Bi-Wiring

vscindia · February 2004

I have seen some threads on Bi- Wiring and thinking of doing it.
I am using Onkyo -701 and will be connecting to Rti8's.
I am already using MONSTER CABLE XPHP1010 Pair of 10' XPHP Speaker Wire for my RTi8's I am thinking of using Monster Cable Monster XP for additional run from Receiver to RTi8 Speakers.

I have SOME question thoe?

1. Will this improve the performance for the front speakers?
2. Is it safe to do Bi-Wiring this way or i need diffrent type of wires?
3. is it safe for receiver to do Bi-Wiring?
4. Do i need to change any settings on the receiver?
(currently i set the front speakers to small and crossover to 100Hz).

Waiting for responses..........

Vj

F1nut · February 2004

Please use the search function. There is tons of info about that subject in here.

vscindia · February 2004

Just called Onkyo They are saying Onkyo receiver's are not Bi - Wire capable and They recommend not use Bi-Wiring with Onkyo Receiver.They suggested me to use speaker selector switch.

Does any one across this situation?

Vj

walk · February 2004

They didn't understand your question.

They thought you wanted to hook 2 speakers up to 1 terminal on the receiver. That would be bad.

HBombToo · February 2004

quote:

Originally posted by

If one of the engineers here wants to get 'down and dirty' s/he can explain the principals of a transmission line - and regardless of the fact we're just dumping low frequency audio down the pipeline, it's still a transmission line. A transmission line is easily represented by a series of L/C circuits and does take wavelength into consideration. It is interesting stuff. It can also explain why I don't agree with using Cat 5 as an audio signal carrier. I think that there is going to be a measurable time-shift of the higher frequencies - at least the math seems to bear that out.

Ok I'll jump in.... what the hay

http://bwcecom.belden.com/college/PDF/1583A.pdf

The link is a pdf of the cat 5 specification

If we put this into a Damping Factor perspective:
(an 8 Ohm speaker)/(.08 Ohm Output impedance)= 100 (Not bad but there is alot better but does it really matter over 50? )

Now use 10 feet of cat5 @ ~ .3 Ohms resistance and add it to your .08 Ohm output impedance we have ~ .38 Ohms and at a casual glance we would say... ehh, no problem BUT look what happens to damping.

8.0 Ohms/(.08+.3) ~21 which is way down from 100. as an aside The reason I'm lumping the cat5 resistance with the amp impedance is the Q(damping) of the speaker itself is guided by the dc resistance of the voice coil which we are not changing.

NOW:
The DC resistance in a 10 foot(same as above for the cat 5 example)stranded 12 awg is ~.015 Ohms

so doing the same damping calculation:

8/(.015+.08) ~ 83.4 damping factor. ok now... a lot better than 21 eh.

Also without getting into a bunch of gobly **** in transmission line theory the phase velocity of cat5 is (.7C) which is alot of delay and can have(i would imagine) a tendency to smear the sound stage.(IMHO)

Also the capacitance is rated at 15pF per foot so one would think that the response of the high freq would be effected.

I'm done now and have my flame suit on

HBomb

the Hbomb factor(from the hip) is line resistance is key. smaller the awg from 22 to 2 the resistance will decrease which is good.

PolkWannabie · February 2004

and the crowd goes wild ....

or in other words ... size DOES matter ... sheesh, any woman coulda told us that ... LOL ...

HBombToo · February 2004

its all about Girth:D

Twin

PolkWannabie · February 2004

That's certainly what the spam says ... maybe we could feed those products to our speaker wire.

gidrah · February 2004

Sure, but what happens to the damping factor when 6 lengths of cat5 are used? 24 pair, 12 pair to top and bottom.

vscindia · February 2004

I called Onkyo again..They told me not to do Bi-Wiring they are saying u may blow the receiver by doing that...

Does any one has any other opinions?

