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Bi-wiring is nonsense (isn't it?)

I'm steering towards new cables and I've never bi-wired before. I've got Spendor S8es which have that capability though Spendor's dropped this arrangement for their current tower speakers.
Just wondering if anybody else has an opinion beyond what Spendor itself says on its website...

"Optimum sound quality will normally be obtained by using a single set of high quality cables rather than two sets of lower quality cables."

Duh. Even they are ducking a definitive p.o.v.! More real life experiences anyone?
 
shrink said:
Tried it on and off for years. Never heard it make a blind bit of difference.

The biggest difference IMHO is getting rid of any cheap brass Biwire links on speakers and using short runs of decent cable instead. Other than that, I leave it single wired and now always will.

My mate has some marantz reference kit into triwireable ultra sensitive klipsh speakers. Bi or tri wiring these also made bugger all difference.

Money better spent elsewhere really.

Ditto for passive vertical biamping, which is the single greatest waste of money I've ever heard of.
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What's the current thinking on horizontal bi-amping:)
 
john & Jake said:
What's the current thinking on horizontal bi-amping:)
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well... different people mix them up and give them different names.

to me, vertical biamping is one amp for bass, one amp for treble. This method is pointless and has almost no benefit whatsoever. As you still end up running all the bass for R and L off one power supply. It doesnt improve overhead etc.

Horizontal, as I understand it (and have used in the past) is using one stereo amp per speaker, where one channel handles the treble and one handles the bass. The benefits of this method are:

-as with monoblocks, better stereo seperation, as its one amp per speaker

-bass is now split over two amps, so load is halfed and more reserve current should be available. In fact some amps state that with only one channel driven, output is higher.

-you also get any potential benefits of vertical biamping, e.g. seperate runs to the tweeter, seperation of frequencies etc.

Seems to me, vertical biamping has few if any merits, but horizontal has all of the same merits as vertical, but with a few extra of its own. Seems to me, the only sensible way to biamp in a passive system.
 
shrink said:
well... different people mix them up and give them different names.

to me, vertical biamping is one amp for bass, one amp for treble. This method is pointless and has almost no benefit whatsoever. As you still end up running all the bass for R and L off one power supply. It doesnt improve overhead etc.

Horizontal, as I understand it (and have used in the past) is using one stereo amp per speaker, where one channel handles the treble and one handles the bass.
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It's the other way round mate...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-amping

...FYI I bi-amp horizontally with 2 Audiolab 8000Ps, for what it's worth it tightens up the bass, and gives a better soundstage...IMO
 
ah well i much prefer Vertical in that case :)

i used to vertical biamp with a pair of Parasound HCA-1000A amps
 
There is now plenty of reference material calling it foo.

Its even on lists why you should not trust an equipment manufacturer.

From a purely laymans point of view I can see why its a marketing dream but I see that some people are abandoning it altogether now. I also see quite a few people on here saying it doesnt make a blind of difference which is worrying if a consensus cant be reached.

I have some biwire cable (bought stupidly ahead of time) which I have never used. All this talk makes me wonder if I will ever get biwireable speakers and use it. Four well made terminals on the back of a speaker do look lovely though :D
 
i used to quite like the "two" nice solid terminals on the back of my focals and dynaudios of old.

Thats quite a telling thing though isnt it. Even at the top end of Dynaudios lineup and the Evidence master, they supply jumper cables and don't really advocate anything other than single wiring!

you'd think if there was a technical advantage, those high tech Danes would have leapt on it.

Ditto for focal!
 
Some guy put this strange concept over
“You connect two wires,” said he
“Thus eliminating crossover”
“It sounds so much better to me!”

Buy wire! Biwire!
Biwired sounds better to me, to me!
Buy wire! Biwire!
Biwired sounds better to me!

This sounded an idea germinal
I thought I would suck it and see
But when I plied signal to terminal
There wasn’t a difference to me.

No more, no more
No more biwiring for me, for me!
No more, no more
No more biwiring for me!
 
Possibly the major benefit comes from the removal of the usually nasty devices manufacturers use to link their usually nasty terminals.

Linn: honorable exception.
 
Bloody Idiots you lot! It is simple right; Imagine listening to a sound with a straw. Yeah sounds bit thin now imagine listening with three. Obvious isn't it- three times better!! Hi bastard Fi.
 
RustyB said:
Possibly the major benefit comes from the removal of the usually nasty devices manufacturers use to link their usually nasty terminals.

Linn: honorable exception.
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I use a small piece of the speaker cable as a link:) Until I get LK 280 Bi-amped
 
MVV said:
Bloody Idiots you lot! It is simple right; Imagine listening to a sound with a straw. Yeah sounds bit thin now imagine listening with three. Obvious isn't it- three times better!! Hi bastard Fi.
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Hmm - well what about the thinnest bit of straw then - in most amps thats the bit of relatively thin cable that connects the output devices to the sockets on the amp?? if that is in the circuit then its the determining factor ie the thinest bit of straw - so using the straw example nothing after that would make any difference!!!
 
I've just built some speakers and made the crossover specifically for bi-wiring, more to check for phase and for tuning than anything else.

Can't say it makes any difference, unless you've accidentally mis-soldered component on the low pass, in which case bass goes dramatically missing.

I've tried bi-amping in the past. Won't again, unbalances the sound.
 
Might be better when the low freq amp is clipping, the distorsion doesn't come throohg to the high freq...
 
Passive biamp doesn't work that way. They are voltage sources. The treble amp will clip exactly the same time the bass one does. There is literally no overhead improvement in it. Only vertical bi amp could in theory give you slightly more overhead per channel
 
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