Bi-Wiring, what exactly is it doing?

BlueFox

In regard to cable directionality, there is a discussion on another forum about it, and this is what Caelin Gabriel of Shunyata said.

"

As is the case with many things - the answer depends.

Gary is right in that the signal is an alternating voltage so the current simply reverses direction. This means that whatever end of the cable is connected shouldn't matter. However, some speaker cables are intentionally designed with asymmetric conductors. That means that the physical size of one conductor is larger than the other. And some cables may have a different winding direction for one or the other polarities.

Some amplifiers push and pull current from both the positive and the negative terminals while other amps ground the negative terminal and only push and pull current from the positive terminal.

With an asymmetric cable and a grounded negative terminal amp it will matter sonically which way the cable is connected.

If a speaker cable is symmetrically made there will be no difference when the cable is first connected. However, as the cable burns in it establishes directionality meaning that you should hook it up in the same direction after that. So the arrows on the cable are simply a convenience for the user to connect the cable the same way.

The other reason there are arrows is that customers demand to know the direction to hook up the cable. We only make symmetrically designed cables and in the past did not put arrows on the cable. But customers wanted to know which way to connect them even though we repeated said that it didn't matter. It is easier just to put the marks on the cable.

http://www.audioaficionado.org/cables-galore/31622-speaker-cable-direction.html#post700472

Moose68Bash

DarqueKnight wrote: »

You are correct that a cable, or any other audio component does not have a sound stage. Sound stage is a psychoacoustic phenomenon that occurs in the brain.

However, the electrical performance of a cable can alter the stereophonic perception of sound stage, imaging, and image weight.

I'm no electrical engineer or metallurgist or anything of that sort, but I'm a bit of an "armchair philosopher" and erstwhile logician.

From my perspective, DK has it right: "Sound stage is a psychoacoustic phenomenon that occurs in the brain."

As philosopher George Berkeley put it, "Esse est percipi" -- "to be is to be perceived."

If the hearer perceives a difference in sound from differing "gear" -- including cables -- then there is a difference for that perceiver. If the listener hears a difference, then for that listener the difference exists.

It doesn't matter whether anybody else thinks such a difference in perception can be explained with differences in materials used or engineering principles applied.

Differences in materials or engineering design may or may not explain perceived differences -- nevertheless, these differences do exist in the "psychoacoustic phenomenon that occurs in the brain" of the listener.

I would not presume to tell a listener what he or she experiences in his or her brain, although it is clear from the above thread (and many others) that some people believe they know what goes on in any listeners brain better than listener himself or herself.

ZLTFUL

Moose68Bash wrote: »

I would not presume to tell a listener what he or she experiences in his or her brain, although it is clear from the above thread (and many others) that some people believe they know what goes on in any listeners brain better than listener himself or herself.

DING DING DING DING!!! JOHNNY, TELL THIS MAN WHAT HE'S WON!!!

Sure thing, Chet. Moose, you've won an all expense paid trip to The Island of EXACTLY!!!

drumminman

xcapri79 wrote: »

F1nut wrote: »

That said there are some here that buy into that explanation and believe a bag of charcoal on top of a speaker can improve its sound.

Once again, your reading comprehension needs serious work. The member who posted about the coal states that it did not make a difference when placed on top of the speakers.

He actually believed in it enough to actually try it. That was enough for me.

He said that he heard a difference when he placed this bag of charcoal on top of a bag of treated crystals on his PA transformers, and on his balanced isolation transformers that his power amp and linestage are plugged into, as well as one on top of a filtering choke. Ok.

Here is the full humorous post.

drumminman wrote: »

I frequent Audio Asylum mainly looking at the tweaks and cables categories. There's a guy who posts quite a bit in the former named Uncle Stu, and he thinks outside the box. Way outside.

I've tried some of the things he describes, usually with good results, and here's the latest.

Charcoal. You can read the thread here: http://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=tweaks&n=185942&highlight=charcoal+tweak&search_url=/cgi/search.mpl?forum=tweaks&searchtext=charcoal+tweak

What he did was take charcoal briquettes (think Kingsford), put them in a plastic bag and place on top of his floor standers. The results he described were intriguing, so I thought what the heck. It's cheap, reversible, no downside really.

So I bought a bag and used some zip lock bags I already had. Total cost $8. I filled a large ~ 10' x 10" bag with briquettes and used a hammer to break them into smaller pieces. Initial placement was on top of my 2.3TL's, and the results were: couldn't hear any difference.

