Bi-wiring

Marcial

I got a pair of PolkAudio Monitor 70 speakers a while ago but never thought of trying the bi-wiring connection. My question is simple: have any of you who bi-wired your speakers noticed any significant difference in the sound compared to having the basic connection with one double wire (red and black) to each speaker without removing the brass bridge or connector between hi and low frequencies on the back of the speakers?

ken brydson

Most will agree that just replacing the cheap brass jumper with a piece of quality wire will yield the same if not better results for less coin...

deronb1

I bi-wire my bookies. I use the bi-amp mode of my AVR (which isn't really bi-amping at all) but it allows me to run 12 ga wire to the bottoms and 14 ga to the tops. I like the sound, but honesty, not sure i would notice the difference from traditional in a blind test.

[Deleted User]

Hello,
I checked with the engineering guys and the binding post jumper plates on the Monitor Series speakers are made of gold plated nickel, not brass. Bi-wiring should be one of experiments anyone tries as part of learning about their audio system. Perhaps even trying combinations of different wire designs for the two speaker sections? A thicker, lower resistance for the bass section and a thiner lower inductance wire for the upper frequencies?
Cheers, Ken

mrloren

I wound not do it. Monitor 70 like a lot of power, I would consider saving for an amp. In the mean time I would make sure your jumpers are making good contact. I have pulled 8 off of RTi's and 4 from monitors and none made good contact. they were all high in the middle.

Top Dog

I spent a large part of yesterday afternoon trying out Bi-wiring and Bi-amping my TSx550t's (I have a Yamaha RX-V675 receiver). I used 12 gauge on the bottom and my old 16 gauge 'lamp cord' speaker wires for the top. To my ears (admittedly a long ways from audiophile), the difference was almost indistinguishable, except that they were a bit louder at the same volume setting when bi-amped.
Your mileage may vary.

PerfectCreature

I am bi-wired with Rocket33s.
I believe that the quality in sound I "believe" I heard was due to the higher quality pure silver banana plugs, the silver and pure ofc copper inside the wire, and the massive amount of shielding for those wires.
It really gets down to small details, such as what sort of metal is used to solder the banana plugs to the wire, is it even soldered at all?
What kind of wire is it, is it copper plated zinc? (Popular in car power wires) or is it silver plated copper? Pure copper? How about pure silver (expensive!).

I spent hours and hours going back and forth from having one speaker on A channel and one speaker on B channel with my rocket 33s, and just "lamp wire" as it is refereed too, and I am almost positive that I heard a fuller and more robust sound stage from the Rocket33s. I just liked what I heard better.
Perhaps it was a placebo, but I think not.

Ultimately if you have quality equipment, why not have quality cables?
Doesn't mean you need to spend $500 or even $1000 on cables, but at least use cables with better materials.

voltz

I still have some Rocket 33's and they made a difference over my then home made cables, give them some burn-in time and they will improve. I like the older AQ slate bi-wired cables better ( I think) as sometimes just something different makes me smile. but I'm still switching back & forth.

PerfectCreature

They have been well burned in. They have almost 6 years of use on them, I have to clean those silly silver banana plugs like once a year. I haven't done it yet, so they probably are pretty bad.
I had tried to sell them, but ended up deciding to keep them. I had my eye on some Shotguns, but they slipped away.

F1nut

I have to clean those silly silver banana plugs like once a year.

Unlike oxidized copper, oxidized silver is still an excellent conductor, so no need to clean them.

gp4jesus

Top Dog wrote: »

...the difference was almost indistinguishable, except that they were a bit louder at the same volume setting when bi-amped.

Bottom Line: can't say about the "bi-amping" but, in my experience mo' bigga wire, nets mo' louda speakas at the same volume setting.

Sorry if this reply stirs up trouble.

Merry Christmas, tony

gp4jesus

deronb1 wrote: »

Bi-wire... ...allows me to run 12 ga wire to the bottoms and 14 ga to the tops.

Have you considered "single wiring"
W/12 ga to one channel? Then turn up to "above moderate." One channel may be louder.

Did something like that MANY years ago. I internally rewired my speakers, one at a time, w/ 12 ga wire. I gave them a listen BEFORE rewiring the other speaker. The rewired one was louder than the other.

Side note to you & Topdog:
right now PE selling 10 ga,
50' lengths ~ 76 cents/ft
100' lengths ~ 64 cents/ft
Very inexpensive gage increase fer yer bottoms

Happy New Year, tony

MetropolisLake

PerfectCreature wrote: »

I am bi-wired with Rocket33s.
I believe that the quality in sound I "believe" I heard was due to the higher quality pure silver banana plugs

You realize you could have been rich, right? Google James Randi's $1 million bet.

