Benefits and Drawbacks to Shotgun Speaker Cables

This is a term that i've heard used with various meanings. Can someone please explain what the "accepted" meaning of "shotgun cables" is ?

I've been told that "shotgunning" cables is when you take all of the conductors ( pos and neg ) of one speaker cable and use them for one polarity and then use all of the conductors of an identical cable for the other polarity. You then have two individual but identical "barrels" side by side ( ala a shotgun ) with twice the "firepower" ( gauge ) that you would normally have by splitting the conductors of one cable between polarities.

Is this correct or am i off in left field on this one ??? Sean
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Sean I think you've got it. Shotgun configuration is simply two wires that end with one termination. So for my Red terminal on my right speaker I have ONE run of Shotgunned cables and the same for the black. So I have 4 cables per speaker. I've noticed a HUGE difference in sound quality. I'm not talking a bit here... My system has jumped on to the resolution bandwagon :)

Garfish, I think you're a little confused about 'Shotgun' because this method of cabling actually doubles the cost because you've got double the cable for each run. And there's no Bi-wiring/Bi-amping going on in my system.

Sean, you are correct, Garfish is referring to true double bi-wire rather than shotgun I beleive, as opposed to a single bi wire configuration. For example if you used kimber8(one strand on each side) and seperated out some of the conductors for the "high" and "low" in a single pair(this would require being careful to get this right(Audio Quest and other companies do this), that could or would be single or internal bi-wire. True bi-wire would have two runs per side and shot gun would have 4 per side on a bi-wire, both the black and blue in Kimber (8tc)would be grouped together and not seperated as + or -. shot gun can also refer to a non bi-wire configuration and use two seperate runs per side. Dont confuse this with MIT shotgun which is different. Clear as mud?

Buckingham, to answer your question, go to the Audioquest web site, and read their explanation of bi-wireing. This is is one of the best explanations I have seen.(you may have to search around since the site is a bit strange at first)They don't mention specifically shotgun but they will talk about the benifit of the added conductors and the seperation of electrical fields.It will take a bit of interpretation to apply this to "shotgun". I first tried "shotgun" before I new it was "shotgun" back in about 1981 with my then, Mogami speaker cable. It improved the sound in just about every way(it sounded more lifelike) with that wire. I can't say it will happen with every cable out there.

Here's my understanding, please educate me if I'm wrong:

Bi-wire = four conductors in one cable / speaker
Bi-cable = two conductors in two cables / speaker
Shotgun = four cables / speaker

I've tried all of them. If your speakers are truley bi-wireable (internally split crossovers, not just two sets of binding posts to one crossover) you will surely hear an improvement. Currently I'm running Transparent Super Bicable XL's (two - two conductor cables in one conduit, networked), but am looking to go Shotgun. That way I can utilize the multiple Ohm taps on my monoblocks, running 4-8 ohm to my tweeters and 2-4 ohm to my woofers (bi-wireable 2-way monitors).