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To biwire or not to biwire...?

I know there have been a few threads on this subject and it is a fairly controversial subject, but I have a few specific questions on both ways. First, there are dealers who advertise their jumpers by saying," get rid of those junky bars that come with your speakers and hear what your speakers are really capable of..." For that distance of an inch or two, does it really make a difference ? Secondly,some dealers and /or manufacturers who push the biwire method, recommend putting copper cables on the bass and silver on the tweeter. How does this make things better ? Thirdly, for those with biwireable speakers,who want to run a single cable and put in a jumper,what kinds of experiences have you had with different types of jumpers ? I have a single pair of speaker cables ( AZ Satori) and another brand of cables that tend to lean toward the "warm" side of neutral.If I put in some good silver jumpers, would that give a more neutral tonal balance or would it only emphasize the upper registers ? I have yet to find any all- silver cables that I found natural-sounding anyway.Or would it be better to use a jumper from the same manufacturer as the single run you are using ? I know these are a lot of questions, but surely others without the technical know-how like myself have wondered about these things as well. Thanks for your input.
sherod
matt8268
92 posts
 
I can tell you with my setup, I noticed an improvement with biwiring. While it actually sounded the same as single wiring upon first comparison at moderate to loud volume, both a friend and I noticed that our ears hurt with the single wire but not with the biwire. Only thing I can come up with is that the bass can pull more current from the amp without also feeding that same extra current through the treble (which was what was hurting our ears). Not sure if this theory holds ground (pardon the pun) electrically.

Keep in mind this test was done on my fairly low-fi system. I currently have a Denon AVR1700 receiver powering Joseph Audio RM22si signature speakers with 2 separate runs of Kimber 4TC.
imin2u
392 posts
 
I currently bi-wire and I definitely reap the benefits of a more controlled low-end and a more defined high-end. Just try it.
wellfed's avatar
wellfed
690 posts
 
My previous speakers benefited greatly from using ZERO autoformers. One pair sounded great, two pairs (bi-ZERO) were phenmomenal. I asked a noted cable designer why this would be so and he thought it was probably due to isolation of back-EMF.
garfish
1,840 posts
 
Re: Vandersteen Audio's speaker Owner's Manual(s): based on extensive testing, Vandersteen strongly recommends true bi-wiring with their speakers. I now use internal bi-wired cables by Synergistic Research and like them a lot-- the bass wire in these high purity copper cables is of heavier gauge than the mid/treble wire.

In order to achieve the best results in a true bi-wired setup (4 wires to each speaker), the individual wires must be separated by an inch or so over most of the run(s), and in a practical setting, this can be hard to do-- that's why I went to internal bi-wires. Cheers. Craig
audio_buff
38 posts
 
All the above pros and cons are valid, but it still comes down to trying it in your system. There are alot of variables to consider.

But some considerations both ways.

The jumper camp:
Consider this. When you connect your spade to a terminator that has a jumper, the signal will have to additionally travel through the jumper to get to the terminating post. You now have multiple paths to the terminating post and an inferior connection. In a high resolution system you can hear this. If you have a binding post that has a metal nut, you may have 3 paths for the signal.

The YES biwire camp:
For best results, run 4 lengths of identical cable and keep them all separated. Real air is the best dielectric. I've always thought that physically separate plus & minus have an advantage over plus & minus in the same jacket. If this is true then having 4 wires in the same jacket must be worse. My listening tests seem to prove this out.
Also if you bi-wire with two sets of wires rather than a biwire set. On the amp side you have the same multiple signal paths to the binding post issue I mentioned in the jumper considerations.
Try separating the spades of each wire with a rubber washer or vinyl gromlet. I've tried plastic, ceramic and paper, they didn't sound as good.
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