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I currently run a 16' pair of Greg Straley's Reality speaker cables (single wire copper with no outer sheath, you knows the ones that look like red licorice) and I am trying out a similar length pair of Alpha-Goertz Python MI2 copper ribbon bi-wire cables. Well there are small differences at the outset and the MI2 cables haven't really had any playing time at all. Using banana adapters on the cables which is nightmare as the spades are so very close to each other but if bi-wiring proves to be beneficial I will search out a banana terminated cable.
What is the general consensus on bi-wiring Vs single wires on stock 1.6's? Are the small differences I am getting at present more related to bi-wiring Vs using an entirely different speaker cable? I realize that its a bit like comparing apples to oranges but possibly some you out there have had the opportunity to do direct comparisons of the same speaker cable in both configurations...
All advice and opinions are appreciated!
FWIW...I prefer single wiring to bi-wiring on my 1.6's....and most other (bi-wireable) speakers I've owned.
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=cables&n=132881&highlight=geocities&r=
Empirical Audio had a paper that mentions that bi-wiring depends on the tweeters impedance if I read it right, but I can't find it on their site.
FWIW my mmgs are bi-wired with 28g magwire for the bass and some thin foils for the highs.
Curious, at 10 feet the 28 gauge wire is over 1.3 ohms. A bit like a tube am right?
Actually my runs are short at 5ft, and I wouldnt use this for anything over 8ft.
But if you mean like a tube in that the bass is flabby. NOPE. Just the opposite. It flys in the face of the dampening factor being reduced due to more resistance.
The bass is TIGHTER and QUICKER than fat cable. That is why I like it, you hear every note.
Bi-wiring is marketing to sell more speaker cables.
The reason it "works" is because the LCR parameters are changed relative to a single cable run. R would be halved, L and C modified depending upon cable lay, etc.
If you were to substitute a single cable run with the same lumped parameters as a bi-wired pair there would be (most likely) no audible difference.
A single run of speaker cable "A" compared with a bi-wire run of speaker cable "B" is an apples/oranges comparison with limited conclusivness. Even a single run of cable "A" compared to a bi-wire run of cable "A" is apples/oranges, but with some of the variables zeroed out.
When you browse forums, you will not find an audio topic nowadays with more speculation than speaker cables. :)
Cheers,
Dave.
It seemed illogical that Bi-wiring would make a difference.
But I have a set of Straightwire "shotgun" bi-wire cables running my 1.6's. I tried them as single and then as Bi-wire. Yes, there is an audible difference, and I liked it better that way (Bi-wired)
Now, just because one can't see the reason why something changed, doesn't mean it doesn't change. There must indeed be some "science" that proves it, I won't say I know exactly what that is, and neither does Esande.
Keith, we have only your report and the fact that Magnepan puts the biwire label on the connector plates as evidence. I don't question your report. In fact if it makes you happy to do it it's fine with me. But it is very hard to deny physics. We would all be doing it if it actually conferred a benefit.I am not comfortable with raining on anyone's parade. But I have looked at the issue as objectively as I can and my conclusions differ from yours.
That's fine. There is room here for differences of opinion. But opinions are not facts. As audiophiles, we operate in grey areas as a matter of course. You may prefer Diana Krall to Bob Dylan, etc.
I know all that. But to boldly assert that biwiring has value in the face of all evidence to the contrary is impertinent.
Edits: 10/25/09
to the online manual from the Magneplanar website about the hookup for Bi-wiring.
http://www.magnepan.com/content/binary/pdf_manuals/manual_MG16.pdf
Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean about my report being the only evidence?
Were you referring to my statement that Magneplanar made the speakers capable that way, to be bi-wired, if so, then the manual should be adequate evidence that they did.
Or, Are you just talking about that I "reported" I hear a difference Bi-Wired vs. "Not"?
If that's the case, then it seems that the start of this post doesn't count then either.
I do wish I could find the web site that I had read that had the primer on Bi-Amping. It made a decent argument as to why Bi-wiring could yield audible improvements in a speaker (like the Maggies) that had the seperate leads for the "highs & lows". Something about the inefficiency of the low pass crossover? and that a direct feed to the high side yields more signal and sinced that signal isn't needed at the low end it then leaves more low signal accesible ther too?
I'm just trying to remember what I read three or four months ago that convinced me to try it. I don't know if what I'm writing here is exactly the argument that was made, but I think that's something like what I remember.
Of course it went on from there to say how much better and significant the improvement would be if you Bi-Amped. It also went on to tell of the advantages of active vs. passive crosses.
I mention all this in case somebody else out there might remember where I might have read this. I could have sworn it was the primer in the asylum here, but I looked at the one there now and it's much less informative than the one I'm referring to.
I like both Diana Krall AND Bob Dylan, But I like Patricia Barber and Neil Young more.
I think that it does make a difference. I went from single wire Cardas Cross to a shot gun set up Cardas Cross and there's a difference; did clean-up the midrange a bit and bass seems to be tighter.
Not night and day difference, but audible enough that my wife heard the difference without knowing that I changed anything... she just sat down, listened for a couple of minutes and said "something has changed, it sounds like when you see through a newly cleaned window". No, she's not an audiophile, but a classically trained pianist with a fantastic ear.
Perhaps there may be a difference. Logically and electrically, there isn't. Assuming all connections are correct and the wires are equivalent there is no difference.
If you use different wires for the low and high frequencies then the difference is in the wires.
If you subscribe to the wire theory you are going to be held to account for the fact that in biwiring it is still a continuous loop.
I grant that your wife may may have fantastic ears. But when was the last time you cleaned your connectors?
:-)
In my opinion no. Perhsps you missed the recent posts. I see no reason to do this given the crossover constraints and the physical facts.
It is a chimera, in my considered opinion.
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