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#1
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Biwiring ?
The following is a statement by Robert Harley in the current issue of
"The Perfect Vision". Quote: Connecting your speakers with two runs of loudspeaker cable (if your speakers have two sets of input terminals) provides a small but significant improvement in sound quality. One pair of the speaker's input terminals is connected to the woofer,and the other pair to the midrange and tweeter (or just the tweeter in a two-way speaker). In a bi-wired system, the power amplifier "sees" a higher impedance on the tweeter cable at low frequencies and a lower impedance at high frequencies. The opposite is true on the woofer half of the bi-wired pair. This causes the signal to be split up, with high frequencies traveling mostly in the cable driving the tweeter circuit, and low frequencies conduced by the pair connected to the loudspeaker's woofer circuit. This frequency splitting reduces magnetic interaction in the cable, resulting in better sound. If you have the ability to bi-wire, it's worth the cost of an extra run of speaker cable. You can buy bi-wired cables with a single pair of terminations on the amplifier end and dual termination pairs on the speaker end. Be sure to remove the "jumpers" that connect the pairs of speaker input terminal. Unquote. Is this true about the amp seeing the differences in impedance ? And is it audible ? -=Bill Eckle=- Vanity Web Page at: http://www.wmeckle.com |
#2
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William Eckle wrote:
The following is a statement by Robert Harley in the current issue of "The Perfect Vision". Quote: Connecting your speakers with two runs of loudspeaker cable (if your speakers have two sets of input terminals) provides a small but significant improvement in sound quality. One pair of the speaker's input terminals is connected to the woofer,and the other pair to the midrange and tweeter (or just the tweeter in a two-way speaker). In a bi-wired system, the power amplifier "sees" a higher impedance on the tweeter cable at low frequencies and a lower impedance at high frequencies. The opposite is true on the woofer half of the bi-wired pair. This causes the signal to be split up, with high frequencies traveling mostly in the cable driving the tweeter circuit, and low frequencies conduced by the pair connected to the loudspeaker's woofer circuit. This frequency splitting reduces magnetic interaction in the cable, resulting in better sound. If you have the ability to bi-wire, it's worth the cost of an extra run of speaker cable. You can buy bi-wired cables with a single pair of terminations on the amplifier end and dual termination pairs on the speaker end. Be sure to remove the "jumpers" that connect the pairs of speaker input terminal. Unquote. Is this true about the amp seeing the differences in impedance ? And is it audible ? ================================ To me the key paragraph, where all the important information in this post is found, is: One pair of the speaker's input terminals is connected to the woofer,and the other pair to the midrange and tweeter (or just the tweeter in a two-way speaker). In a bi-wired system, the power amplifier "sees" a higher impedance on the tweeter cable at low frequencies and a lower impedance at high frequencies. The opposite is true on the woofer half of the bi-wired pair. This causes the signal to be split up, with high frequencies traveling mostly in the cable driving the tweeter circuit, and low frequencies conduced by the pair connected to the loudspeaker's woofer circuit. This frequency splitting reduces magnetic interaction in the cable, resulting in better sound. ================================================== === Up to the last sentence, it's all true, assuming a passive crossover in the loudspeaker that actually behaves as described (not all of them do). That last sentence is the one where unproven assumptions are used by Mr. Harley to come to a conclusion. Those assumptions include the actual existence of magnetic interaction, its amount, and the true, audible effect of such "interaction." Acceptance of those assumptions results in Mr. Harley's recommendation, where he makes a value judgment that rightfully belongs to the buyer: "If you have the ability to bi-wire, it's worth the cost of an extra run of speaker cable." Given the price of speaker cable that Harley's magazine would recommend, I'd find the money better spent on more software...that is, more music to listen to; at the price of that wire, a LOT more music. But that's MY value judgment. -GP |
#3
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Biwiring ?
