Bi Wiring Speakers from Luxman L-509X


I'm looking at updating speaker cables and I'm convinced that biwiring with two separate sets will be the best approach over a single set of speaker cables with matching jumpers.  

My 509 has two sets of speaker outputs and I can select for the amplifier to drive both outputs.  So my plan is to run one set of outputs/speaker cables to the woofers and the other outputs/speaker cables to the tweeters.  

My question is will this create any compromises in the performance in any way?  I don't want to end up with improving one aspect at the detriment to another.  

Am I just overthinking it?
pinball101
Then answer me this what happen if the two frequencies are hit at the same time, What does the amplifier see then? It seems the sim is showing the the two different frequencies but not at the same time.

Lets assume an ideal 8 ohm tweeter and mid-woofer, with a perfect infinite slope crossover at 2 kHz. So perfect that at 1,999.99999999 Hz 100% goes to the mid-woofer and at exactly 2kHz it all goes to the tweeter. You would have an amplifier load that is exactly like a single, ideal 8 ohm driver without a crossover.

We know that current = V/R, but how would we ever calculate the current for complex music?

Imagine a test tones with two notes, 500 Hz and 4 kHz. 8Vrms each, with the peak voltage 2x the peak of either by itself.

In this case we have 2 A, because you take each section and add them.

8 Vrms @4kHz / 8 Ohms = 1Arms tweeter
8 Vrms @500 Hz / 8 Ohms = 1Arms mid woofer

Now imagine we use the same test tone and add a true woofer below 200 Hz, converting into a 3-way:

8V / 8 Ohms = 1A tweeter
8V / 8 Ohms = 1A mid
0V / 8 Ohms = 0A woofer

We added a 3rd driver, but the current did not rise. Calculating a total R of of 8/3 will not work here.

Let’s this time use a new test tone at 200 Hz but nothing else.

0V / 8 Ohms = 0A tweeter
0V / 8 Ohms = 0A mid
8V @200 Hz / 8 Ohms = 1A woofer

Again, the current is entirely dependent on the section it went to. In all of these cases, the answer is that the current and power is identical to a single driver because of the magic brick wall filter sections used.  Real filters are not ideal, but not too far off these examples we can't use them, and where the impedance curve drops to the impedance of the single driver you can see it is working very much like these examples.

Of course, multi way speakers and music is complicated and ideally resistive drivers almost never exist, and never match other driver types. :D You can’t really do this with music without a digital sampling mechanism, but i hope you can see that no, the drivers don’t add up the same way in an AC circuit with filters.

In the post I sent you I use a VERY typicical type of speaker build and crossover design, one you’ll find 100s of examples of in Stereophile. That peak between the mid and tweeter is the combination of the low and high pass filters. Split them apart, they go to infinity. Put them back together, either with jumpers at the speaker or bi wiring to the amp, and they meet in the middle at an amount a lot less than invinity, but a lot more than either driver.
That’s how marantz recommends to connect when bi wiring....A for low frequency driver, B for high frequency driver....or vice versa.....there is no detriment...on my sugden, it only has one set of speaker outputs. I use both spades and bananas on the amp end to connect two equivalent pairs of Audioquest type 4 cables, 4 meters in length. A Stereophile recommended cable for a very long time...like the 1980's....
I also see super high ohms in certain regions, Wouldn’t the amp see just that and be down XX db without a notch to bring the impedance down and volume UP.

@oldhvymec

Speaker output is proportional to voltage, and we assume an amp acting as a voltage source with little output impedance, so long as the speakers impedance is high enough ( say > 3 Ohms), raising the speaker impedance to a very high amount like 100 Ohms wont alter the voltage.

Here is one of hundreds of examples of a two way speaker with that xo hump:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/polk-legend-l100-loudspeaker-measurements

Notice the xo impedance hump is not present in the frequency response plot.

There are speaker designers who take more care in order to appeal to tube amp users, like Fritz, and they take extra care to avoid that xo hump. In Fritz’s case, he does so by using serial xo. Others may add an impedance compensation circuit, but since they soak up watts they are big and expensive to make.


But that simple XO in a real speaker isn’t gonna look like that is it?


The first plot on the post i shared was a simulated XO, but the actual XO measures (via DATS v 2) nearly identical so it is absolutely not worth posting. It is the same curve. The trick to getting the camel humps right is to measure the woofer in the cabinet with the port in place. The last two curves in my post are for simple first order filters so you can see how rising impedance blocks unwanted frequencies.
Hello,
Just buy better jumpers. Nordost jumpers are $175. Then run a better single cable if you need it to go to the woofer or bass terminal. Just so you can hear some differences in sound try leaving the jumpers on. Then connect your speaker cables to the high side or tweeter terminals. After that to get a more neutral sound do one black on the bottom and the one red on the top to each speaker. I say get some nice jumpers to start with. Nordost has a reference series set of jumpers too incase you have really expensive gear. This store in the Chicagoland area lets you try before you buy:
https://holmaudio.com/
Try it out first. Also, Let the cables load up for a day or so for a true test.