Next I tried placing the bag on top of a bag of treated crystals from Alan Maher that had been placed over the transformers of my PA. Didn't like what I heard. The sound character changed from being open to somewhat pinched, not markedly so but enough to remove the charcoal.

Then I removed 2/3 of the charcoal from the bag leaving around 6 oz or so and put it back in the same place. Slight change for the better. Inner details of instruments were a little more resolving, slightly more realistic tone, vocals maybe a little more fleshed out.

Then I took a several more bags and placed one each on the two larger balanced isolation transformers that my power amp and linestage are plugged into, as well as one on top of a filtering choke at the IEC connection for my Oppo, which is used as the source. Improvement was more of the same. It does seem like the improvement in sound quality has continued as the charcoal has remained in place.

Listening this weekend has been almost a revelation. Before this tweak I would characterize the sound of my system as very clean, well balanced throughout the audio spectrum, extremely easy to listen to at high volume. The charcoal has potentiated the best attributes.

Sounds crazy I know, but it's so easy - and cheap - to try. Love to hear of others experience with this.

Please do not reply to this post with negative comments if you haven't tried this or have no intention of doing so.

Cheers and happy listening.

And of course, you're too close minded to try anything that can't be explained with scientific measurements. Try not to be so dogmatic and be willing to test your assumptions, especially of a tweak is inexpensive and easily reversible.

Or don't you trust your ears?

ZLTFUL

He doesn't need to trust his ears...he listens with a multimeter. Duh!

BlueFox

Actually, he does not 'listen' at all. Otherwise, he would not constantly be spouting nonsense.

skrol

This is basically what you are doing circuit wise when you bi-wire vs single.



Results likely depend on things cable lengths, speaker impedance (high drivers and low drivers), amplifier impedance and damping factor to name a few (placebo and psycho stuff aside). Perhaps you would get the same results by going with a heavier AWG? Try it and see what I like is my plan.

msg

skrol wrote: »

This is basically what you are doing circuit wise when you bi-wire vs single.

cool. did you do this in PSPICE?

skrol

Yes, I haven't simulated it yet. I had to get back to doing real work that I get paid for.

skrol

I did this with the Belden 10 awg 2 conductor 5T00UP. Perhaps I should do it with a much smaller wire diameter.

PSpice indicates the difference becomes more significant with longer length of cable (>30'). The difference in the reactive elements of the cable start to show at higher frequencies (>10K). The capacitance and inductance are still very small. Perhaps it would impact the harmonics.

The low frequencies do not look to be impacted.

ZLTFUL

kevintomb wrote: »

If you look at it with nodal analysis, there is no difference, other than all losses of cable insertion are halved.

How often does "good" or "bad" on an analysis or paper translate into real world?

Compare a pair of Klipsch LaScalas to say a pair of Polk SDA 2.3TLs with a random group of say...100 listeners. You will not have 100 saying they like one over the other or vice versa. You will have virtually every single listener liking one speaker or the other for differing reasons and disliking the other for other varying reasons.
But on paper, they should both do pretty much the same thing.

My step mom liked to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder...but I will take that a step further and say that it is also in the ear of the beholder. And everyone's is different.

CoolJazz

kevintomb wrote: »

If you look at it with nodal analysis, there is no difference, other than all losses of cable insertion are halved.

For a simulation to start to be accurate, it'd have to include the less than perfect source and the fact that you're driving motors which generate both directions.

CJ

skrol

kevintomb wrote: »

skrol wrote: »

This is basically what you are doing circuit wise when you bi-wire vs single.

Results likely depend on things cable lengths, speaker impedance (high drivers and low drivers), amplifier impedance and damping factor to name a few (placebo and psycho stuff aside). Perhaps you would get the same results by going with a heavier AWG? Try it and see what I like is my plan.

Same result as Cutting the speaker cable length by half.

If you look at it with nodal analysis, there is no difference, other than all losses of cable insertion are halved.

Not exactly. With Bi-wiring you are not doubling the copper paths to the entire speaker. You still have the same amount of copper going to the woofer as with a single pair, though minus the load of the tweeter. If you tied the pairs together at both ends, you are correct. Depending on your cable length and wire gauge, this might be a better way to go.