Vj

PolkThug · February 2004

You won't blow your receiver, as long as you remove the metal jumpers from the RTi8's. I am bi-wired to my RTi8's.

HBombToo · February 2004

Originally posted by gidrah
Sure, but what happens to the damping factor when 6 lengths of cat5 are used? 24 pair, 12 pair to top and bottom.

the resistance would decrease but the capacitance would increase.

the damping factor would be around 65

HBomb

RVJII · February 2004

Originally posted by vscindia
I called Onkyo again..They told me not to do Bi-Wiring they are saying u may blow the receiver by doing that...

Does any one has any other opinions?

Vj

You must not have been clear when you talked to them. Bi-wiring has absolutely no impact on the receiver. Before I switched to M-Blocks I used to bi-wire my Onkyo. (In fact the Onkyo CS person recommended it.)

vscindia · February 2004

I called Onkyo again and told me not to use Bi-Wiring ... They told me that u may damage your receiver by drawing 2 wires from + and - ports...

I am really confused on this isssue right now....

Vj

PolkThug · February 2004

About 6 months of no damage and counting. I never heard of anyone damaging their stereo by doing this. If your scared, just use a single run of thick wire to begin with.

Regards,
PolkThug

RVJII · February 2004

Did you tell them you wanted to bi-wire or did you just tell them that you were running 2 sets of wires. If that is what you told them then the person might think that you are trying to run 2 sets of speakers in parallel which has the effect of halving the load. (ie. two 4 ohm loads would look like one 2 ohm load to the receiver.) I would suspect that is what the CS person thought you were trying to do and would be correct that this could in fact damage your receiver if you exceeded the design specs.

In a bi-wire application this is not the case as you are running both sets to one pair of speakers, thus the load stays at the speakers rated specs. (Remember to remove the jumper plate.)

I have never heard of ANY amplifier or receiver being damaged due to bi-wiring. As you seem rather nervous about this I'd find someone near you who knows what they are doing (friend, high end audio shop, etc) and have them show you or just don't do it. The differences are subtle and some people don't notice it anyway.

vscindia · February 2004

RVJII,I told them that I am planning to do Bi-Wiring for RTi8's.
I did explain them properly .... Currently I am using MONSTER CABLE XPHP1010 Pair of 10' XPHP for my fronts.I am using Monster Cable Monster XP for surrounds. AM i using right cables or i need some diffrent cables?

Any recommendations fro the cables?

I will think of B-Wiring later I will first set up my system properly..

Vj

RVJII · February 2004

The person that you spoke to must have been completely confused then as your receiver will be fine. I have to admit that even though I like Onkyo products I feel that their customer support is not very good. Seems like they are reading from a script and don't really understand the equipment. (Unlike a company like Outlaw where the people that you talk to are extremely knowledeable.)

Anyway, as far as cables it just depends one how much you want to spend. If you want to stay with Monster they make bi-wire cables ranging from $85/pair to $700/pair.

http://www.monstercable.com/home_av/audio_cables/stereo_speakers_mseries.asp

I am personally about to change out my system to Signal Cable Shotgun Biwire. A lot of people here seem to use it and the price is pretty reasonable at $130/pair.

http://www.signalcable.com/speaker_cables.html

Just comes down to personal preference.

F1nut · February 2004

From my personal experience with running high-end bi-wires I have found them to be a waste. You are better off with a single run of large gauge wire and upgrading the jumpers to the same large gauge wire.

mantis · February 2004

HBombToo,
OK I read the post,I see where your going,I feel yeah.BUT.....

Man did you listen?Have you ever heard cat5 for speaker wire?In my opnion I think it sucks.

Here's Mantis theory on wire of any kind.Use the correct wire for the job.
Speaker wire for speakers..Make sense?

75 ohm RG59 or 6 for video and digital.Make sense

Networking use cat5 or 5e.Make sense?

I make cables every single day.I have listened to substitute cable in job where they don't belong but work.I feel they have no place here.You do exactly what you feel is right.You will not find coax made analog cables in my sytem or cat5 speaker wires....

