Alan C

Haven't had one of these threads for a while!

Did some toeing in & out the other day a feel that this is one of the bigger sound enhancing 'tweaks' that can be done. Regardless of speakers.

Ended up with the speakers firing straight at me with the crossover just behind my head...

I've been firing straight into the room for many months and everything has now gained a lot more focus. Rather than a woolly unfocussed edge to everything the soundstage has really taken a decent 3D feel to it.. Bass has tightened and the general timing has been sharpened up considerably..

All in all, a crackin evenings work. Tape measured the speakers to within a couple of mm of each other, so that I'm as close to even as I can be (without going stupid).

Highly reccomended if;

• You want to change the feel of your sound to something a little different.
• You have changed your room around a bit and have upset the acoustics.

messiah

Slightly off-topic but...

how much of a difference to sound quality does bi-wiring make? Got the facilty to do this but never bothered - is it worthwhile?

TelBoy

You're just not trying hard enough!

In fact, i had the opportunity to listen to a pair of Martin Logan Aerius at the weekend. Very different sort of sound to what i'm used to, and when i first heard it, i wondered whether there was something wrong with them, as it seemed quite uninvolving.

However, by moving about five feet closer to them, everything came crashing into view. The difference was startling. The missing bass was there, the imaging appeared, the timing was pin sharp. The daft thing was, because of this guy's living room set-up, he was missing out on SO much just because he was too far away from them! I mentioned it, but with a "maybe it's me" caveat so as not to upset him!!

Experimenting with toeing-in is certainly worth it, although for myself it just looks "wrong" in my room, so i live without it. Also worth trying switching the speaker cable connections - occasionally reversed polarity actually sounds better.

TelBoy

In fact i reckon the difference is quite subtle, based on my experience. You'd be better off investing in a better quality single-wire cable before going onto bi-wire, in my opinion.

messiah

Ta for the reply - think I'll leave it for the time being anyway - probably get more noticable improvements getting me a Squart lead...

Dracoro

Bi-amping makes a difference, bi-wiring (in most cases) doesn't really matter. Depends on your setup as to how much benefit there is. Pointless unless you have bi-wireable speakers.

messiah

They're B&W but can't remember exact model (S2's maybe) they are bi-wireable, but like I say I've never bothered to do it, and to be honest I'm not that much of an audiophile for it to make a lot of difference to me, they were bought for the home cinema.

mart360

some dimensions would help...

i found that firing down or across the room only worked with the speakers relativly close together with the 6+ foot apart i have, i,d need a huge room

mart

braaaptish

ABSOLUTELY NO TOEING AT ALL!!

HERESY!!

MUPPETRY!!

... OOOFF!!

(in relation to each other; single plane! aaaaaand stick to the 1:2 ratio for width between them and the distance you are from them ... )

Alan C

No problems Hi-Jacking the thread

Bi-wiring is more than a matter of taste (IMO) as one of the problems with a single cable is that you are using one pair of cables to carry the signal to and from the amp. In this case bass signals can tend to swamp the more delicate treble stuff, especially in the negative return connection back to the amp. By separating the signal all the way back to amplifier's output stage, using four conductor biwire cable, these effects can be greatly reduced.

You obviously need speakers designed for biwiring. This means that the speaker crossover needs to be completely split. Two terminals? No Biwiring.

To all intents and purposes, a biwirable crossover is two separate circuits - one to filter the treble out of the signal for the bass driver, the other to prevent the bass from reaching the treble driver. Crossovers are usually tuned to about 3Khz.

Depending upon your run, you can get OK biwire for a couple of quid a meter. This will help you suss out the benefits (if any) before parting with a bit more cash on some QED Silver Anniversary at £10 per metre; at a minimum.

My two pence... Oh, and play with the toeing in

fatscoobyfella

bi wiring is definately worth Doin IMHO and is a cheap upgrade...

Toe in of speakers...Well..Most need to be towed in slightly but the variables are so diverse it aint any easy question to answer..there is many gains to be had however by doing it...room dimensions and how far you realistically can space the speakers are the most important thing for getting a good soundstage..

Oh yea..think someone mentioned phasing..just a little off topic but..for all your high end stuff,your better off with Euro Shuko plugs..you can fit these in the socket either way to get your phasing into your equipment 100% everytime..

Again,just my 2p worth

hades

Speaker positioning & set up definitely makes a big difference

IMHO, the amount of toe you need is very dependent on the speakers involved, the room etc. My Ruark Equinoxe's definitely benefit from a bit of toe in. Some speakers I've heard - e.g. often but not always those with upward firing drivers/supertweeters sound better with less. General rule of thumb is that not enough toe gives poor imaging around the centre, too much toe gives a narrow sound stage

The other thing that makes a big difference is distance from walls. Acknowledged that some speakers need "room to breathe", others need to be close to a wall to re-inforce the bass. Again, different suits different speakers. I often find it gets muddled / lacking in subtlety if too close to the wall. My usual trick is to start close to a wall, and keep dragging the speakers away an inch or so at a time. When the bass gets too lightweight, then move them back in an inch. Getting too close to the sidewall (other than perhaps with an AV sub) is rarely a good thing.