For example, if you are running 30 feet of 16 awg cable to a pair of LSi15, one likely benefit from doubling the copper paths rather than bi-wiring.

CoolJazz

xcapri79 wrote: »

Is that what you do - copy and paste? You can speak for yourself.

Nope. I do this and know the results. Not just rip it off the web somewhere and set back with the smug approach that all others are clueless and you're the only smart one.

CJ

erniejade

http://vandersteen.com/support/faqs


Anyone take a look at Vandersteen site on it?


Q What is bi-wiring and what are the advantages?
A
Bi-wiring uses two separate sets of speaker cables to connect a single pair of loudspeakers to an amplifier. Coupled with a crossover designed specifically for bi-wiring, it offers many of the advantages of bi-amplifying the speakers with two separate amplifiers without the cost and complexity of two amplifiers.

We began experimenting with bi-wiring back in the early '80s, an era when horizontal bi-amplification was considered the ultimate way to drive quality loudspeakers. (Horizontal bi-amplification used one amplifier to drive the low-frequency section of a speaker and a second amplifier to drive the high-frequency section.) We noted that speakers sounded better when bi-amplified by two amplifiers than when driven by a single amplifier. Surprisingly, this superior performance was evident even when the speakers were bi-amplified by two identical amplifiers at a low volume level and the amplifiers were each driven full-range without an electronic crossover. We initially believed that the double power supplies and other components of two amplifiers were responsible for the improvement, however building amplifiers with twice the power supply and doubling-up on other critical components failed to provide the bi-amplification benefit.

So we looked at the speaker wires. With two amplifiers, bi-amplification used two sets of speaker cables so we experimented with doubling-up the speaker wires and with larger wire. Neither duplicated the bi-amplification improvements. Then we considered that in a bi-amplified system, one set of wires carries the low-frequencies and the other set of wires carries the high-frequencies. We modified a speaker's crossovers to accept two sets of cables and present different load characteristics to each set so that the low-frequencies would be carried by one set of wires and the high-frequencies by the other set of wires. Finally we heard the sonic improvements of bi-amplification with a single amplifier.

Additional experiments with a Hall Effect probe revealed that high-current bass frequencies created a measurable field around the wires that expanded and collapsed with the signal. We believe that this dynamic field modulates the smaller signals, especially the very low level treble frequencies. With the high-current signal (Bass) separated from the low-current signal (Treble) this small signal modulation was eliminated as long as the cables were separated by at least an inch or two. (To keep the treble cable out of the field surrounding the bass cable.)

The crossovers in Vandersteen bi-wirable speakers are engineered with completely separate high-pass and low-pass sections. The bass inputs pass low-frequencies to the woofers, but become more and more resistive at higher frequencies. The treble inputs pass high-frequencies to the midrange and tweeter, but become more and more resistive at low-frequencies. The output from the amplifier always takes the path of least resistance so deep bass frequencies go to the bass input (Low impedance at low-frequencies) rather than to the treble inputs (High impedance at low frequencies). For the same reason, treble frequencies go to the treble input (Low impedance at high-frequencies) rather than to the bass inputs (High impedance at high-frequencies). At the actual crossover frequency, the output from the amplifier would be divided equally between the two inputs as they would both have the same impedance at that frequency. Because of the different reflected impedances of the cables, the crossover between the woofer and midrange actually occurs at the wire ends where they connect to the amplifier.

The benefits of bi-wiring are most obvious in the midrange and treble. The low-current signal to the midrange and tweeter drivers does not have to travel on the same wire as the high-current woofer signal. The field fluctuations and signal regeneration of the high-current low-frequencies are prevented from distorting or masking the low-current high-frequencies. The back EMF (Electro-Mechanical Force) from the large woofer cannot affect the small-signal upper frequencies since they do not share the same wires.

The effects of bi-wiring are not subtle. The improvements are large enough that a bi-wire set of moderately priced cable will usually sound better than a single run of more expensive cable.

All the cables in a bi-wire set must be the same. There is often great temptation to use a wire known for good bass response on the woofer inputs and a different wire known for good treble response on the midrange/tweeter inputs. This will cause the different sonic characteristics of the two wires in the middle frequencies to interfere with the proper blending of the woofer and midrange driver through the crossover point. The consistency of the sound will be severely affected as the different sounding woofer and midrange drivers conflict with each other in the frequency range where our ears are most sensitive to sonic anomalies. The disappointing result is a vague image, a lack of transparency through the midrange and lower treble and a loss of detail and clarity.

