I am stunned

Wow - don't think I've ever seen a thread grow so fast.

Christ (Chstob) - point well taken. I'd used empirical to mean experimental (not pure math at all, just the opposite). In a real sense I don't feel that Liguy performed any kind of experiment, at least not pertaining to biwiring.

Dekay - what can I say? I'm a gambling man ;-). My relative certainty is based on a lack of any solid objective evidence that similarly measuring cables sound audibly different while the converse does hold (IIRC). I'm certainly willing to change my mind, though am personally disinclined to spend time swapping cables at home in an experimentally invalid environment.

Sugarbie - now I see what you were getting at w/Pavarotti. It's an interesting approach, but I suspect that there are substantial and meaningful physical differences between most of us and Pavorotti (make of that what you will . . .). The cable differences are easily quantified and most fall "in the noise" as far a effect on sound.

Redkiwi - if Liguy did as you said, I'd be in wholehearted agreement with you. But he didn't try anything whatsoever meaningful re: biwiring, yet claimed that as the cause of the wonderful new sound. It's like the Dunlavy SM-1 vs. SM-VI example I gave previously.

Oh, dear - looks like I'm setting myself up to be the next objectivist-in-the-barrel!

Jhunter

JHunter: Auditioning cable is work to me (and I do not do a lot of it). I am certain that I could find better matches, but again I am not willing to put forth the effort. I do not however disbeleive the observations of most others, though it is uncertain as to whether I would hear exactly what they are hearing if I were in the same room at the same time. This whole business is, as always, of a highly personal nature. Redkiwi: I also apoligize for "digging". I have noticed a difference on "some" duplicate A/B discs with the Rainbow Foil but have lacked the concentration as of late to do any serious listening. I am also waiting for the return of my SET amp which due to its greater detail (than my SS amp) will take a lot of the guess work out of testing the foil and will make it an easier and much more enjoyable project (I love the sound of this amp). In addition I am still awaiting the Nueance shelving and am looking into new speaker cable as well, so seem to have quite a lot (for me anyway) stacked up in my audio in box. I also ordered the Absolute power cords to play around with on my power conditioners and as Elizabeth am looking for high quality male IEC plugs as I will need to retrofit such plugs to the Monster HTS2000's. I looking for a CD mat at this point on which to apply the Rainbow foil (instead of applying it to the CD itself). I plan on using two identical (sound wise) CD mats (one with Rainbow foil and one without for the testing).

Hi Dekay; re your last 4/19 post: I suppose an internal biwire could be connected as you suggest, eg to compare single wire vs biwire, but I think the results would only be valid for that particular set up. R. Vandersteen says true biwiring is preferrable to "internal" biwiring, and I've read that the wires in a true biwire should be separated by an inch or two, however, this has low WAF. It even makes me nervous when my wife gets the vacuum near my speaker cables. The vacuum makes the wires nervous-- just as it does our cat. I want nice relaxed wires.

I did try separating my biwired spkr cables(for a few hours) and it made quite a dramatic difference-- all bad; bright, harsh, aggressive. But then, I've had my cables tightly tied together for 2-3 years (with wire ties), and I'm convinced that I have, in effect, turned them into an internal biwire. To really test this, I think I would need to separate the wires for several days or weeks.

Supposedly, the bass wires carry much more current than the mid/treble cables, and thus-- at least when close-- could have some kind of effect on all four wires. But my system sounds very good with the cables tied together so I haven't had much incentive to change it. Cheers. Craig

Leafs, I recieved your email but I will attempt to answer you here so everyone can participate. I will attempt to answer each one of your questions but I warn you as you may not like some of the answers. First some background. I graduated with a BSEE from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1976. That is all you need to know about my technical background so let me start answering some questions for you. If you read my origional post carefully you would see that I have a good relationship with my dealer who I have dealt with throughout the years. After all, he lent me cables until I have the money to buy some. He did not have to do that. Since I have this relationship can you guess where I bought all of my audio equipment and can you guess what I auditioned the speakers with. If you read my other posts you would have seen that in the store the speakers had a single wire and the biwire jumpers in. I can tell you that my dealer's room has been specifically designed for sound. He wouldn't be in business long if the equipment he sold sounded lousy in his own establishment. I can also tell you my living room is just that: "a living room". It is not, and will never, have the acoustics of an auditioning room at a audio dealer. With all of this information I can safely say it was the biwiring. Redkiwi was correct in his acessment that I heard something that I thought was tremendous and wanted to share it. I also wanted to share, that as an engineer I was not tempted to try and understand why but only enjoy what I had heard. So there you have it. If it was not scientific enough for you Mr. Leafs, sorry that is just too bad. I am not, under any circumstances going to let you prevent me from enjoying what I heard that evening. If it bothers you so much you figure out why it sounded better.

Garfish: I was discussing cable in general with Pierre at Mapleshade and got the impression that it is most important to space the channels from each other and not the highs from the lows on one channel (I did this as we were talking on the phone and bingo, much more open sound - boy he/Pierre has a lot of patience). Your situation makes perfect sense, except I never did try spacing the high and the lows as you did. I wish that I would have played around with it more when I had the bi-wire setup, but there is always the next time. And, Liguy, if you are bowled over with your current setup then good for you. As I said above I would be hesitant to touch/move anything. My system has been off since I demoed some wire a friend brought over two weeks ago (the center image moved to the left) and I have not been able to set it right. I am wondering now if I might have damaged my micro wire IC and will switch it out next.