In all fairness to the subject. And there are some people responding to the original post that have sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the issues. But pontification and theorisation is really only speculation. Lot's of theoretical data has resulted in eventual factual information. In this argument, the only way to really determine whether or not Bi wiring provides a "significant" audible improvement (and a sonic improvement can really be the only beneficial reason for worrying about this thing) is to resort to scientific measuring devices that reach much further in terms of accuracy and reference ability than our human ear can. I'm sure an MLLSA evaluation would provide the answer. it's very possible that someone has already made some tests with instrumentation and measuring devices that can tell us if Bi wiring yields a "detectable" advantage.

"... theorisation is really only speculation." Theory is something taken as true without proof. The electronics involved here are not theory. Basic electronics defines why 4 wires or 2 wires will produce the same sound, assuming that the wire gauge of both solutions are equivalent. Because you don't understand the principles doesn't mean this is theory and speculation.


Even if presented with such tests (and why do I need to test ohms law, and superposition) the bi-wiring supporters respond that we don't know what to look for in the measurements! The argument is that they can hear things that the electronics can't measure.

Interesting , but If you look at the nuance abilities and resolution of some of these high end test systems, you will find that they measure parameters that are far beyond the scope of our hearing. In fact,, FFT data shows multi dimensional data in a very wide range of areas.
SO, while it's fine to appreciate subjective elements such as the sublte difference between a type of acoustic piano, or the tone of a fender stratocaster as opposed to a Hamer, or a mini moog compared to a Roland MKS 80 both reproducing a sine wave at the same frequency . These are differences that are realistically subjective. That's because there are dramatic differences in some of the parameters that are responsible for the final outcome. These differences will be detected given the proper measuring procedure. Will a bi wiring shoot oout detect something that a human claims to hear?? hardly. I would write it off to "pshychoacoustics" and back to theguy that chimed in with " you hear what you want to hear". He said a lot in that short sentence. Lets not lose sight of the fact that a huge industry exists to support some very extreme ideas. I'm not saying that a pair of Gershman speakers don't sound like God. But lets give credit where credit is due. Bi wiring wouldn' t make or break that outcome. Neither would the amplifier. it's the Gershmans.

I did go with bi-wiring in February 2005. Sounded great. In August 2005, my house suffered a hit a lightning during Katrina. The AV system was unplugged from the wall and yet got fried. Do you think this was because of the extra electrical attraction caused by the bi-wiring?

PS. This should generate another 30 responses just in time for this year's peak storm season.

Yes, they will show that bi-wiring produces no advantages if the wiring is the same AWG as a single pair.

I contend that two pairs of wires attached to the same terminals will have slightly worse performance. (In other words, bi-wiring will be worse!) How... Now you have half the wire gauge for the highs, and half for lows. A single pair solution will offer the whole wire gauge for the highs and lows. Now, if it works out that half the power goes to the highs, and half to lows, the solutions will be equivalent. This will happen about once in a billion cases according to Murphy! But if the highs or lows pull slighly more power, in a bi-wiring situation the impedance of the high or low wire is twice, and you'll get a higher resistive drop than the single wire case. The single wire allows for all power to be dynamically shared!

And even less often in this universe. Back when I was actually doing speaker measurements, and we had abandoned the 16 foot cube "anechoic" chamber because it really wasn't, and were using a roof platform, this subject came up. If I remember correctly (and he has already pointed out that I don't remember everything correctly), his experience was that if you average musical content, there is about 3 dB less power per octave as you go up in frequency. That means that 100 Hz to 200 Hz would be likely to have 9 dB more power than the octave from 1.6 kHz to 3.2 kHz. That in turn says that most of the power will go to the woofer. If you don't believe that, put ten volts into a woofer at 100 Hz (at 8 ohms, this is 12.5 watts). Then put ten volts into a tweeter at 3 kHz. You would expect, if there is normally less power in the upper frequencies, for the tweeter to sound godawful louder than the woofer. It will, in fact, but only for a moment. Then it will blow because it is not designed to handle as much power as a woofer...because there isn't as much power at high frequencies as at low frequencies, so it doesn't have to.