Benefit of bi-wiring again varies a bit from speaker to speaker, but generally IMHO is well worthwhile. Some of the higher end cables (such as the Nordost stuff that some of you here will know I'm fond of) tend only to come in bi-wirable form. I think the gains are probably more significant at higher end, where you're at the point of diminishing returns on what can be gained with cable/material technology alone.

RobJenks

I bi-amp and of course bi-wire .
There is a philosophy that fine pure silver wire( Not sterling silver) is an excellent alternative to pukka speaker cable -Have not tried it myself , but have for interconnects.
For an alternative first class speaker cable consider using solid copper core co-axial tv cable.
The copper shielding of say the + cable should be soldered to the - core of the return cable , and vice versa.
Shrink wrap the soldered joint and check with volt meter to ensure no shorting has occurred before connecting to power amp(s)

dba

Sorry,but have given up on speakers than have such a small soundstage.The wife/lounge/son,whatever,have different priorities to 'listening on axis'.I really do think that modern manufacturers are doing the 'normal' listener a huge disservice by making speakers with such a narrow band that minute movements are required,and furniture needs rearranging blah blah blah.Its just lazy engineering imo.It is perfectly possible to make a crossover capable of a wider and easier to live with soundstage.Von Schweikert do it quite easily.(Although distance from walls is still important).A room filling soundstage,without loss of imaging,is a perfectly reasonable goal.Yet all most users are left with is having to measure their axis,(by the millimetre!?) in an already compromised room.Its simply not good enough imo.
Also decent stands will make a bigger difference than bi-wiring,which imo is more placebo than anything else (like most HIFI tweaks).IF designs make great stands,if anyone is interested,although at £450 ish each they aint cheap.

hades

I'd be very nervous about trying that - very high capacitive load, liable to upset some amplifiers that do things at supersonic frequencies. Solid copper cores definitely have some merit - e.g. 1mm twin and earth mains cable is cheap and IMHO works better than 79 strand speaker cable. However, you couldn't ever call it "first class" when you're talking about high end hi-fi, which was how this thread started.

TelBoy

Agreed. If it was THAT easy to just bung in a bit of silver wire, *everybody* would just do it! All quality cables are made to very specific impedences, which some piece of silver wire isn't going to exhibit.

However, Tel's back-street garage tip is that i do use heated rear-windscreen silver repair paint on my connections, once connected, to ensure the biggest possible area of contact. Now that *is* sad!!

messiah

Might give bi-wiring a go when I'm bored over Xmas - will pinch the cables from the rears and see if I notice any improvement.

Already got my speakers toed-in, but it's by default really - the TV's in the corner of the room so front speakers on either side of it are automatically facing the sofa...

C h a z

Bi-wiring without Bi-amping does little more than allow you to double the ammount of cable you and therfore half the cables resisitance. A bi-amped setup with identical power amps will not improve the problem of the bass signals swamping the treble because all the signals still pass down all the wires. The true way to bi-amp and bi-wire is to use an active power amp (ie one with a crossover in it) and only wire the correct amp to the correct driver. In this set-up there is no need for a crossover in the speaker. This will make a significant difference in signal quality as we are no longer tampering with it once it has been amplified.

Adam M

trouble is I am using naim monblocks and while I already have a snaxo 2-4 to actively crossover my speakers, I would need a further two mono blcoks at £2000 each to achieve this benefit.

I used to run two 180 stereo power amsp through the active crossover but returning to passive with monoblocks blows that set up out of the water. While I do have some of the hardware needed, there is no way I wuld waste money bi wiring in the meantime, as stated above you really are hard pushed to hear a difference.

I find that biwiring is the biggest source of misinformation from hifi dealers.

I did try to explain that by biwiring you are just moving the point at which you parallel the speakers further back from the speaker binding posts to the amplifier. Some manage to impress by talking about using different wire for attenuation of different frequenices but the majority spout nonsense.

A very reputable dealer in leeds tried to convince me that he could hear hear the difference when switching non biwired speaker cable from the tweeter input to the mid bass input whilst the biwiring bars were still in place.

Once he said this, i knew he knew nothing.

Daryl

True, but it does sound better than just bi-wiring. I'm using my amps as monoblocks now, which sounds much better than when I was using them for bi-amping.

Would like an active set-up, but not clever enough to adapt my B&W speakers