagate from the amplifier to both sets of terminals on the speaker, as I indicated above. However, since the tweeter and its associated capacitor are in series with the wires that provide a path between the amplifier terminals and the high frequency terminals on the speaker, low frequency CURRENTS cannot flow through those wires. Whether that capacitor is within the speaker or "before" it makes no difference with respect to that current.

Likewise with respect to the low frequency section of the speaker. The inductor will prevent high frequency currents from flowing through the wires connecting the amplifier to the speaker's low frequency terminals.

One can hook a loudspeaker up to your supposed treble run and signal will be full range to loudspeaker.

Yes, because the full range speaker will have a low impedance across the full frequency range. Whereas in the biwire situation the impedance looking into the high frequency terminals will be very high at low frequencies (resulting in little or no current flowing at those frequencies), and the impedance looking into the low frequency terminals will be very high at high frequencies (resulting in little or no current flowing at those frequencies).

Or simple swap of treble run to woofer would prove my point.

Low frequency currents will flow through whichever wires are connected to the low frequency speaker terminals, and high frequency currents will flow through whichever wires are connected to the high frequency terminals.

Regards,
-- Al

I don't think it's accurate to say that bi-wiring is out of vogue. I have my speakers passively bi-amped, and tri-wired with Audioengine Gibralter cables (one regular set to bass, and one bi-wire set to mid and tweeter).

Everyone said it would make no difference...but it made an audible difference to me. :-) Probably because I doubled my speaker cables.

As always in this hobby...YMMV.
mot