How does bi-wiring work?

this is probably a stupid question, but what is "shotgun" biwiring?

@immatthewj No, that’s an excellent question. Shotgun bi-wiring refers to having two physically separated cables running for both the high and low signal legs. There are also internally bi-wired cables where both legs run together next to each other in the same sheathing rather than running separate and are just separated at the end where the cables connect to the speakers.

And to clarify--does it matter that the jumpers you used in conjunction with the biwire are bananas? The reason I ask about that is because I still have the (gold plated) jumpers that came with my B&Ws, but they are not bananas, they are contoured strips designed to just fit underneath the speaker terminal nuts, and since they accomplish the same thing, would the bananas actually have a different effect?

While the straps do the same thing, they’re basically crap and even if you don’t bi-wire you’d be well served to replace them with decent shoe jumper cables with banana connectors (bananas so you don’t have to double up on spade connections with spade jumpers). So, replacing the crap straps with real wire cables should yield sonic improvements even if you’re using single wire.  What surprised me was using banana wire jumpers with shotgun bi-wire cables still produced a significant improvement. Hope that clears it up a bit.

 

Thanks, @soix  , yes, that absolutely clears things up.

I guess I am shotgun biwiring.  I do have two separate runs to each speaker (to make it easier on the amplifier end I had one run made with bananas to use on the amp end, but spades for the speaker end).

HOWEVER:  in multiple places I zip-tied the two runs together (they are long runs and doing that makes things more sanitary); so would you think that doing that with the zip-ties defeated the benefits of the shotgun method?

I was shocked (I know I should not have been) by the prices of some of the jumpers when I just a bit ago did a search on MD.  For example:  $1200 for a set of Shunyatas!!  I was leaning more in the direction of the Kimber 4TCs for $124, except they are out of stock right now, so I punt in a "notify me when . . ." request.

Out of curiosity and if it's not too personal, how extreme did you go with your jumpers?

. . . I just took a look on PCX and Furutech as a set of four for $237. . . .

Out of curiosity and if it’s not too personal, how extreme did you go with your jumpers?

@immatthewj Another great question. So, the person who recommended I try this was Chris Sommovigo (RIP) from Illuminati, Stereovox, Black Cat, etc. when I was reviewing some of his interconnects and speaker cables. In an offhand comment he mentioned I should try his jumpers with my Acoustic Zen Shotgun Bi-wire cables. I said, uh, what??? He was adamant so he sent some thin banana jumpers (i.e. nothing like my garden hose cables) and I was beyond skeptical, but as soon as I plugged them in the improvement was immediate and undeniable and they haven’t left my system since. I say this because I’m not sure it matters so much which cables you use for jumpers, and at least in my case they didn’t have to match my speaker cables to make a significant improvement — and the price of the jumpers Chris sent were WAY less expensive than if I bought AZ jumpers. I think you can get very good banana jumpers that are reasonably priced from Audioquest from Audio Advisor, Crutchfield, etc. and they may be more than fine and can probably be returned if not. That’s prolly what I’d do. Highly recommended to at least try. Maybe just try these as they’d work with your mix of banana and spade connectors and give you an idea at very low cost…

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_703PSCBIWR/AudioQuest-PSC-BiWire-Jumpers.html

As for the question of the zip ties with your cables, unfortunately I got nuthin’. I’d think it could work depending on how well your cables are shielded, but obviously you could try it both ways. Personally, I’d have bigger fish to fry rather than worry so much about that, especially if your cables are well shielded. But that’s just a non-educated guess.

Let me make it simple. Biwiring is nonsense. It is exactly as effective as the gauge of the combined cables. Nothing more. Biwiring sends the exact same signal down both sets of cables. Any field effects are equal in both cables. Single wired speakers split there feed to the crossovers at the rear speaker connector. Biwiring does it at the amplifier. All filtering of the input is done at the crossover. If you want to make a genuine difference, pull the passive crossovers out, use line level electronic crossovers and biamp.