correct bi-wiring per Richard Vandersteen

Marie, that's an interesting article. My understanding was that one of the advantages of bi-wiring is that the cross-overs themselves can be made simpler and that the speakers can be more electronically isolated from one another. The advantages of that could be achieved with a high quality jumper cable if the speakers are designed for biwiring.

I suspect most manufacturers also design the actual wires themselves differently -- low vs. mid to high frequencies (e.g., the AWG of the bass cable is higher than the AWG of the mid/tweeter cable). So, there would be sonic advantages to biwiring even if the wires were right next to each other.

Ideally, the wires should be separated. In fact, even the positive and negative wires in a traditional two wire speaker cable should be separated. This is expensive and inconvenient so is seldom done (though there are some clever means out there attempting to cancel out the magnetic fields created by the wires). The lower the impedence of the speaker (and woofers tend to be the lowest), the higher the current flow. The larger the speaker (all things equal), the more energy is needed to move it so current flow goes up again. The higher the current flow, the higher the field generation aspect of the speaker wire. I'm not sure what's so magical about an 8" speaker vs. a 10" speaker relative to his comment about when biwiring is needed. Sounds like an arbitrary point of departure to me.

IMHO, he is overplaying the advantages of having the wire several inches apart. Is it good to separate? Yes. Is it a killer not to? Probably not to the extent implied.

I agree with everything Richard Vandersteen says. If you can make speakers that sound as good as his Fives, that's the least consideration you deserve! Now I will go and read what he said...

Vandersteen has both written and talked for many years about the merits of bi-wiring. I attended a seminar last year with Richard where he stated his conclusion that the primary benefit of bi-wiring comes from keeping the electrical fields of the low-frequency signal separated from the electrical fields of the mid and high-frequency signals. Vandersteen says his research indicates that the improved performance gained from bi-wiring is more attributable to this aspect of electrical field interaction than to any inherent advantage from having separate crossovers for the various frequency ranges.

Richard also recommends that the two "legs" of each biwire pair be physically separated by at least several inches, and if the two wires must cross over each other, it should be at right angles.

On the biwire sets I use with my Vandy 3A Sig's, I used several wooden "pegs" that are V-shaped at each end to keep the biwire pairs about 4" apart throughout their entire length, up to where they connect to the speaker (where they obviously must be close to allow connection to the binder posts).