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The big debate over single wiring vs. bi-wiring is quite timely.I did not want to post until I had some more results, and from a number of different systems, etc.
I have now heard back from enough guinea pigs regarding an experiment of mine that seemed to be too good to be true.First, there does seem to be some truth to the problem with dis-similar cables. I never noticed it that much, but several of my regular correspondents would deal with this issue themselves or with friends of theirs. Matched cables DO seem to make a difference on certain speaker systems, much more so than I ever suspected.
Secondly, there are TWO possible adjustments that can allow one to 'tune' the sound of a bi-wire set-up to be more in line with single wiring sonics. Theoretically, one can dial in ANY character from full single wiring, to full-biwiring.
Incredibly ridiculous bi-wiring tweak #1:
If you are getting sound from your bi-wire set-up that is less than satisfying, or seems less than totally cohesive, try shorting JUST the grounds together on the speaker terminals. Even though the speaker MAY already have internal ground connections, this can make a difference. In cases where two different cables were used, this often brought the sound together to be more cohesive and singular sounding WITHOUT losing the positive aspects of bi-wiring.BTW, this does NOT eliminate the separation of current flow in the cables, but DOES provide a local ground connection for some speakers that have completely separated crossover sections. Bi-wiring is still occuring in full, but the ground reference has been equalized locally at the speaker.
Utterly ridiculous bi-wire tweak #2:
IF #1 still does not do it for you, or you just want to try this and see what happens, place an 8 -10 ohm resistor between the LF hot and the HF hot at the speaker terminals. This should only be done in conjunction with tweak #1, or sonic degradation is more likely than any improvements.To create a nearly continously variable continuum from full single wiring to full bi-wiring, one could take a 50 ohm rheostat (they usually have an open spot where the unit is open circuit) and connect it at this location.
All I can say is, try it yourself, and see what it does for your system.
Jon Risch
Follow Ups:
My Ruark Crusader 2 speakers are tri-wired with 4 separate runs (2 on the bottom units) of generic 12 AWG OFC wire. The power amp is Dynaco ST-70 Series 2.
When I shorted minus (-) terminals with jumpers, Anne-Sophie Mutter's violin sounded a little crazy here and there, as if Anne was playing while drunk or high on something. Some of the notes sounded out of their places and created this rather eerie effect. Initially I thought I heard improved coherency but the above-mentioned phenomenon was weird enough to make me go without the tweak.
I also tried shorting plus (+) sides only to hear depressed (and much less interesting) HF. LF sounded somewhat louder but it was something that can hardly be described as improvement.
I am happily back to the original tri-wiring. No tweaks for me, thank you.
Tweak #1 can not be done with bridged power amps, as shorting the two "grounds" together will actually be connecting two different power amp channels together.These are rare in home audio use, but some of the more esoteric amps allow this, or use it as a part of the overall design. Check you owners manual if unsure.
Jon Risch
Hi Jon,I'm using two bridged Monarchy Audio SM-70 amps (one for the left speaker, the other for the right speaker) both bi-wired with Nirvana cable. In bridged mode only one pair of the outputs is used.
Tweak #1 gives really fine results: the sounds gets a more solid, stable, organic and coherent character.
Great tweak......Best regards,
Peter B
Very interesting. I tried tweak #1 on a pair of Paradigm Studio 60 v2's. I currently biwire them with a separate cable run to the high and another run to the mid/low terminals. The crossover is on 2 separate boards and do not appear to be grounded to each other at all. I made a couple of jumpers out of some 14awg ofc and jumped the + terminals on each speaker. I also tried single wiring with the standard shorting straps and then with the 14awg jumpers. The results:biwiring with the +'s jumped sounded best. I thought biwiring the Paradigms sounded better than single wire. Everything sounds more coherent and defined when biwired. I don't hear better coherence with single wire at all as some have reported. But the real suprise was jumping the + terminals. Everything just improved a noticeable bit. It's not a huge difference, but to my ears, a worthwhile one. Jon, can you offer an explanation why doing this results in an improvement?
.
Jon, speaking of dissimilar, I assume stranded cable for the bass and solid core for the mid/tweeters would also pose some problems?Adam
First of all, many poeple do not experience any difficulties at all with bi-wiring. It plain and simple sounds better than single wiring.If it sounds good to you, then it is good. One can always try the bi-wiring tweaks I posted just to see what they might do, but we are talking about subtle effects, even for cables.