If you are doing this with expensive PA equipment built to handle such power levels, STOP because the tweeter probably won't blow but your ear will. If you have the money to replace a tweeter for the hell of it, put twenty volts into such a woofer, then into such a tweeter, at the frequencies listed. This is 50 watts (double the voltage = four times the power).

You guys can contend all you want... It does make a difference, and all of your 'world is flat' commentary won't change that.

Try listening with your ears.

Oops, I forgot - there's no arguing with engineers on this.

There I go - tilting at windmills again.

Norm

Norm,

I have listened with my ears. I've done this test, and tested others. I started my career at Heathkit. We tested a whole group of people. After doing so, we decided not to go to the trouble or expense of designing crossovers so they could be bi-wired.

So are you telling me that you've done a real blind test? You bi-wired a speaker, and then used heavier gauge single pair cable of an equivalent gauge to the bi-wire adding together both pairs? You had someone else do the connections, and you listened, so that you couldn't hear what you wanted to hear?

I've done this test with two sets of identical speakers, and identical amps, where we could swap between the setups with no delay. It was the audio equivalent of going to the optometrist... "Is One better, or Two. Again One, Two."

You're right, theres no use in arguing with engineers. Especially since we tend to do the homework, rather than just make contentions without evidence to back them up!

We've done our homework 1000 times at the store. Blind tests. Sighted tests. Tests between types and brands of speaker wire and interconnects. Of course it doesn't make a big difference with mid-fi stuff, but when you are connecting high-end two channel equipment the wiring makes a huge difference in the sound. Sometimes the more expensive wire loses to the cheaper wire, and sometimes not. Some systems sound better bi-wired and some not. There are no hard and fast rules, but there is no arguing that there are differences from one to the other. Our customers for the most part are not stupid. Most anyone dropping six figures on a two-channel system has a good ear, and can hear the differences without prompting. They don't always agree with what we hear, and we let them decide what they want for wiring.

I guess if you bought a Ferrari (an unlikely choice for an engineer for many reasons) you would be happy using the $20 spark plug wires from Pep Boys. Knock yourself out. I would fork over the cash for the Ferrari ones.

To each his own.

Norm

..... Our customers for the most part

this in itself is interesting. I can't remember a single customer that dropped that kind of money on audio gear that really had any education about the equipment they were buying beyond what they read in St$$rophile or some other industry magazine. Of course many of the reviewers in those magazines are no more than the same hobbyists who have now taken it to reviewer level.

Ive said it before and I'll say it again. If you believe it makes a difference that's fine with me. but as a professional in the industry I believe it is important to just recognize that no one has ever documented differences in speaker wire, or bi-wire setups. This goes back to the MASSIVE outlay of time and money when they were developing audio for the new talking movies.

this is a discussion that will never go away as wire is akin to a religion. the difference is we get paid to know what we are talking about. the wire manufactures haven't helped our credibility out much with directional speaker cable.

A lot of those obsessive compulsive customers that lurk in the "high end" consumer audiophile stores have way too mush time on their hands and enough money to go with it. a great speaker will sound like a great speaker, and that distinction will be so much more apparent than the difference between a Crown K2 power amplifier or a MOON W5 , trust me. In fact, why not just cut to the chase,,, just sell everyone the same playback equipment that most recording studios use to reference and mix commercial music with??? ( Genelec, Mackie, Yamaha NS10m's) I mean,, isn't that how it sounded when they released it??? What about time alignment of speaker components?? that can be tweaked,,, you can fudge the tweeter microseconds in front or behind the woofer....would that be any more noticeable than bi wiring??? some would argue that it would. I suggest that these micro nuances are irrelevant when you compare them to the tangible parameters such as the actual loudspeaker or the electronics and source . A two way or three way electronic crossover is a great tool in a largre pro audio system , but even now, these processors have factory engineered algorithms designed for a wide variety of transducers and power amplifiers which were devloped labourisouly by experienced engineers using the actual components. A passive crossover designed for an expensive audipophiole speaker system has bennefited from many hours of experimentation and subjective listening tests prior to it being incorporated into the speaker system. beating that result easily without engaging in the same rigorous process won't happen no matter how sophisticated the electronic crossover. SO,, I say,,, leave the shit alone.
If you want to believe that bi wiring will help,,,, go ahead and bi wire..I think it's a placebo.