Some of the benefits of bi-wiring are from the physical separation of the high-current bass and low-current midrange/tweeter wires. So-called bi-wire cables that combine the wires in one sheath do not offer the full advantages of true bi-wiring although they may be an excellent choice for mono-wiring the speakers.

The cables should all be the same length. This is not due to the time that the signal takes to travel through a cable, but rather that two different lengths of the same cable will sound different. If the cables connecting one speaker are a different length than the cables connecting the other speaker, the resulting difference in sound between the two speakers will compromise the imaging and coherence of the system. If different lengths of cable are used for the bass and midrange/tweeter inputs of the speakers, the effects will be similar to those experienced when using two different cables as described above.

Since short runs of speaker cable sound better than long runs, consider placing your electronics between the speakers rather than off to one side. If for convenience or aesthetic considerations, the electronics must be located a considerable distance from the speakers, it is usually preferable to place the amplifier between the speakers and use long interconnect cables and short speaker wire.

vmaxer

@erniejade, you know d a m n well that x is an electrical enjeeere and knows way more than they do.

vmaxer

Found X on the net, no doubt, he is a scientist.

erniejade

Careful @vmaxer showing your age with Elly May LOL

vmaxer

kevintomb wrote: »

^^^""The benefits of bi-wiring are most obvious in the midrange and treble. The low-current signal to the midrange and tweeter drivers does not have to travel on the same wire as the high-current woofer signal.""


But this is wrong. The entire signal will be carried on BOTH wires. They made an elemental mistake.

The entire spectrum is carried on both wires, when bi-wiring, and filtered AT the crossover.

How they made such a simple mistake, calls into question the entire article.

if they meant to say "Bi-Amping" true.

Well we have yet a nother skientest.

CoolJazz

Kevin,

They made no mistake. If the conductor is carrying little to no current then they refer to it as not traveling on the wire. Surely this is clear knowing something of how it works and is wired. Richard Vandersteen is as real as they come. Regarded as one of the best dollar wise buys out there.

CJ

CoolJazz

CoolJazz wrote: »

xcapri79 wrote: »

Is that what you do - copy and paste? You can speak for yourself.

Nope. I do this and know the results. Not just rip it off the web somewhere and set back with the smug approach that all others are clueless and you're the only smart one.

CJ

In a quick post I wasn't nearly clear enough.

I do wiring in hostile environments and have to make it work. As opposed to using web based, often repeated but still incorrect knowledge.

CJ

F1nut

Coupled with a crossover designed specifically for bi-wiring

That comment smells funny. Any speaker that has two sets of binding posts can be bi-wired or bi-amped.

ukcolin99

Zero wrote: »

cbridle - All you wanted was a simple answer to a reasonably simple question. I bet you didn't expect pages worth of discourse! Ah well.. Such is the way of hi-fi forums...

If you haven't seen it already, one of the more thorough answers to your question can be found within the first couple paragraphs of Darueknights response. Scroll up a half-dozen posts and you'll see it.

The big question is, when you bi-wire a pair of bi-wire capable loudspeakers, will you hear a difference? Unfortunately, there is no blanket answer that can be given. There are numerous factors that'll play into whether or not you'll notice any changes. For what it's worth, my experiences have been a mixed bag. On some speakers, I admit that I couldn't any differences. On others however, the differences I heard were immediate and obvious. Try it out, and report what your experiences are!

Thank you Zero, 'appreciate and generally understand DarqueKnight's post. Have enjoyed reading every post, so far 6 pages worth, instigated by my innocent (ignorant) question. A lot of passion & a lot of p**p is my takeaway. Going to add some shelves to my U-Line rack this weekend, good excuse to disconnect & reconnect everything and audition some wiring options. Thanks to everyone for your input.

DarqueKnight

WilliamM2 wrote: »

PSOVLSK wrote: »

My question to the cable naysayers: Do you really think there could be a multi-million dollar industry that's been around for years if their products didn't work? Seriously??? Multiple companies can sell products that do absolutely nothing and somehow they stay in business?

I have lots of other very simple questions, but I'll start here.

Seriously? Apparently you haven't heard of homeopathy, a 7 billion dollar a year industry. Magnet therapy alone accounts for over 1.5 billion. People believe all kinds of nonsense.

http://nationalpainreport.com/study-finds-copper-magnetic-therapy-waste-money-8821693.html

An even better example is the diamond engagement ring industry.