Jon Risch
Thanks, Jon. My speakers must be biwired and I've been using biwired Harmonic Tech Pro 9+ cables. The other night I removed the biwired cables and hooked up two different sets of Pro 9+ monos instead (I think that's called shotgunning?) and I easily and immediately heard what I would call an improvement. My question was based on the fact that my speakers are internally wired with RSC cables and I was curious about running some solid core cables for consistency (and for experimenting). I read somewhere that stranded cable worked better than solid core cable with bass, but as I recall that topic was not without controversy.Adam
<> Well, I agree wholeheartedly with the first sentence, but the second adds to much to the
situation we are dealing with here. I have been saying, that what we may be dealing with here is the locus of a minor gestalt shift. Bi-wiring does certain things really well -- *separating* out the elements of the frequencies, adding a sense of air and spaciousness -- and this indeed may be what people are thus so happy with. BUT, and this is important, as long as people are focused on these aspects, they of course are going to prefer bi-wiring, even saying it is *better*. The only way one can appreciate single-wiring is to do a gestalt shift, and listen for coherence and pacing cues, rather than spaciousness and frequency separation. With single-wiring, the soundstage WILL shrink, the sense of air will shrink too, as will the sense of bass power, but that is because the elements have been pulled together. Better is NOT the right word here, since we are dealing with two entirely different gestalts. Unless, and this is what you would have to say, that in terms of what I think single-wiring does (pacing, coherence, tightness, bringing together the elements) bi-wiring in fact does that better than single-wiring.
The only way to adhudge between bi and single wiring is to realize that the one is affording things the other cannot, and that one is not making a decision between totalized better and worses, but between which apsects or presentations of the musical event one wants to dwell upon.
pcanis
actually, I observed No shrinkage of soundstage and no shrinkage of bass power when I converted from two wire to single wire mode. But I agree with your gestalt analysis.
It might be useful to indicate what brand/model cables we are running to see if there is a pattern with similar/dissimilar cable pairs.I'll leave the jumper in for a few days then remove it to see if I hear differences then.
I'm running AQ Crystal (lows), and AQ Forest (highs) in a 10 foot length.
-- Greg
Tried it with my trusty RS 8 ohm 20W. Didn't notice a lot in a very casual test, so far. Will try a pot, but what sort of wattage should it be? I'm not clear what the R is supposed to be doing to figure this out. Thanks.
An open circuit here is full bi-wiring.A short circuit here is single wiring via two cables.
The rheostat allows a continously variable change between the two types of connection.
What you hear depends on what differences you hear with bi-wiring vs. single wiring. If you are completely satisfied with the bi-wiring, and there are no down sides, it may not be worth the troubel to try the tweak at all.
Please re-read original post.
Jon Risch
doh, i have been using a new run of goertz mi-2's, and ya know, one thing those cables have going for them, other than the nice clarity they have, is they are sooo easy to hook up.so now im gonna have to rehook up my audioquest runs and run this text? hmm, ok.
I'll do that next week. right now, this weekend, i'm in enjoyment mode ;)
pcanis
Then the shunt would be as close to the speaker as possible?Could this deal with variations in resitance in the speaker wire; not as similar as they seem on the outside (maybe connectors, etc. play a role)
What if your speaker connections were a foot or two apart, as compared to most where they are a few inches? And what wire do you use to perform the shunt? More cable of the same variety as the speaker cable? Or would any good shunting material work? We are talking about a good ground here, not a signal passing conductor after all...
Since we are talking about a local ground short, for wires already grounded at the amp through the length of the speaker cables, I doubt that these jumpers would be as critcal as the main speaker cables.
To experiment, even 16 gauge hookup wire might suffice.Jon Risch
< < Incredibly ridiculous bi-wiring tweak #1Now I can come out of the closet. I tried this with my Tannoys with your CC89259 bi-wire, and it did the trick, and is how I've been using them for a few months. I thought that I was being "impure", so didn't mention it. I feel better now that others have noticed that it can make a difference, positive in my case, and still better than a single CC89259 cable.