Great response and absolutely true in most respects. It is still your
opinion that differs from the authors here as neither of you have presented evidence to support your assertions. I do mean conclusive evidence as we have all heard enough evidence to gag a maggot. One thing that I think everyone agrres on is that it does lower the resistance figures by nearly half. That may or may not be significant depending upon the associated equipment and of course the hearing ability of the listener. In general, I don't recommend its use either. -Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 "Gene Poon" wrote in message ... William Eckle wrote: The following is a statement by Robert Harley in the current issue of "The Perfect Vision". Quote: Connecting your speakers with two runs of loudspeaker cable (if your speakers have two sets of input terminals) provides a small but significant improvement in sound quality. One pair of the speaker's input terminals is connected to the woofer,and the other pair to the midrange and tweeter (or just the tweeter in a two-way speaker). In a bi-wired system, the power amplifier "sees" a higher impedance on the tweeter cable at low frequencies and a lower impedance at high frequencies. The opposite is true on the woofer half of the bi-wired pair. This causes the signal to be split up, with high frequencies traveling mostly in the cable driving the tweeter circuit, and low frequencies conduced by the pair connected to the loudspeaker's woofer circuit. This frequency splitting reduces magnetic interaction in the cable, resulting in better sound. If you have the ability to bi-wire, it's worth the cost of an extra run of speaker cable. You can buy bi-wired cables with a single pair of terminations on the amplifier end and dual termination pairs on the speaker end. Be sure to remove the "jumpers" that connect the pairs of speaker input terminal. Unquote. Is this true about the amp seeing the differences in impedance ? And is it audible ? ================================ To me the key paragraph, where all the important information in this post is found, is: One pair of the speaker's input terminals is connected to the woofer,and the other pair to the midrange and tweeter (or just the tweeter in a two-way speaker). In a bi-wired system, the power amplifier "sees" a higher impedance on the tweeter cable at low frequencies and a lower impedance at high frequencies. The opposite is true on the woofer half of the bi-wired pair. This causes the signal to be split up, with high frequencies traveling mostly in the cable driving the tweeter circuit, and low frequencies conduced by the pair connected to the loudspeaker's woofer circuit. This frequency splitting reduces magnetic interaction in the cable, resulting in better sound. ================================================== === Up to the last sentence, it's all true, assuming a passive crossover in the loudspeaker that actually behaves as described (not all of them do). That last sentence is the one where unproven assumptions are used by Mr. Harley to come to a conclusion. Those assumptions include the actual existence of magnetic interaction, its amount, and the true, audible effect of such "interaction." Acceptance of those assumptions results in Mr. Harley's recommendation, where he makes a value judgment that rightfully belongs to the buyer: "If you have the ability to bi-wire, it's worth the cost of an extra run of speaker cable." Given the price of speaker cable that Harley's magazine would recommend, I'd find the money better spent on more software...that is, more music to listen to; at the price of that wire, a LOT more music. But that's MY value judgment. -GP |
#4
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Biwiring ?
Uptown Audio wrote:
Great response and absolutely true in most respects. It is still your opinion that differs from the authors here as neither of you have presented evidence to support your assertions. I do mean conclusive evidence as we have all heard enough evidence to gag a maggot. One thing that I think everyone agrres on is that it does lower the resistance figures by nearly half. That may or may not be significant depending upon the associated equipment and of course the hearing ability of the listener. In general, I don't recommend its use either. Not "in general"? What about, specifically? In fine, one cannot discount psychological factors. If the typical naive audiophile feels some satisfaction after he has spent, say, $400 for a set of the latest and greatest Loge FireMusic cables from Valhalla labs (or possibly even laid out twice that for the Wotan series), then such a person can probably be convinced that doubling his investment will produce more (but likely not twice as much) satisfaction. And there are those with more money than sense who will not only go for it, but feel good about the purchase. But if bi-wiring is such a good thing, then why stop with just two runs. Why not tri, or quad wiring? Years ago, when Noel Lee walked into his first "high end" store with a roll of rather large diameter, but pretty, orange OEM cable, who could have guessed it would come to this? mp |
#5
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Biwiring ?