F1nut

Please take that rigged Randi BS elsewhere.

tonyb

Can't wait for the Russell report next. lol

MetropolisLake

I'd love to watch somebody differentiate between banana plugs in a blind test. I'd seriously be amazed and impressed.

F1nut

Try it for YOURSELF, then your opinion has some merit.

tonyb

MetropolisLake wrote: »

I'd love to watch somebody differentiate between banana plugs in a blind test. I'd seriously be amazed and impressed.

If you look hard enough, you may find harder evidence in charts that show frequency response between various plugs.

Why would there be a difference ? Area of contact surface, metallurgy used for starters.

ZLTFUL

Why do we have to do this over and over and over and over and over and...

MetropolisLake

Just curious, has anybody ever gotten an external amplifier AND bi-wired? It seems to be only the receiver crowd who does it.

tonyb

MetropolisLake wrote: »

Just curious, has anybody ever gotten an external amplifier AND bi-wired? It seems to be only the receiver crowd who does it.

Uh....many do. Where ya going with that ?

MetropolisLake

tonyb wrote: »

Uh....many do. Where ya going with that ?

It was a pretty straightforward question and I even explained why I was asking. Simply curious. I've never heard of both an external amp and bi-wiring.

tonyb

MetropolisLake wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

Uh....many do. Where ya going with that ?

It was a pretty straightforward question and I even explained why I was asking. Simply curious. I've never heard of both an external amp and bi-wiring.

Then you need to get out more, lol.

The receiver crowd, as you put it, are into ghetto bi-amping, which isn't really bi-amping at all.

MetropolisLake

tonyb wrote: »

Then you need to get out more, lol.

Yeah I'm not into music much, mostly movies. Been wanting to build a dedicated two channel rig with a turntable though so I skim the two channel forums. With movies, bi-amping/wiring seems like a waste of two perfectly good channels that can drive something else so I've been skeptical.

tonyb wrote: »

The receiver crowd, as you put it, are into ghetto bi-amping, which isn't really bi-amping at all.

Yeah it does seem kinda ghetto to me, not convinced it gains you much. Using an actual external amp is intriguing though.

gp4jesus

MetropolisLake wrote: »

I've never heard of both an external amp and bi-wiring.

I "bi-amped" my CC W/a Hafler XL280 early in my HT tenure. I had (and still have!) lots of decent-to good 2 channel amps, the wire, & at that time plenty of space. So what the hey!

These days, one of the 985 channels gets 'er done.

Tony

F1nut

Just curious, has anybody ever gotten an external amplifier AND bi-wired? It seems to be only the receiver crowd who does it.

You're confusing bi-amping and bi-wiring.

felipe

Are there any electrical benefits/difference to bi wiring as oppose to using the jumpers...even if the jumpers were made of glod-plated copper?

F1nut

felipe wrote: »

Are there any electrical benefits/difference to bi wiring as oppose to using the jumpers...even if the jumpers were made of glod-plated copper?

You will absolutely hear an improvement by replacing the stock jumper plates with high quality speaker cable. As for the possible benefits from bi-wiring, well just replacing the stock plate jumpers as noted will improve the sound and I personally do not think there is any other benefit from bi-wiring. YMMV.

As for anything cable related posted or linked by the previous poster, my advice is to completely ignore it.

felipe

xcapri79 wrote: »

felipe wrote: »

Are there any electrical benefits/difference to bi wiring as oppose to using the jumpers...even if the jumpers were made of glod-plated copper?

In my opinion, jumpers made from "glod-plated" copper would be "unglodly".
What do others think, better than spearker cables..fact or fiction?

Oops..just realized I wrote "glod"..meant to say gold .

Thanks F1. I ask because one of my cousins invested some coin on b&w 686 s2 bookies. He's currently running them single wired with 12 AWG. According to b&w tech support, those jumpers are gold-plated copper as stated previously and that bi-wiring can improve the low-level detail. I told him about blue jeans cable, and he was looking at the canare 4s11 14/4 cable in bi-wire config using the welded locking nanners...

felipe

Anyone here heard of diagonal wiring a bi-wireable speaker? My cousin doesn't really want to spend extra $ if he doesn't have to...

mikeyb128

felipe wrote: »

Anyone here heard of diagonal wiring a bi-wireable speaker? My cousin doesn't really want to spend extra $ if he doesn't have to...

I did this with my 2 channel system while I waited for my Nordost jumpers. It did make a noticeable improvement. I used the jumpers from my lsim705's in the meantime. I actually quite liked it.