I made a biwire set of 89259 cables a number of months ago. I lived with them for a while, and ended up going back to a single set. The improvements were such, that I gave the 2nd pair away. Would telling the person I gave them to, "Hey, Give me back my goddamn wires," broach any etiquette rules that you may be aware of?John
You could buy/steal a crappy set of cables, tell the person "hey, try these, they're even better" and swap them for your 89259 cables. Or you could just tell the person you need two identical sets of cables for a test, and swap them. This shouldn't be too hard, as many people won't _really_ believe that home-made could be better than anything store-bought. Or you could just make another set. Depends if the person is a friend or not.I discovered this "phenomena" when playing with the CC89259 cables. I had made up 4 jumpers for the +'s and -'s at each speaker, and tried various combinations of jumpers with one or two 89259 cables. Two cables plus a - jumper at each speaker worked best for me. And I determined it wasn't just the larger gauge of the two 89259 cables that made the difference.
I'm a little disappointed that you say that you've not noticed the problem yourself, but use other people's experience to develop your point. Don't mean to be so picky, but that seems like the definition of heresay evidence; also seems odd that you would espouse someone else's view that is not your own ("I never noticed it much myself, but several of my regular correspondents...")
My main system is so totally custom, that I do not take what I hear on it as the last oand only word. Since I designed my speakers, and use a series corssover with an atypical bi-wiring scheme,m it does not always relate to more typical speakers, etc.I then listen on my secondary syustem, tyhe one for the TV and HT use. WHile this is probably as good as many other systems, it ust does not have the full resolving power of my main system.
Before I will even release preliminary information to the public, I try to make sure that it will be applicable to more than just a handful of people.
When I said that I had never noticed it much myself, I meant that in my system, on my set-up, the differences between different cables on bi-wire were not that great in terms of mucking with the cohesivness and coherence. However, on the secondary system, it is more noticable, and on other systems. I have a network of audio related friends and aqquantances that I correspond with, and often throw out ideas and tweaks to them first, in order to evaluate what they do for more typical systems.
So you see, I am going not only with my own impressions and direct experiences, but those of several others that I trust and have a serious audio relationship with. The additional input is NOT the only source of information, it is more in the form of confirmation and additional input beyond my own personal experiences.
I hope this clears up any confusion over what I said in the earlier post.
Jon Risch
Fair enough, I withdraw my earlier criticism/statement, I was being a bit rash, I admit...
Jon,Maybe you should try the Shatki On-Lines. These will allow you to dial in the ringing mode of the speaker cable, interconnects, digital cables, and power cords. This way you can tailor each cable sonic signature much closer to the speakers sonic needs.
Another great product is the HighWire Power Wrap (this product was used in the design of HighWire's speaker and interconnect cables) idea which is nothing more than magnetic wire (teflon insulator) grouped together to make a 12ga spiral you fit around the cable. Center spiral to center of cable. By moving the spiral towards the speaker an 1/8" at a time you could adjust and null certain ringing modes within the cable to alter the overall sound. The Shatki is used the same way.
Your could even try large ferrites at the speaker binding posts. Many different ideas...
Have you ever tried to ground the rca connector in a component to the chassis. The amount of noise removed from the signal is quite staggering. As of now I and many others have tried this trick on solid state and tube equipment with no side effects. Works best when coaxial cables are used. Do not try on digital output.
Alan
Alan> Have you ever tried to ground the rca connector in a component to the chassis. The amount of noise removed from the signal is quite staggering. As of now I and many others have tried this trick on solid state and tube equipment with no side effects. <
This doesn't always work. Sometimes it lowers the noise floor, but sometimes it screws up the imaging, soundstaging, and plain reduces resolution.
In my experience, it depends on how the internal grounding is done. If the internal grounding is based on bus-grounding concepts or has lots of common impedances, bleeding off excess HF & RF energy to the chassis ground as quickly as possible is beneficial (personally, I would try tying the RCA ground to the chassis via a small film cap first, rather than going for a direct chassis connection from the very beginning).
But if the internal grounding is based on a one-point ground, chances are that tying the RCA ground to the chassis will worsen the sound, not better it. Technically, this makes sense, because tying the RCA ground to the chassis introduces multiple ground paths and common impedances, and is at odds with one-point grounding.
I use one-point grounding in my own products (and they are wide bandwidth designs), and tying the RCA grounds to the chassis is a decided step backwards. OTOH, I have modified bus-grounded components to this configuration and had the sound improve. YMMV.
jonathan carr
Jon Risch works for the rheostat industry. heh, I am gonna check this out.pcanis, hey, home dept , uh, whats an ohm,?
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