Biwiring, Biamping

[luvdunhill]

Or, because they know that if DSP is done right, it can be a solution, but then make the incorrect leap that if it is done in DSP, then it's done right, which, at least with commercially available solutions, isn't always (or even usually) the case

DING DING DING!!!

[Dreadhead]

Well this is audio and I'd guess more than 50% of things aren't done right commercially.

That said nothing that "El Doug" said was wrong or deserving of a "are you sure you understand what you're talking about?"

[luvdunhill]

Time delay isn't used to correct phase as he implied. Also, an active crossover isn't FAR better than a passive first order crossover in terms of phase.

Edited April 15, 2011 by luvdunhill

[Craig Sawyers]

Someone (I have a pretty guess as to who it was) got behind my electrified fence, barbed/razor wire and broken glass set on top of a concrete wall in front of my A/V system, and broke the jumper cables on my speakers.

After being pissed and lecturing everyone about no one being allowed back there and turning up the current on the electrified fence, I figured it was a chance to biwire my speakers, which I'd thought about for a while, but never did. I've had all of one hour to listen last night, but it sure seems to sound better! Mostly I'm hearing better spatial resolution - each voice and instrument seems better separated from one another, vocals seem clearer, everything was more three dimensional, more depth, just a whole lot cleaner overall in the time realm - less smearing, more coherence, blah blah.

I always wonder if I just want to hear something after I've spend some money, but has anyone else biwired and heard improvements?

Is what I read about keeping the bass and mid/treble signals separated in their own cables so they don't interfere with each other a reasonable technical explanation, or just so much cable marketing mumbo jumbo?

How about going the next step to biamping? I'm curious, but it seems inherently wrong to have two different amps for a number of technical reasons.

Just catching up with the threads. Biwiring is a semi-religeous thing - there are strong views for and against. When I had speakers with separate binding posts for bass and treble speakers, I used to biwire, and swore I could hear a difference, although I did not have a physical model to give a remote inkling why. Always troubling. For me anyway.

Now I listen to a pair of 1964 vintage QUAD ESL, which have a single pair of connections that go straight into the transformer. So there is absolutely no way that I can frig around with biwiring - which solves the do or don't biwire problem perfectly.

I have a semi-stalled dipole sub project to add some oomph to the ESL's, following Siegfried Linkwitz's approach. That definitely needs an electronic crossover. The sub amp is a C-audio GB602 600Wpc professional sound reinforcement amp, courtesy of eBay at £150.

Edited April 16, 2011 by Craig Sawyers

[jvlgato]

Well, who knows. I don't suppose it matters any more in my case, since I'm not going to put the old broken jumpers back in! But fun to discuss and hear everyone's thoughts, anyway.

I have to say that the sound continues to amaze me. Even if biwiring made a difference, it would probably be much more subtle than this. I'm thinking now that those old jumpers either just sucked that bad, or were partly damaged when I got them, and my kids (or one of their friends) did me a favor when they broke it completely. They came with the speakers, weren't the original, and were just thrown in by the seller when I asked, because I didn't have any. 'Yeah, I think I have some old jumpers sitting around here somewhere', he said. I think I had convinced myself at the time that it wouldn't make a difference to biwire, so never bothered with it.

[Dusty Chalk]

Corrosion affects wire most at the connection -- I bet if you cleaned and put the jumpers back (that is, if they weren't broken), you would hear a difference. Sometimes you should do that -- just disconnect, clean, and reconnect. And that goes with RCA cables, too.

[jvlgato]

No, they're completely broken. Banana to spade, the banana has no more stem. I had to get a pair of pliers to pull the stem out.

I do have in mind to unplug, clean, and replug every connection every now and then, but it pretty much never happens. Unless I'm forced to by a broken connector, of course.

I put that ProGold stuff on the connections, too.

[Craig Sawyers]

Corrosion affects wire most at the connection -- I bet if you cleaned and put the jumpers back (that is, if they weren't broken), you would hear a difference. Sometimes you should do that -- just disconnect, clean, and reconnect. And that goes with RCA cables, too.

The stuff I use on copper is a Kester product called Copper-nu. Actually used in PCB production, but is NASA approved for cleaning copper cooling braids for satellites. Takes oxidised or sulphided copper and very quickly produces pink, chemically clean copper. Also works on brass. Kester also do Nickel-nu, but I've never tried that.

Also I tend to use Caig De-Oxit and/or Pro-gold. Deoxit is used/recommended by Tektronix and Fluke for minimising switch contact resistance, which kind of says all you need.