ZLTFUL

xcapri79 wrote: »

Now we are talking about some real engineering. Nice circuit design.
I see from other posts that you are using PSpice to analyse it.
Can you post your results? Even with a 20Hz to 20kHz ideal amp source, the results would be useful to review.

But by the gods (and The Most Exalted Grand Marshall Xcapri) don't you even think about doing any listening tests!

You do realize that some of arguably the best tweeters on earth (beryllium) look like utter shite on paper right? Most of their graphs show them dropping like a stone and yet brands like Magico, Focal, et al use them in their top of the line speakers. Why would that be? Oh yeah...because they sound good.

I like how you dance around my question over and over. You claim electrical engineering and yet you won't even address you credentials (or lack thereof). At least Kevin shared his and has some footing to base his opinions on while yours, @xcapri79 don't hold enough water to fill a thimble.

"I'm not an electrical engineer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night..."

DarqueKnight

kevintomb wrote: »

The entire spectrum is carried on both wires, when bi-wiring, and filtered AT the crossover.

How they made such a simple mistake, calls into question the entire article.

The entire frequency spectrum is offered to both wire pairs, but different signals are carried on the two branches due to the different complex loads.

The amp essentially sees two sets of speakers rather than one.

An electrical source can offer the same signal to two or more different circuits. The signal that is carried down the wire depends on the load at the other end.

Consider a fire hydrant with two outlets offering the same water pressure and water volume to two equal size fire hoses. If you put a very large nozzle on one hose and a very small nozzle on the other hose, you will measure very different flow rates through each hose ... even though the hydrant is offering an equal amount of water and an equal amount of water pressure to each hose.

kevintomb wrote: »

They are trying to say that simply using 2 wires (bi-wiring) separates the bass and treble signals, but I think anyone versed in electronics, realizes that is a mistake.

I am versed in electronics and my understanding is not that they are saying the mere use of two sets of wires separates frequency components, it is the use of two different loads on two sets of wires that results in each wire set having different signal characteristics. Since the reactive components at the end of each circuit branch are different, the signal carried on each branch will be different.

Wire can only attenuate, it cannot perform filtering functions. However, things like ferrite impregnated cable jackets and noise-cancelling wire twist geometries can filter some types of noise.

PSOVLSK

xcapri79 wrote: »

For me, a computerized oscilloscope is more precise measuring device.
I listen to music for enjoyment and I measure using instrumentation for scientific analysis.
The ear and brain are not nearly as reliable as an instrument. I certainly do not have magic years, especially at my age >50.

But it's your brain and your ears. You'd rather believe what a test tells you instead of listening and deciding for yourself what you like?

I know you won't answer this, but what IC's and speaker cables do you use?

F1nut

So, when you're doing say, 40 knots in your fan boat, heading straight for a giant cyprus, make sure you rely on your navigation instruments and not your senses.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Just effing PERFECT!!!

gp4jesus

Bunch of pluses to DK & Zman! You wrote what I was thinking but couldn't figure out how to say!

cbridle wrote: »

Going to add some shelves to my U-Line rack this weekend, good excuse to disconnect & reconnect everything and audition some wiring options. Thanks to everyone for your input.

To Cbridle:Remember to dust! Enjoy!

tonyb

Keiko wrote: »

xcapri79 wrote: »

The ear and brain are typically not nearly as reliable as good instrumentation is.

So, when you're doing say, 40 knots in your fan boat, heading straight for a giant cyprus, make sure you rely on your navigation instruments and not your senses.

You do come up with a good one every so often Mikey. LMAO !!!

The mistake being made here is that instruments/measurements are meant only as part of a guideline to the decision making process. If all the instruments and measurements dictated xyz speaker will sound good and you get it home and it sounds like garbage.....do you keep said speaker ?

No science, instrumentation, measurements, has any meaning unless it sounds good to you in your room with your ears. Which is WHY we encourage people to pay less attention to those aspects and just do some experimenting yourself. Everyone has different preferences in their audio, is it a stretch to believe some will prefer one cable over another, one speaker over another ?

After all, isn't the be all end all how something sounds to you, in your system ? Regardless of brand names, science, measurements, or price paid ? Of course it is, so these petty arguments mean diddly squat in reality.