RT2000i Biwire

wpaules

Questions:

Can I biwire my RT2000i speakers?
Is there any thing to be gained by doing this?
Any trouble to be encountered by doing so?

By biwiring I mean running 4 wires each to the left and right speakers and removing the jumper plate between the lower and upper speeker terminals.

I am not refering to bi amping!

Aaron

No, you cannot bi-wire the RT2000's. One way to tweak the speakers a bit is to replace the metal jumper with a small piece of speaker wire.

Aaron

wpaules

What is the difference between replaceing the plate with a jumper or running a cable from the amp?

-justin-

Wow, I get to move this thread into the "wiring" forum! YAHHH!

elsid88

Can you bi-wire the 1000i's and the CS400i?

I was under the impression that you could as long as you removed the jumpers.

Am I wrong here.

Please advise.

mantis

Yes you can Bi wire both and any speaker for that matter with 2 set's for binding post's.
And you are correct by removing the jumper's as is you didn't you would defeat what your try the do with bi wiring.
The cs400 really sounds great biwired.As most speaker's increase in realism.

Aaron

Can you bi-wire the 1000i's and the CS400i?

You can bi-wire the CS400i but you cannont bi-wire the RT1000i.

Yes you can Bi wire both and any speaker for that matter with 2 set's for binding post's.

This isn't true with the Polk RT1000i and RT2000i.

Aaron

TroyD

I disagree that bi-wiring is a gimmie as far as improvements go. From a middle of the road reciever with basic 18ga lampchord, I doubt there is much of an audible difference.

Troy

PETERNG

I dont know much about the RT 2000, but I do have a pair of RT20p, the first series, and I did bi-wire them. Can someone explain to me why the RT2000 can not be bi-wired since it does have the low and high inputs for speaker cable/ Thanx...

elsid88

Troy - Well as far as sound improvement, I am using 12 awg wire being driven by the Denon AVR4800 and POA5200. Not lamp cord or your local BEST BUY store receiver.

Aaron - What is the purpose of the 4 binding posts on the 1000's, is it for bi-amping? and how is it different than the CS400?

thx...

Tom...

RuSsMaN

Read the manuals guys. And I'm not saying that in a mean way, but it is spelled out in black and white.

The 1000 and 2000 have 2 sets of binding posts. The lower is the 'high' or speaker level input for the powered sub(s). The top post is for the midbass/tweeter combo.

You could hook them up with a bi-wire cable, if you desired, but the speakers themselves cannot be bi-wired, as you would any others in the series.

Cheers,
Russ

Aaron

Listen to Russman; he speaks the truth.

Aaron

wpaules

Ok, devils advocate here. I have been running my RT2000i speakers "biwired" for about a month now. I believe it made an improvement but maybe its just my imagination. I had read the instructions from Polk, but decided to try it anyway. I have heard people on this forum talk about running a jumper from the two sets of wiring terminals after removing the jumper plate but cannot see the difference between doing that or running an other set of cables directly to the second set of terminals from the amplifier. I know that the RT2000i lower set of terminals goes directly to the powered sub but what I don't know is what harm there is to "biwiring" the RT2000i.

hard-head in PA

BBUBBA

I thought when Bi-wiring a CS400i that you should use a good quality say 10 gauge wire for the low frequnecy driver, and on the high frequncy driver use a much smaller gauge wire say 16-18 gauge . Experiment with each to hear the difference in the bass to treble responses. In other words choking some of the power from the tweeter and giving the woofer more. So it say :rolleyes:

Aaron

Really the issue is using the term "bi-wired." What you're doing isn't bi-wiring because of the way the terminals are configured (one set feeds passive drivers, the other set feeds active drivers). You're only really powering one set of terminals. Anyway, there is no harm in what you're doing.

Aaron

Aaron

I thought when Bi-wiring a CS400i that you should use a good quality say 10 gauge wire for the low frequnecy driver, and on the high frequncy driver use a much smaller gauge wire say 16-18 gauge .

There's no real good reason to do this. Use the same gauge.

In other words choking some of the power from the tweeter and giving the woofer more. So it say :rolleyes:

Ummm......right (in a Dr. Evil voice) :rolleyes:

Aaron

mantis

You guy's are all saying you can/can't bi wire a powered tower.
I want to know if anybody know's exactly what they are talking about when other people ask about bi wiring?
If you have a passive speaker and twin sets of post's on the back,from the factory they came with jumpers,you remove them and run seperate wire directly from the post on the amp to the posts on the speakers independly from each other except it shares the same amp,is that bi wiring?????Do you know?
And if you have a powered tower speaker with the same posts on the back, same jumpers, remove the jumpers and do the same as above,is this bi wiring???
Read the orginal post and answer the questions the best you can.
1) Can I bi wire the rt2000i speakers?
The correct answer to that question is YES YOU CAN.
2)Is there anything to be gained by this?
Never answered but I will..........If the line level output of your preamp doesn't overdirve the input or underdrive it for that matter,let me rephrase that if the voltage matches the amp built inside perfectly,then you should run line level,remove the jumper's and run quality wire to the top posts.
If you BI WIRE the speaker, the speaker level will be converted to line level inside the speaker(if anyone want's to elaborate on that feel free).You should try all 3 ways and hear if you get any improvements.Thats for the powered sub only.
3) Any trouble to be encountered by doing this?
NO as long as you don't back feed the amp.None whatsoever

Now if in fact the speaker's or driver's are bi wired thats another question,not asked in this post.I really think you guy's just overread the question a bit.
Now the question to ask your self is....DO I REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT BI WIRING MEANS?

