Benefits and Drawbacks to Shotgun Speaker Cables

Following on Sean's ideas, if you have bi-wire speakers you could try just the "shotgun" set up for the lows and "norman" bi-wire on the top to reduce the effects that he and both Garfish suggest in the soffened high end but perhaps with the greater bass controll that the shotgun "could" provide with some cables. Again to use Kimber 8TC as an example(it works well to illustrate it since it has no real outer jacket to hide what is going on inside,black normaly used for the - side and blue used for the + side) it would be two runs(one for+ and one for -, both black and blue combined, ) to the bass and a single run to the top on each side(with the black and blue wires seperated as normal) for a total of 6 runs of cable.

Hey Sean, I've had the opposite happen here. More high freq information for sure. I've had many veils lifted after only the first day of break-in. Bass sounds quite different. Overall the soundstage is much larger (especially in the Y axis). The speakers seem to have a much easier time reproducing images very deep in the soundstage.

Buckingham, as i mentioned, every system can react differently. There are SO many variables with different cable geometries and gauges, etc... My comments were based on "generic" standards as to what "should" happen in "theory". I have learned enough to know that not everything follows theory though, so it is quite possible that you have stumbled across a killer combo.

I have some interconnects that are higher in capacitance than many other designs. While this typically results in high frequency softening and roll off, many that have used them have commented that treble sounds much more focused and detailed with greater depth to the soundstage. While i would agree with their comments in many situations, i know that the cables achieve these results by softening some of the upper midrange ( i.e. "grain and glare" ) that is present in many SS systems. By getting rid of what is normally distracting or fatiguing, it is easier to concentrate on what is left. Hence the "greater detail and focus" and smoother overall sound. The "greater depth" is also "psycho-acoustic" in the fact that when you remove upper harmonics of instruments and voices, they appear to be further away or "deeper" in the recorded presentation. Sean
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Jfaker, I don't think we have cleared up what shotgun is yet, Sean said it best, but I will try to sumerize. A "standard" speaker set up uses a single + connection and a - connection for each channel. This is the same for a single"standard" amp configuration. Lets use zip cord for our model. In the standard connection you conect one side of the zip cord to + and one side to - on both ends. A "bi-wire" speaker has two + connections and two - connections on each speaker. To bi-wire with our zip cord we hook up two runs of it, connecting both runs to one + terminal on the amp end and both runs to one - terminal of the amp. On the speaker end we connect the two + ends to the two + terminals on the speaker and the two - ends to the two - treminals. Here is the "Shotgun" set up. Forget bi-wire for a while since you can "shotgun" with a bi-wire or a "standard" speaker connection. Sean already said this but I will try again with the zip cord. Zip cord has two wires,one ment for the + signal and one ment for the - signal. To "shotgun" all you do is twist the + and - together to make one conductor, now take another run of Zip and do the same thing. Now you have two seperate zip cords, that used to have two conductors each. They now have one each.Use one as + and one as -. Connect one of the twisted together zip cords to the + and one of the twisted together zip cords to the - terminals on the speaker. Do the same on your amp. This will hook up one standard speaker. Do the same for the other side and you now have "shotgun". It is simply using a seperate 2 conductor zip cable for each connection, as Sean said it doubles the gauge of the wire. Again "zip" cord is only used in this context as a tool to explain what "shotgun" is, not as an endorsement of zip cord. I still think people are confusing standard "bi-wire" with "shotgun".