Published Research on Bi-Wiring Speakers

[Tangband]

Bi-wiring requires you buy an extra pair of over priced audioquest speaker cables along with Cardas carpet elevation blocks from Virginia unicorn wood, so I doubly impress my friends. That's good, right?

/sarcasm

Where I disagree with responses is bi-amping. For larger towers I've heard astonishing differences with bi amp stacks, but its mostly due to the increase of available current with lots of heavy magnets to push.

With bi-amping and amplifiers with limited current ability , there is often a sound andvantage , yes. You can hear it and the music will sound better.
But one single, twice as expensive amplifier with much better current ability might sound the same, or even better.

 

[SIY]

With bi-amping and amplifiers with limited current ability , there is often a sound andvantage , yes.

In what universe?

 

[fpitas]

Once again, there are things we can't measure here. Like profits from doubled sales of expensive cables, for example.

 

[mhardy6647]

Once again, there are things we can't measure here. Like profits from doubled sales of expensive cables, for example.

I am fairly sure that the technology exists to measure that, too.

 

[fpitas]

I am fairly sure that the technology exists to measure that, too.

Science!!! This thread may need to be merged into the "Is the entire audio industry a fraud?" thread.

 

[egellings]

I do bi wire my speakers, but not for a benefit in audio quality. (To whom should I confess my audio sins?) I was under the impression that doing so reduced the load on the amp. If that is true then less heat is generated etc. If that is incorrect I will undo this arrangement promptly.

Using a single wire for the whole speaker or separate wires for the lower and upper frequency signals will have no effect on the amplifier at all, unless wire capacitance is stupidly high and the amplifier is operating on the margins of stability. I see no point in bi-wiring at all. It typically does no harm to do so, and it doesn't help, either.

 

[valerianf]

"If @pjug 's post above isn't a clear 'case closed', I don't know what is."
There is a flaw in the demonstration: speaker type should be a 3 way speaker equipped with a dual large woofer.
Then the crossover will be around 350 hz where much more current is flowing through the woofer inductors.
The side effect is that the back EMF from the woofers will be larger in amplitude and may change the midrange/tweeter input signal.
A badly designed output amp may also be perturbated with this back EMF voltage.
I do not think that Virtuixcad is able to model all these parameter.
We are missing there some real life audio lab investigation.

 

[fpitas]

"If @pjug 's post above isn't a clear 'case closed', I don't know what is."
There is a flaw in the demonstration: speaker type should be a 3 way speaker equipped with a dual large woofer.
Then the crossover will be around 350 hz where much more current is flowing through the woofer inductors.
The side effect is that the back EMF from the woofers will be larger in amplitude and may change the midrange/tweeter input signal.
A badly designed output amp may also be perturbated with this back EMF voltage.
I do not think that Virtuixcad is able to model all these parameter.
We are missing there some real life audio lab investigation.

I doubt it. If the (single) wire is big enough, it's big enough. Doubling or tripling it won't do anything unless it was too small to start with. As for the amp being defective, how will tripling the wires help that?

 

[mhardy6647]

In fairness -- isn't the canonical approach to biwiring (at least now, in this enlightened age in which we live) to have a breakpoint in the loudspeaker's crossover, so that one pair of wires is devoted to the bass, and the other pair to -- well, whatever else?

source: https://www.qacoustics.co.uk/blog/2016/06/08/bi-wiring-speakers-exploration-benefits/

Through the magic of impedance*, the music signal somehow intuits which way to go, and there's some audibly transformative benefit.

... or something like that?



_____________
* which must be magic, right, with them imaginary components and stuff?

 

[fpitas]

In fairness -- isn't the canonical approach to biwiring (at least now, in this enlightened age in which we live) to have a breakpoint in the loudspeaker's crossover, so that one pair of wires is devoted to the bass, and the other pair to -- well, whatever else?

Through the magic of impedance*, the music signal somehow intuits which way to go, and there's some audibly transformative benefit.

... or something like that?



_____________
* which must be magic, right, with them imaginary components and stuff?

Music is smarter than we give it credit.

 

[mhardy6647]

Music is smarter than we give it credit.

But... but... what happens if one plays The Ramones?



EDIT: or... or... The Bay City Rollers?

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

But... but... what happens if one plays The Ramones?



EDIT: or... or... The Bay City Rollers?

Can I add U2 and Oasis?

 

[mhardy6647]

Can I add U2 and Oasis?

sure.
I believe that's called a friendly amendment

 

[valerianf]

@fpitas "Doubling or tripling it won't do anything"
It has nothing to do with the wire gauge.
Back emf is a voltage that is generated by the inductance of the woofer.
It is going back to the amp but also to the midrange/tweeter crossover.
If you have 2 amps with bi-wiring the back emf from the woofer will never reach the crossover of the midrange/tweeter.
It is why bi wiring with 2 amp channel is interesting when there are large woofers.

It is easy to understand that bi-wiring is of no use with a small diameter speaker and at very low level listening.
But in a 3 way speaker with large woofer(s) there is at least an Electrical difference for the back emf.

 

[DonH56]

The only difference is the resistance of the wire to the amplifier; the amplifier's output impedance ultimately determines how back-EMF is handled whether single or bi-wired. Use bigger wire.

Using two amplifiers is bi-amping, not bi-wiring, a very different situation.

Bi-amping 101

This article provides a quick look at how bi-amplification works. The conventional scheme is to split the signal into two frequency bands before the power amplifiers that drive the speakers. The bass (LF) amp sees only LF signals and drives only the LF driver (woofer). The treble (HF) amp sees...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[SanojS]

The answer is no.
However bi-wiring with bi-amp does make a difference.

Oh yes and you could even use a digital crossover outside the cabinet - with high- and low-pass DSP in front of the amps, so that you split the frequency signals digitally and don't use a cross-over at all. Then you have 4 mono blocks that drive tweeters and woofers independently (in a 2-way system).
It's actually how you do subwoofer bass management...

 

[Hayabusa]

No it is also snake oil. You can replace the crossover this way, which obviously can make a huge difference, but otherwise there is no point to use a bi-amp set-up.

so a huge difference but still snake oil?

 

[Golfx]

I have always like this statement about Bi-wiring: All it does is move the jumpers from the back of the speaker to the back of the amp.

 

[egellings]

I have always like this statement about Bi-wiring: All it does is move the jumpers from the back of the speaker to the back of the amp.

Agree. it doesn't help nor harm, except that in one case, you're using twice as much wire, which is an added needless expense.