"Uptown Audio" wrote in message
... Great response and absolutely true in most respects. It is still your opinion that differs from the authors here as neither of you have presented evidence to support your assertions. I do mean conclusive evidence as we have all heard enough evidence to gag a maggot. One thing that I think everyone agrres on is that it does lower the resistance figures by nearly half. That may or may not be significant depending upon the associated equipment and of course the hearing ability of the listener. In general, I don't recommend its use either. -Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 Bi-wiring doesn't "lower the resistance figures by half." In fact it might be said that it increases the resistance. Remember, to test bi-wiring you have to use the same amount of wire for both mono and bi wiring. Otherwise you're testing the effect of heavier wire instead of the concept of bi-wiring. In order to get a true test, you must bi-wire the speakers first. Then to compare bi with mono-wiring, just install the shorting strap at the speaker. Norm Strong |
#6
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Normal Biwiring
Well that certainly tips the scale in the favor of the non-believers
now doesn't it? What I am talking about is an answer to the question asked in real world terms. For instance, if you have a spool of 14ga wire and use one run to the speakers, when you want to try bi-wiring you don't run out and get some smaller wire to do that with, you simply connect another length of the same wire. Two runs of the same wire is what most people are asking about. When you do that, you halve the resistance. In applications where longer runs, higher currents are used into reactive loads then it should be at least a theoretical advantage. Whether you can hear the difference or not is another issue. Again, I am not recommending it, just commenting on it without prejustice. -Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 wrote in message ... "Uptown Audio" wrote in message ... Great response and absolutely true in most respects. It is still your opinion that differs from the authors here as neither of you have presented evidence to support your assertions. I do mean conclusive evidence as we have all heard enough evidence to gag a maggot. One thing that I think everyone agrres on is that it does lower the resistance figures by nearly half. That may or may not be significant depending upon the associated equipment and of course the hearing ability of the listener. In general, I don't recommend its use either. -Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 Bi-wiring doesn't "lower the resistance figures by half." In fact it might be said that it increases the resistance. Remember, to test bi-wiring you have to use the same amount of wire for both mono and bi wiring. Otherwise you're testing the effect of heavier wire instead of the concept of bi-wiring. In order to get a true test, you must bi-wire the speakers first. Then to compare bi with mono-wiring, just install the shorting strap at the speaker. Norm Strong |
#7
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muddy waters
I would not specifically recommend it unless the user had a very high
current amplifier and a demanding set of speakers that was designed to be bi-amplified or bi-wired AND was not yet bi-amplifying. It makes bi-amplifying a snap as the cables are already there and it eliminates the brass jumpers for a better connection (electrically balanced) to each section of the crossover at a very low cost. I never even suggested anything expensive. That was all your idea. -Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 "mp" wrote in message ... Uptown Audio wrote: Great response and absolutely true in most respects. It is still your opinion that differs from the authors here as neither of you have presented evidence to support your assertions. I do mean conclusive evidence as we have all heard enough evidence to gag a maggot. One thing that I think everyone agrres on is that it does lower the resistance figures by nearly half. That may or may not be significant depending upon the associated equipment and of course the hearing ability of the listener. In general, I don't recommend its use either. Not "in general"? What about, specifically? In fine, one cannot discount psychological factors. If the typical naive audiophile feels some satisfaction after he has spent, say, $400 for a set of the latest and greatest Loge FireMusic cables from Valhalla labs (or possibly even laid out twice that for the Wotan series), then such a person can probably be convinced that doubling his investment will produce more (but likely not twice as much) satisfaction. And there are those with more money than sense who will not only go for it, but feel good about the purchase. But if bi-wiring is such a good thing, then why stop with just two runs. Why not tri, or quad wiring? Years ago, when Noel Lee walked into his first "high end" store with a roll of rather large diameter, but pretty, orange OEM cable, who could have guessed it would come to this? mp |
#8
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muddy waters
Uptown Audio wrote:
I never even suggested anything expensive. That was all your idea. -Bill Not my idea. I never use anything but the plain Jane stuff. It is an idea of people who find an OEM to make the stuff for them, and then enjoy huge profits selling mystery wire to naive consumers through a network of HiFi shops and magazines. A network that also shares in either direct profits from retail sales or, in the case of the slicks, ad revenue. mp |
#9
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Normal Biwiring
"Uptown Audio" wrote in message
... Well that certainly tips the scale in the favor of the non-believers now doesn't it? What I am talking about is an answer to the question asked in real world terms. For instance, if you have a spool of 14ga wire and use one run to the speakers, when you want to try bi-wiring you don't run out and get some smaller wire to do that with, you simply connect another length of the same wire. Two runs of the same wire is what most people are asking about. When you do that, you halve the resistance. In applications where longer runs, higher currents are used into reactive loads then it should be at least a theoretical advantage. Whether you can hear the difference or not is another issue. Again, I am not recommending it, just commenting on it without prejudice. -Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 Remarkably enough, doing what you advocate does not halve the resistance, except close to the crossover frequency. Outside of that frequency, the signal must travel through one wire or the other, not both, and therefore sees no reduction in resistance of the wire. If you short the wires together at the speaker end you will get a halving of resistance--but then of course you're no longer biwiring. Norm Strong |
#10
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Normal Biwiring
On 16 Oct 2005 23:19:08 GMT, Uptown Audio wrote:
Well that certainly tips the scale in the favor of the non-believers now doesn't it? What I am talking about is an answer to the question asked in real world terms. For instance, if you have a spool of 14ga wire and use one run to the speakers, when you want to try bi-wiring you don't run out and get some smaller wire to do that with, you simply connect another length of the same wire. Two runs of the same wire is what most people are asking about. When you do that, you halve the resistance. No, you don't, that's the whole point. You make no difference at all to the resistance of the wire, the wires are *not* connected in parallel - because that's what the crossover is *for*. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
#11
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Biwiring ?
