Biwire Speaker Question

Not always the same. Usually not the same. For example...

Let say the all-in-one biwire cables have four 14awg wires inside. Two pairs are combined together at the amp end, with a single 14awg wire going to each of the four speaker terminals.

You can usually buy the same speaker cable that is not biwire. It will have the two 14awg pairs combined at both ends since there is no biwire.

If you use regular non-biwire cables you will be using four cables instead of two. Each of the four terminals on your speakers will be connected to a pair of 14awg wires instead of just one. This is double the gauge of wire to each speaker terminal than when using the bi-wire pair.

Believe me, this will affect the sound. Generally speaking the higher gauge of speaker wire the better. So using four single wires that are the same wire as the biwire pair will usually be better. You listen and decide..

I run two separate sets of speaker cables to biwire my speakers. (Rather than true biwired cables as you described). Having two sets of binding posts on my amps makes it slightly easier to tighten the spades down properly. But other than that, there does not really appear to be any benefit as Kal has stated.

(However, one benefit of running two sets of speaker cables, as I have done, is that I can sell them separately, (when and if the time comes), which should make them easier to sell. But then again, it did make it slightly more difficult to buy them used! But I did manage to buy two identical sets of speaker wire, the exact same length.)

Of course four wires of the same quality will cost you a lot more than two (double). Hard to compare say a pair of $400 biwire cables against two pairs of $200 single wires. They are not going to be the same wire.

Well here's what I just learned. Two sets of cable to bi-wire has the advantage of being able to compare bi-wired to single wired. In my case single wired with matching jumpers actually sounds much better on my speakers. My last speakers were far better bi-wired, so I think it's important to hear high quality cables on your speakers both ways to make an informed decision, which you can't with the bundled run of bi-wire. As always, YMMV.

Didn't see a mention of this, but I have heard the reason for bi-wiring is not to increase the guage of wiring but to keep innercable frequency interference to a minimum. When a signal from your amp goes to the speaker it makes the speaker move. When a voice coil moves in a magnetic field it generates a back current that goes to the amp. Appearantly high and low frequencies behave differently in a conductor and dividing the wiring to the high and low drivers is of benefit (even though they meet at the amp terminals). It's not mentioned in your thread if your speakers have separate terminals for mids and highs. True bi-wiring is about running two sets of wires from the high and low terminals on your speaker back to the single amp terminal on your amp (not all companies design their speakers for this).
Depending on the make of wire, some manufactures recommend a double run for improved perfomance. OCOS speaker cable ( a coax design imported by Sumiko Corp.) is such an example. In this case, lower mid and bass are improved by a double run. This application essentially increases the amount of signal going to your speaker. While not a true bi-wire set up, this configuration does improve the sound. Fortunately OCOS is relatively affordable and I was able to do this. Cost can be significant if you're talking Nordost and the like. Sometimes the money is better spent using better cable instead of twice as much. Ya just gotta listen to it!
So bi-wiring is about the physics of two way traffic in a speaker wire between the amp and the speaker.