Mantis

John K. · February 2004

VJ, the "advice" you received from Onkyo is nonsense from someone apparently not technically knowledgeable on the point. Whether you connect one, two or a dozen(if you could fit them)wires to one terminal doesn't result in "drawing" appreciably more power from the amp so as to endanger it. The lowered resistance in the speaker wire from the bi-wiring might be on the order of 0.1 ohm lowered to 0.05 ohm, this compared to maybe 4 to 8 ohms of resistance in the speaker itself. Theoretically, speaker wire resistance of zero would be ideal. Bi-wiring doesn't significantly help, but it also doesn't hurt(except financially). Forget about the bi-wiring and also don't worry about your present speaker cables; they're fine except that you paid too much for them.

F1nut · February 2004

John,

I agree with you about the bi-wire being a waste, but you should think about signing up for the cable swap program. It might open your ears to better (more money) wire.

Jesse

HBombToo · February 2004

Originally posted by mantis
HBombToo,
OK I read the post,I see where your going,I feel yeah.BUT.....

Man did you listen?Have you ever heard cat5 for speaker wire?In my opnion I think it sucks.

Do you think from my response that I am for cat5? If so you have totally misinterpreted my response. I was trying to demonstrate that cat5 has a negative impact on damping due to an increase in resistance and by increasing the number of cat5 pairs we can combat the increase in impedance but we effectively have increased the capacitance which will totally impact the speaker response.

I'm a 12guage copper guy through and through. HD, Rat Shack or any harware store is fine by me.

HBomb

mantis · February 2004

read it and understood it perfectly.....good deal

I read alot around the forum and in other forums that people trying to substitute wire for different wire for the wrong job.Since I'm in the field I can call the ****.You can fool yourself(not meaning you)into that coax is a great interconnect and cat5 is a great speaker wire ,but with the proper demo,one who cares about there sound should be able to hear differences from wire to wire.It's not that hard at all once you start listening into the music......

Purity ..........

HBombToo · February 2004

you need the right tool for the job and that im not against... but you have to be reasonable about it?... don't ya? i showed a calculation of why i would not use cat5 for speakers. i never said cat5 sucks! I also wonder if im even close to correct since I never saw this approach. im just guessen:D

1/4Twin

mantis · February 2004

ok I'll go with that but dude your answers lie in the demo,the test of tests....sit down with quality speaker wire and some cat5 setup for speaker use....listen and you'll see my friend....

Heres my bottom line...........sound is all that matters

HBombToo · February 2004

good

i'll try math and you do real world:)

a correlation may be right around the corner;)

1/4Twin... im only cracken #2:(

mantis · February 2004

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Can I be a wonder twin??

HBombToo · February 2004

Originally posted by mantis

Can I be a wonder twin??

only if your nice:cool:

1/4twin

mantis · February 2004

ok cool.........wonder twins powers activate..........

Form of a dripping Di$%.......oops

Form of water

Shape of a bear

gidrah · February 2004

Well since we've strayed enough from the original post:

I'm fed up with the smug!

Most amps won't do 65 damping factor. And even if they did, most speakers wouldn't know a 1000 damping factor if they saw one. The capacitance is another issue. One best solved between you and your amp.

While I know that somewhere they mine "audio copper", I just don't see it on the table of elements. Sure there are more appropriate executions considering purity, strand diameter vs. thickness, dialectric, etc. These are all things that manufacturers; with their disproportianant mark-up, have considered and are relying on. I know some people think that the big name cable companies have this huge R&D department, followed by a correspondingly large factory where they pull strands in an oxygen free environment. To those people I say, "Offer me a tour."

BTW - If your just crimping manufacturer supplied connectors on to their wire your not really coming up with anything new. They are just over paying you and the end consumer.

I drank my twins blood for every drop of alcohol he had.

Bi-Wiring

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