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I hate to say it, but this is a bi wiring story.


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Now I know that bi wiring is a hotly debated topic in the audio world. I'm not really asking for peoples opinions on wether i should bi wire.

I have a set of B&W 684 speakers. I've had them for almost a year. They are hooked up to a Marantz PM6004. I have never really been completely happy with the sound of them, the midrange always seem to overwhelm the rest of the frequencies and the bass never went really deep. No matter what I did nothing could change this. I tried speaker placement, moving the speakers off the wall and using the port bungs. Nothing really seemed to change the sound to the fantastic sound I heard in the show room. In the end I just accepted this is how the speakers would sound in my home and just deal with it.

The dealer where I bought speakers said that bi wiring was not necessary. I had never done it before with any other speakers so I took his word for it. When I got the speakers home and set them up and I read the manual, Bowers and Wilkins actually recommended bi wiring the speakers. I called the dealer and asked again but he said it won't make any noticeable difference.

I did some reading online at the time and almost everything that I read on the topic suggested that bi wiring was nothing more than voodoo, So I left it at that and never tried it.

So up until yesterday the sound from my speakers was very little treble, bloated midrange, nice bass but not very deep and certainly not well controlled. I had actually began to investigate buying a new integrated amplifier that might do better with the speakers.

Yesterday I was cleaning up my storage room and I came across some extra speaker cable. It was the same cable I was already using in my speakers it was just left over from the initial setup. I thought once again about bi wiring them. Again I took to the Internet and I read a lot of articles, some based on science that said it was nothing more than voodoo. But I thought my amp has speaker A and B outputs and it can't hurt the speaker so I'll just give it a go. Removed the jumpers from the speakers, left the LF in speaker A and added HF to speaker B. Turned both outputs on.

I then ran through my standard playlist of test songs and movie sequences.

First let me tell you what did not change. I did not hear any extra detail than I heard before. I wasn't noticing new instruments or sounds that weren't in the music before. However......

Let me tell you what did change. The first thing I noticed was the bloated mid range was gone. I now had a lovely warm mid range that was no longer drowning out the treble. Vocals were now coming from a new phantom centre channel whereas before they were clearly coming from each speaker. The bass has become deeper but much more tight and controlled. The treble was now crisp, clear and in balance to the rest of the frequencies. These were not massive changes but they were certainly very noticeable.

The biggest change was resolution and soundstage. Everything used to come out of the speakers, clearly the left and right. I know enough about speakers to know when they are correctly placed and setup you should hear sound but should not be able to identify where the speaker is. Before I could easily locate each speaker as the sound always seem to be sitting just in front of them. Now however the speakers have gone, as it were, and I've been left with a big, open soundstage. Playing the finale of Mahler Symphony #8, I'm amazed at how easy it became to locate the instrument placement in the orchestra, how wide and open the sound stage was. Like I said before there was no extra instruments in the sound I wasn't suddenly hearing detail that wasn't there before, but what I was no longer hearing was the sound coming from my speakers but I was clearly hearing the dynamics of the hall that this was recorded in.

So what do I make of all this? After hearing that bi wiring is nothing more than pseudoscience voodoo, nothing more than a marketing gimmick to get me to buy extra speaker cable, I now have the speakers that I heard in the showroom. The changes in the clarity of detail, the changes in how open the sound stage has become and the depth of that sound stage are very real. These changes are far from subtle. Now either I have super gold ears or there is more to this bi wiring than people think.

What does everybody else think on what I have experienced? Have you had a similar experience despite all evidence to the contrary? Is it possible a speaker can be built with bi wiring in mind and the jumpers were included just for convenience?

I'm not trying to start a religious debate. But the change in my speakers is demonstrable. I wanna know how this is possible when most of the audio world, professional or otherwise, says it should not have happened.

Cheers :-)

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Very interesting!

Do you have the ability to re-test your setup using standard cables, but replacing the metal speaker binding post jumpers with some jumpers made out of the same speaker wire that you are using?

My opinion on your scenario is that replacing the original brass binding post jumpers is the reason for much of the improvement in sound, hence why I'd be interested to see if you can test this.

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I've got my speakers hard & bi-wired.

I find with audio improvements are hard to judge, but if I were to take a backward step (even just a small one) that's easy to judge.

Give it a couple of weeks, then go back to single cable and see what you think. I'd be interested it what you think.

My speakers did sound similar to what you described but I changed many things, including bi-wiring and I like the sound the way it is at the moment.

I'm not saying that Bi-wiring works for every one, but it does work for me (or should I say for my speakers).

Forget about what you read, try for yourself is what it's all about, unless of course it cost an arm & a leg.

Bi-wiring is cheap to try for those who don't spend the cost of a small car on cables (that's me ;) ).

 

 

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I never understand why some people get in to such hot debates over bi-wiring. My view is just try it and see if it makes any difference. It doesn't cost too much for an extra run of cable (if you are sensible about it, of course), and is easy to do. If it makes a difference, then all well and good, if not, then it was just one of those little experiments worth trying.

 

I tried bi-wiring my VAF DCX's some years ago and my experience was similar to yours, troykm. There wasn't a quantum leap in performance, but they definitely sounded better that way. The bass seemed to have a bit more depth and there was an improvement in overall clarity and soundstage.

 

Now, was the improvement due to the bi-wiring, or just down to the fact that I was now running two sets of cables to each speaker, ie: is it just equivalent to single wiring with double thickness cable? Well, I don't know, and I don't really care. It sounds better, and that's all that really matters.