"Uptown Audio" wrote in message
... Great response and absolutely true in most respects. It is still your opinion that differs from the authors here as neither of you have presented evidence to support your assertions. I do mean conclusive evidence as we have all heard enough evidence to gag a maggot. One thing that I think everyone agrres on is that it does lower the resistance figures by nearly half. I may be wrong, but I don't think it would lower the impedance seen by the amplifier since at higher frequencies, the amplifier is looking only at the single cable connected to the tweeter/midrange and at lower frequencies only at the single cable connected to the woofer. That may or may not be significant depending upon the associated equipment and of course the hearing ability of the listener. In general, I don't recommend its use either. -Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 "Gene Poon" wrote in message ... William Eckle wrote: The following is a statement by Robert Harley in the current issue of "The Perfect Vision". Quote: Connecting your speakers with two runs of loudspeaker cable (if your speakers have two sets of input terminals) provides a small but significant improvement in sound quality. One pair of the speaker's input terminals is connected to the woofer,and the other pair to the midrange and tweeter (or just the tweeter in a two-way speaker). In a bi-wired system, the power amplifier "sees" a higher impedance on the tweeter cable at low frequencies and a lower impedance at high frequencies. The opposite is true on the woofer half of the bi-wired pair. This causes the signal to be split up, with high frequencies traveling mostly in the cable driving the tweeter circuit, and low frequencies conduced by the pair connected to the loudspeaker's woofer circuit. This frequency splitting reduces magnetic interaction in the cable, resulting in better sound. If you have the ability to bi-wire, it's worth the cost of an extra run of speaker cable. You can buy bi-wired cables with a single pair of terminations on the amplifier end and dual termination pairs on the speaker end. Be sure to remove the "jumpers" that connect the pairs of speaker input terminal. Unquote. Is this true about the amp seeing the differences in impedance ? And is it audible ? ================================ To me the key paragraph, where all the important information in this post is found, is: One pair of the speaker's input terminals is connected to the woofer,and the other pair to the midrange and tweeter (or just the tweeter in a two-way speaker). In a bi-wired system, the power amplifier "sees" a higher impedance on the tweeter cable at low frequencies and a lower impedance at high frequencies. The opposite is true on the woofer half of the bi-wired pair. This causes the signal to be split up, with high frequencies traveling mostly in the cable driving the tweeter circuit, and low frequencies conduced by the pair connected to the loudspeaker's woofer circuit. This frequency splitting reduces magnetic interaction in the cable, resulting in better sound. ================================================== === Up to the last sentence, it's all true, assuming a passive crossover in the loudspeaker that actually behaves as described (not all of them do). That last sentence is the one where unproven assumptions are used by Mr. Harley to come to a conclusion. Those assumptions include the actual existence of magnetic interaction, its amount, and the true, audible effect of such "interaction." Acceptance of those assumptions results in Mr. Harley's recommendation, where he makes a value judgment that rightfully belongs to the buyer: "If you have the ability to bi-wire, it's worth the cost of an extra run of speaker cable." Given the price of speaker cable that Harley's magazine would recommend, I'd find the money better spent on more software...that is, more music to listen to; at the price of that wire, a LOT more music. But that's MY value judgment. -GP |
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