russell hayward

Just dug out all my old separates which have been hidden away for a couple of years.

The amp I have has "a" and "b" channels and runs four speakers. I run two speakers but had them biwired using both channels. Only probolem is I can't remember the correct way to do it. Help !

russell hayward

I think its obvious

Say channel "a" for the highs, and the "b" for the lows or vice versa

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Dont do what my cousin did, told me to come and listen to his new syste, bu wired and everything, turned out the superb sound quality he was hearing well wasnt, plank had wired the left channel to both tweeters and the right channels to the woofers, knew something was up when I turned the balance left and it went all tinny, turned it right and it wernt all muffled !

hades

There is no problem with connecting up both wires to eg just the 'A' terminals on the amp - i.e. Left tweeter +ve and Left woofer +ve to Left Speaker A +ve, and so on. This is what I have done, as my rather large ATC power amp only has one set of speaker terminals.

What you're suggesting will also work. Just make sure you keep the phasing correct (i.e. red terminal to red terminal), and use channel A for the woofers and channel b for the tweeters.

Don't forget to take out the connecting links between the two sets of posts on the back of the speakers I've seen people who didn't do this, which kind of ruins the whole point.

TopBanana

Wouldn't bother with bi-wiring personally. Hifi snake oil (IMO of course)

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

If your gonna do it make sure you have decent cable, have my Mission's bi-wired and they sound great.
Cheers
Colin

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Spend at least three hundred quid on cables, then go and tell the wife who then looks at you in manner of person who has been told that you have swapped the family cow for some magic beans.......

Then goes apesh1t.

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

J4CKO, Yeah thats about right, point is I never told mine

Dracoro

I thought bi-wiring is only really worth it if you are bi-amping.

That's what nearly all professional hi-fi shops say anyway as well as the mags.

depends on your set-up of course.

wiltshire_boy

Try using Cat5 (computer networking cable) for speaker cable.

P1Fanatic

I tried it using bi-wire cable to keep it tidy and it does seem to make a difference. Whether its the placebo effect or not I dont know. But whatever you do make sure you get the cabling the right way around otherwise it sounds worse.

Simon.

C h a z

If you bi-wire without bi-amping you should get a difference because effectivly you have doubled the cross sectional area of your cables and halved their resistance.

Bi-wiring will make a difference.

Do not use CAT5 cable it is cr@p!




Unless you wire up about eleventy million lengths to each speaker.

john_s

iTrader: (1)

What a waste all that bandwidth that will never be used.... cat3 should be plenty :P

John.

Kevin Greeley

Bell wire works just fine. My Binatone system has never sounded better!

stevem2k

Probably sound better in a wireless configuration


Steve

Markus

Well, I won't be bi-wiring the DM601 S3's whent they turn up, as said, was told that it's only really worth it if you're pre-amping things, and I'm not.

As for it being snake oil, umm, I think not and I'm sure if you were to google it you'd find some scientific stuff saying it does work.

hades

Not placebo effect or snake oil. Depends on your components, but generally it makes a noticeable difference on a back to back audition. Most mags and shops I've encountered do seem to recommend it.

There are some (albeit slightly obscure) scientific reasons why bi-wiring helps even if you aren't bi-amping, and that's quite apart from just conductor area. I never did like electro-magnetism at uni, but I could try to explain if anyone's really bored?

Bi amping will invariably give noticeably better results, but (unless you're into the serious Nordost/Van den Hull cables on fairly cheap amps), bi-wiring tends to be a lot cheaper than bi-amping

carl

If your speakers have the facility for biwiring, you might as well use it IMHO.

ProperCharlie

Bi wiring works not just cos you are using more cable, but also due to the cross-over being effectively separated and each part fed from its own source. I don't know why this should make a better sound, but I have always bi-wired, in three different sets of speakers and four different amp set ups I have always noticed an improvement (interestingly, the cheaper gear produced a more noticable improvement then the later "esoteric" stuff)

[Edited by ProperCharlie - 4/29/2003 10:43:30 AM]

bros2

[Edited by bros2 - 7/3/2003 8:36:45 AM]

ProperCharlie

Having only one set of terminals on the amp is common and doesn't make any difference. More cross section of wire = less, not more resistance.

C h a z

Yep to what he said.

PPPMAT

Buy some BI-wire from sevenoaks (or similar). I have this on my Linn (oooh posh lah-di-dah). Has 4 connectins going into speakers but only two into the back of the amp. I have 4 speaker inputs but its just not worth doing it for the marginal (if any) difference.

C h a z

Or buy some bi-wire off me!

jonny32

"What hi-fi" site has a good piece on bi-wiring