 

I now also have a pair of i-91s, which I intend to bi-wire (when I get some more cable).

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@petemac ill do that on my next day off :-)

@snowdownunder it cost me nothing to try as I already had the cable. It was leftover on the roll I bought when i got the speakers.

As Pete said its possible it was the jumpers.

It's interesting to me because after everything I have read i expected to hear nothing different. But after hearing the change I don't see how others can't hear a difference. Perhaps it is down to how each speaker is designed, I don't know.

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I reckon the speaker builder knows what's best.

My Linn speaker handbook also recommends bi-wiring. Unlike you, I complied ;)

Lol I have since complied :)

I did put the jumpers back in and single wired them for the last hour and concentrated on one piece of music. The Mahler finale. There is definitely a reduction in dynamics and soundstage with single wired setup.

One big change when bi wired, the sound seems to be coming from all around the speakers, behind, in between above and beside them. Even when I look directly at a speaker it's hard to localise it. Single wired it was easy to spot. Isn't the former what we are supposed to strive for? The speakers should 'disappear'?

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Is it possible that using the different speaker outputs on your amp has an effect ?

Have you tried connecting both cable runs to the same speaker terminal on the amp

I think there's a clue here. What you have done is not my understanding of what bi-wiring is. I thought bi-wiring is connecting two sets of cables, 1 for mid/bass and 1 for treble, to the same speaker output. Also, I remember reading to be careful when driving 2 sets of speakers from your amp at the same time, using speaker A and speaker B outputs, which is effectively what you are doing, as this halves the impedence load on your amp in each output, and some amps don't handle 2 or less ohms very well, and can be damaged.

I have no idea what effect on sound this would make but I suspect by using both your amp speaker outputs at the same time, you are affecting the impedence characteristics of the amp, maybe having the effect you describe.

I think what you are doing is effectively bi-amping your speakers which is well known to provide improvements to the sound.

I stand corrected here but what do others think ?

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I think there's a clue here. What you have done is not my understanding of what bi-wiring is. I thought bi-wiring is connecting two sets of cables, 1 for mid/bass and 1 for treble, to the same speaker output. Also, I remember reading to be careful when driving 2 sets of speakers from your amp at the same time, using speaker A and speaker B outputs, which is effectively what you are doing, as this halves the impedence load on your amp in each output, and some amps don't handle 2 or less ohms very well, and can be damaged. I have no idea what effect on sound this would make but I suspect by using both your amp speaker outputs at the same time, you are affecting the impedence characteristics of the amp, maybe having the effect you describe. I think what you are doing is effectively bi-amping your speakers which is well known to provide improvements to the sound. I stand corrected here but what do others think ?

It shouldn't make a difference to the actual impedance seen by the amp in this case. All you're doing is changing the point at which the wiring converges.

With bi-wire speaker cables (eg. four connections at the speaker end which merge into two connections at the amplifier end), the wiring converges outside the amp.

With two sets of separate speaker cables connected to the A and B amplifier outputs, the wiring effectively converges inside the amp at the A/B speaker switch.

The load seen by the amp is the same in each scenario, as the wiring is configured such that the woofer circuit and tweeter circuit is wired in parallel in each instance.

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I'm with emesbee here, "if it feels good - do it" (who sung that?) It may well be that you are getting hooked on a salesmans line, but if you hear an improvement it could just be this is the one occasion that the guy isn't b-s'ing you.

 

Your description of the original sound and effects do suggest to me that you had the polarity wrong with your original connections, - possibility? 

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yep agree with the above. 

 

re biwiring I have myself come across a few speakers that have benefited as well. some linn, legend audio, B&W and missions to name a few. 

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My B&W 602s3 did improve with bi-wiring. The improvements included an increase of low level detail and less congestion throughout the mids.

Same here, plus clearer highs. It's not so noticeable in pop music but in classical and movie soundtracks the changes are night and day.

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The theory put forward by B&W and others as to the benefits of bi-wiring is based upon the issue of back EMF. That is to say, when a  bass note finishes, the woofer is at some point of extension and will bounce back  and forth a couple of times. That movement of the voice coil in the presence of a magnet will produce an electrical signal which will go back to the crossover and can interfere with the treble and vice versa.   Bi-wiring ensures that the  Back EMF produced  goes to the amp which can deal with it more effectively than through the  crossover.

 

Some  speakers are designed not to be bi-wired  but for those that are, and if the sound improves - go for it.    As for the naysayers, I suggest that they are armchair critics who have not  done the identical  comparisons. 

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 And the following  attributed to the German company MBL in a Positive Feedback Online review of their 9008A amps. 

 

  " Bi-wiring

 

The manufacturer (MBL)  also recommends bi-wiring your speakers. Bi-wiring with a mono-block is desirable and audible. It improves the amp's damping capability by better controlling the speakers' back EMF (return Electro Motive Force fed back from the speaker into the amp). Two sets of binding posts are provided for mono bi-wiring, as well as a set when using a single amp in stereo."

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Thanks for both of those articles. Very interesting reading. It's good to read them after I bi wired. This way I know what I hear is real. As opposed to reading it first and having the power of suggestion provide it for me lol.

I might have to invite people over at some stage and I can demo the difference :-)

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Troy - I've bi-wired my B&W 683's with good results. Definitely a clearer sound..

 

One question along the lines of this topic - does it matter if the cable lengths differ between the left and right speakers? My power amp is next to my left speaker and I'd like to shorten the run.

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