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Bi-wire-top post, bottom post, why a difference?

I use mapleshade jumpers between the 2 peerless drivers that cross over at either 900 or 1000 to the 30" newform research ribbons..the acoustic zen satori[single wire] was always running to the bottom speaker lugs...I could only afford one good wire at the time. Sunday I connected the satori to the second set of lugs. Please note the ribbons are connected to the cabinet' top by their own jumpers[mapleshade]....I wasn't quite ready for the improvement I hear in the sound...in fact I still have to replay cds to make sure it is "better" and not merely different. Better clarity and blossoming of voices into the space between me and the speakers. Larger if you will, while depth seems enhanced. Is this an indication these speakers should be biwired? I'm toying with getting a short run of bolder cable[affordable] to see if this is the case. Any thoughts on the above? Oh, the rest of the system is a krell pam3. sim4070se, nopariel cd, roxan zerxes, ac matric ic and ixos ixotica ic. and absolute power cord. Monster and panamex conditioners. Thanks in advance. Bluenose
bluenose
centurymantra
133 posts
 
I have attempted bi-wiring on a couple of occasions and distinctly did not like the results. I could not quantify exactly what happened to the sound, but it really dried out the enjoyable qualities of my system. This is, of course, system dependant, and many audiophiles love the sound they achieve through bi-wiring so you may want to attempt it as a trial run. If you go to audioasylum.com you can find numerous long and fairly interesting/informative threads relating experiences with and technicalities behind bi-wiring. I suspect that you are better off using the same speaker cabling for both runs and I have not actually tried this yet. Good luck.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
Well if your jumper cable is of lower quality than your speaker wire (or just different), it seems logical that the high post (to the mids & tweeter) was not getting as good of (or the same) signal as the low post to the bass. Also, since you are not going to notice as big of a difference in the bass as in the mids and treble, connecting the wire to the top post should be noticeable. In the best of worlds the jumpers should be the same cable. Using jumpers is not bi-wiring. Bi-Wiring is all the way from the amp to the speakers. You'll need that second wire you're saving for.
plato
1,543 posts
 
To me it makes sense if single-wiring to run the speaker cables directly to the midrange/tweeter section and then strap to the bass section. I think that the perceived differences in the midrange and treble quality will be more noticeable than whatever degradation occurs in the bass. This is mainly relevant when the straps are not the same wire or material as the speaker cables.

On my B&W speakers I run an excellent shotgun cable to the midrange/tweeter posts and use the gold-plated straps supplied with the speaker to strap down to the bass section. I have found this configuration to work quite well, though possibly using higher quality wire straps would work even better. To me it seems like a waste of money and space to biwire with two runs of the same cable. I may write to my cable's manufacturer to see if he will supply me with two pairs of straps made from his wire for a lower fee than buying another pair of 12 ft. cables. Heck, for that purpose they wouldn't even need to be terminated, as bare wire should provide the best connection anyway.
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