RuSsMaN

I think we understand what bi-wiring means Dan. You can use a bi-wire cable to hook up the 1000 and 2000, but you are not BI WIRING them.

I think the confusion lies in the fact that the entire RT line, except for the 1000 and 2000, IS bi-wire/ bi-amp capable.

Cheers,
Russ

OrangeToupee

I think the confusion lies in the fact that the entire RT line, except for the 1000 and 2000, IS bi-wire/ bi-amp capable."

Except, of course, the smaller bookshelf jobbies.

mantis

Russman,
in your word's you can't bi wire the powered tower's right?why?

RuSsMaN

You CAN use a bi-wire cable, but they are not 'bi-wired'.

I don't see how we are not on the same page. Lets try to get apples to apples (or as close as possible).

RT55(i)
RT2000p(i)

The RT55 has 2 sets of binding posts. Top post to the tweeter, bottom post to the mid/bass(s).

The RT2000 has 2 sets of binding posts. Top post to BOTH the tweeter and mid/bass(s), bottom post to the powered sub.

You CAN bi-wire/amp the RT55, you CANNOT bi-wire/amp the RT2000.

Thats about as simple as I can lay it out. If you are saying that by using 2 cables, or a bi-wire cable to connect to powered sub (bottom post on RT1000/2000), then you're definition of bi-wiring/amping is different from mine...... And I don't know what else to say...

A simple post to Ken or Micah or Paul, asking 'Can I bi-wire my RT2000p(i) or RT1000p(i), the simple and honest answer would be 'no'.

Cheers,
Russ

TroyD

RuSsMan speaketh the truth, kemosabe.

and to add to that, generally speaking, I still maintain that if you are using a middle of the road receiver and standard cables. Anything that you biwire, the "improvements" are going to be negligeable. Not saying there aren't any or don't do it. I'm just saying that there isn't that night and day difference. Though the placebo effect is extremely high.

BDT

PETERNG

Russ

Does the same truth apply to the CS 1000p?

BTW, did you get my replied e-mail last week?

RuSsMaN

Yes.

Cheers,
Niles Pimperfelt

Aaron

I agree with the Russmasterflex.

Aaron

RuSsMaN

Yes Pete, I am having email.

Cheers,
Roscoe P. Coletrain

wpaules

Hey Justin! Why are'nt the other wiring questions being bumped here? Growl, grumble...

johnnyamerika

I think the only thing that needed to be said that wasn't is that bi-wiring seperates the:

tweeter signal

from the mid/bass signal

Russ said it, but his wording might have went over some heads.

You can't bi-wire the RT1000i or RT2000i because:

There's no way to seperate the mid from the tweeter.

You can only seperate the subs from the mid/tweeter.

You can, however, wire these as if they were bi-wired, which is largely subjective in terms of benefits. On a low end reciever you don't experience as much difference because there are so many factors already degrading the signal...plus, and correct me if I'm wrong, running parallel wires puts a certain strain on a reciever, and lower end models may have trouble with that.

lates
johnny

weavercr

[correct me if I'm wrong, running parallel wires puts a certain strain on a reciever, ]

Running two wires in parallel will decrease the electrical impedance of the wire. It's not any different than replacing a 16 gage wire with a 12 gage wire.

cgravil

just a stab here...I wanna see if I unserstand. No particular speaker in mind just one with a built-in powered sub that has two high-inputs


You can Bi-wire a speaker with a powered sub.
You are running two <bi> wires to the unit one to the non-powered tweets/mid, and one to the high input of the sub amp... hence Bi-wired.

You cannot bi-amp so to speak, if you were to use a second amp OR a separate feed from the same amp as all you are really doing here is feeding the high input of the sub amp, so 10w or 200w to the input makes no difference here the sub will be powered from it's own internal amp reguardless


< these speakers truly are bi-amped in reality since the tweets/mids are driven by your own amp, and the sub by the built in jobby. two amps>

OR

Bi-wired is two wires running to the same speaker and into separate inputs. this can be done to any speaker with two high input terminals

Bi-amped is two amplifiers driving 2 separate set of speakers no matter if they are in separate cabs or not.

Did I do good Rocky???

johnnyamerika

Sorry Adrian, no dice

No, but seriously, all bi-wiring is:

The running of parallel wires (that's 2 wire's, bound on one end so that both possitives are together and both negatives are together) from one amp (that's where the bound ends go) to the input terminals of a speaker with dual binding posts (with one wire going to each set of posts).

The important element that truly makes it bi-wiring is:

The two sets of binding posts must be designed so that one feeds signal to the tweeter ONLY, and the other feeds signal to the mid/bass section.

Thus: Bi-wiring is seperating the high range signal from the mid/low rangle signal. It's that easy

So what is bi-amping? It's basically the same thing, BUT....instead of binding the two wires together at the amp end, like I explained before....

You run each wire to a different amp.

One wire connects to the speaker's top binding posts, and into amp 1.... the other wire connects to the speaker's bottom binding posts, and into amp 2.

Two amps, two wires, one speaker.

Clear? I hope so

WHY YOU CAN'T BI-WIRE/AMP THE RT2000i, RT1000i, OR SIMILAR MODELS:

These models have two binding post sets, yes? So why can't you bi-wire them? Sure, you can hook them up via a bi-wire-esque method...but it's not bi-wiring, because...

The top binding posts on these models feed signal to the tweeter and midrange sections of the speaker, whilst the bottom binding posts feed signal to the powered woofer!

In other words, you physically cannot seperate the tweeter signal from the midrange/bass signal, so it is impossible to truly bi-wire/amp these models.

I hope that works for you It's somewhat confusing at first, but you'll get the hang of it.

Johnny-o