FP
I'm willing to overlook the little mathematical faux pas in light of the informative response. thanks a lot

TJG

I think you're seriously abusing the word modulate here. You can't "modulate" a signal with a impedance, even if that impedance changes with frequency.

Let's think of this a little differently. We have an amp, with two parallel sets of wires. One set goes to a crossover, then to a tweeter. The other set goes to a crossover, and then the bass. The wire attached to the crossover of the tweeter presents a high impedance to low frequencies, and a low impedance to the high frequencies. The wire attached to the crossover of the bass presents a high impedance to high frequencies, and a low impedance to the low frequencies.

At the tweeter crossover we will see almost no voltage drop for the low frequency signals, as almost no current is flowing at low frequencies! We will see voltage drop at the high frequency signals, as current is flowing at the higher frequencies. The opposite will happen to the bass, with no drop in voltage for high frequencies, and voltage drop does occur at low frequencies.

So what is the effect? Why might you hear a difference? A tweeter is much more efficient. Some low mass silk or titanium dome moving small distances, is much more efficient that a large mass trying to move a quarter inch. So the current in the bass wires will be larger than that in the treble for the same sound pressure level.

Now for the real question, does seperating the wires create a lower impedance for the mid's and high's resulting in a clearer mid/high. The concept of super-position is important here. It says that the response of the system is the same as the response of the sum of the components of the response. This is true, as there are no semi-conductors in the wire. There is no modulation, no mixing of the frequencies to create other signals in the frequency response range of the speaker. It is the concept of superposition, and the fact that the frequencies won't magically mix that allows us to have channel 3 and channel 4 on the same coax, neither channel interfering with the other. The current of the channel 4 signal doesn't modulate the channel 3 signal!

Super-position says that no effect will be seen. This of course assumes that you are comparing identical wire gauges. If you have speaker wires so that the wire gauge of the bi-wiring pair is the same as a standard single pair, you will not hear a difference. I contend that people hear a difference because they double up on the speaker wire when bi-wiring.

I've tried connecting two sets of wires from an amp to a speaker. First bi wiring to the designated locations in the crossover, and then just essentially decreasing the AWG of the wire by connecting both to the single input. I've never heard any system where the individual listening, or I, could hear a difference. (It's important to do this having someone else handle the wiring, and the person listening unable to see which way the wiring is done. Otherwise, you're most likely to prove what you believe, rather than the truth.)

So my position is that bi-wiring is equivalent to running bigger wire. If you find it more convenient to run multiple runs, and bi-wire, then go ahead. I'd even agree that it is reasonable as it allows for bi-amping later as an easy upgrade. Bi-amping does offer real benefits!

And after fourteen months, I thought this was dead and buried...

You mean they got dates on the posts??

Especially if you (a) use an active crossover ahead of the amps and (b) remove the speakers' crossover components from the signal path.

[Link: sound.westhost.com]

I found these articles very interesting.

Tell me what you think Larry.

Be cautious removing the passive crossover components...
In nearly every instance, they are used to voice the speakers as well as to seperate the signals between the components.

When you hard wire the drivers to the amplifiers, you may be removing an impedance correction circuit that corrects for a beaming tweeter or tailors a midrange driver that had a peak at a certain band.

Speaker manufacturers actually recommend you to bi-amp through the passive crossovers, and bi-wire inputs make that really easy.

There is no question that hard wiring has the capability to provide the absolute best performance, but only if you take the time to tailor the voicing to the original designers intentions.

And, amazingly I didn't bring this one back!!!

I recall a big audiophile trend in the early 80's in the U.K. --- they were using solid core "stove wire" whatever the hell that is!

I read it, nothing I really disagree with. What's the question?



They go back and forth there. I remember not too long ago reading about a fad of intentionally using undersized speaker wire for the purpose of lowering the damping factor by raising the series impedance..

I couldn't agree more!!!!

I think it would be beneficial to quantify "marginal" . Because no doubt there are many other tangible factors that might also improve the "quality" of the final listening experience such as un plugging your refridgerator, re building your room and properly treating it's interior, etc... etc.... So.....Can this marginal factor be measured and rated or referenced on a scale of 1 out of 100? or even 1 out of ten in terms of an audible improvement of the listening experience?

I'm sure there are people that would argue that a racing stripe makes a car perform better. Can they provide the definitive data to support that claim?

It must be true. Why else would rade cars have race stripes?

ahh yes,,, good point lol!

I just thought the whole thing through again, step by step, and find that I was wrong. There should be little or no interaction AT WIDELY SEPARATE FREQUENCIES between the bass and the highs (and the mids, of course) when not bi- or tri-wired. Near the crossover frequencies is the only place that voltage drop at one frequency along the speaker wire will affect the sound of another frequency.

What is "near?" Since many speakers only have 6 dB per octave filtering, this effect could spread over a couple of octaves at each crossover region, and could be audible.

We DO all realize we are talking about a pretty subtle effect, right?


As someone mentioned above, be careful removing crossover elements. One of my favorite crossover was designed incorrectly and had an upward-sloping pass band to compensate for a midrange with a downward-sloping pass band. You can't duplicate that with an electronic crossover. In fact, you have to be pretty damn clever to come up with it at all!