Passive Bi-Amp vs Bi-Wire sound difference?

[Darkscience]

My Cornwall come from the factory with a metal plate connecting the LF and HF comnectors in the back. The manual says you can remove this plate and Bi-Wire the speaker, (I think this would be called Passive Bi-Amp?), is there any science if this setup makes a sound difference? For better or worse? Or this is something I just need to try one day and just listen for myself?

Are there power gains so I can go louder and does it do anything to the damping factor?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

My Cornwall come from the factory with a metal plate connecting the LF and HF comnectors in the back. The manual says you can remove this plate and Bi-Wire the speaker, (I think this would be called Passive Bi-Amp?)

Nope. It is called bi-wiring. For any bi-amping, you need to add more amps.

is there any science if this setup makes a sound difference?

Nope.

For better or worse?

Nope.

Or this is something I just need to try one day and just listen for myself?

You could but how would you assess it?

Are there power gains so I can go louder and does it do anything to the damping factor?

Bi-wiring? Nope.

 

[DVDdoug]

Bi-wiring is useless. The "schematic" is the same whether the woofer & tweeter connections are joined at the speaker or at the amplifier. There is less wire resistance if you double the wires but that's usually not an issue and you could just use heavier gauge speaker wires.

 

[Darkscience]

Thank you felllas. I actually mistyped and meant that the manual says I can remove the metal plate and Bi-amp by adding a second amp.

To Kal's point, with no measurements I would just be doing it for psychoacoustics. The system sounds good as is to me, I think the only thing I really wanted to achieve was the ability to go louder without changing the gain on the amp. For no reason either, just because maybe I think the low gain setting sounds the best and wanted more headroom on the volume control, (instead of dual mono bridged).

Thank you.

 

[DVDdoug]

I think the only thing I really wanted to achieve was the ability to go louder without changing the gain on the amp.

Bi-amplifying won't be louder at the same gain but with two amplifiers and more total power you can go louder.

Professional bi-amping usually doesn't use a passive crossover so there are no losses in the crossover and it can be louder, but the 4-terminal speaker connection doesn't bypass the internal crossover.