bi-wiring

Robinhood

what are the pros and cons to bi-wiring and is there any point on doing it just for audio stereo?

howie777

If you have wire that is too thin to deliver the necessary amount of current for your speakers then bi-wire will help because you have just doubled the thickness of the wire and now you should be able to give the speakers enough current. If you use thick wire to begin with bi-wire won't help.

Howie

jeff reimer

I just bi wired my RTI100's. Heres my observations. Although the difference is slight at low volumes, I think it does make the sound more clear at higher volumes. To put it a differnt way, it is less harsh when played at higher volumes. So I do think it made a difference. I just used 2 runs of Monster cable 16 gauge wire...next step is for the banana connectors.

RuSsMaN

Interesting note that you prefer a speaker (high) level connection to your 100's powered subs, but we all know you can't *really* bi-wire them.

Cheers,
Russ

PolkThug

Blind Bi-Wiring Test
There is so much talk about bi-wiring that I had to give it a shot. Since I have extra speaker wire, this test only cost me time.

I'm using 16gauge wire on RTi70's. I biwired the right speaker only. I then unplugged the subs, and set the front speakers to large. Then I played various Beastie Boy tracks and walked back and forth between the two subs.

I thought that there was a slight difference. The right side sounded a little cleaner. Now, I know how strong the placebo effect is, I knew which speaker I bi-wired, so I was probably subconsciously wanting the right to sound better, so I called in the big guns...

My girlfriend knows nothing about home audio and likes to give me a hard time about how much I spend on the theater so I thought she would be the perfect test subject for a blind test.

I mentioned nothing about what I had done and I brought her downstairs and asked her to listen to the Beastie Boys and tell me if one side sounded different than the other. After going up to each speaker she said that the vocals on the right side had more clarity, then she walked back and forth again and said the right side had better treble, and she described it as "if you were in a car and you turned the treble up a little bit, that's what the right side sounds like."

The Conclusion: The bi-wired speaker sounded better.

The Mystery: Did it sound better because the woofer and tweeter were more "electrically seperated" or because I essentially increased the wire gauge by having two sets?

The Answer: It doesn't matter. It sounds better, so I'm hooking up the left side the same way. It's a cheap tweak that works.

Regards,
PolkThug

jeff reimer

What do you mean you cant really bi wire the RTI100's?? Polk recommends using the speaker line level set up. I tried the rca cable to the sub and it sounded horrible..hardly any bass. But I also do have a powered sub in the system also. You must be a know it all?

RuSsMaN

Name calling won't win you any points bud, but if it makes you feel better, go right ahead.

Like I said earlier, glad to hear YOU like the difference in using a speaker level connection on the powered sub portion of your 100's. You may have used a bi-wire cable, which is fine and dandy - However, the speaker cannot technically be 'bi-wired'.

Cheers,
Russ (aka - know it all)

HBombToo

Originally posted by jeff reimer
What do you mean you cant really bi wire the RTI100's?? Polk recommends using the speaker line level set up. I tried the rca cable to the sub and it sounded horrible..hardly any bass. But I also do have a powered sub in the system also. You must be a know it all?

I'm with "know it all" on this 1 guy.... pretty harsh stance ya have there.

By definition Russman is absolutely correct and my term for what you have done would be called shot gun configuration on the 100i's.

HBomb

jeff reimer

Not trying to win points. Explain yourself. Why cant they be bi wired?

Tour2ma

http://clubpolk.polkaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14566