Bi-wiring questions

[smrex13]

Hi everyone,

I was hoping that you could could give a newbie (ok, a returnee) to the audiophile world a bit of advice on bi-wiring speakers for two-channel music playback. My questions are the following:

1. To bi-wire from an amp that has only one set of speaker outputs for each channel, is there any issue with having two runs of cable, one with banana plugs and one with spades to facilitate the connection to the amp? I once tried to bi-wire with two runs that had spades, and it was all but impossible to get a good connection with two spades jammed under one binding post. They frequently came loose. So, I was assuming one banana and one spade would work fine. Am I correct?

2. I'm looking at purchasing the Creek Destiny 2 Integrated Amp, and it has A/B speaker connections. Does it make any sense to attach one speaker run to A and one to B to bi-wire the speakers? Will this be sonically inferior to running both cables from A?

I appreciate your help on this. I did some searches and couldn't find this info. If it's been asked a million times before, I thank you for your patience in reading it again.

Happy New Year to all!
Scott

 

[j_garcia]

Complete and utter waste of time.

 

[3db]

Contrary to what a lot of audiophiles claim, there is no sonic benefit to biwiring. Save your cash and use it to by more music.

 

[Erhan]

All bi-wiring can do (electrically speaking) is to half the resistance while doubling the capacitance of the wires. Instead, you can use thicker wires (lower AWG) to get the same lower resistance benefit while not effecting the capacitance as much. That being said, I don't think one needs to go crazy in regards to AWG unless they are running very long wires.

This opinion is based on electrical properties of cables.

 

[j_garcia]

All bi-wiring can do (electrically speaking) is to half the resistance while doubling the capacitance of the wires. Instead, you can use thicker wires (lower AWG) to get the same lower resistance benefit while not effecting the capacitance as much. That being said, I don't think one needs to go crazy in regards to AWG unless they are running very long wires.

This opinion is based on electrical properties of cables.

Agreed. Effectively all biwiring is doing is increasing the AWG and I've said this a countless number of times - just get a sufficient AWG wire to handle the load and beyond that you are gaining nothing. This has it all:

Speaker Wire

 

[BMXTRIX]

If you are biwiring, for whatever reason, to one channel on a amplifier, then you shouldn't use two connections. Just use a single spade or banana plug which is large enough to handle the gauge of the wiring being used. So, if you have a 10' run of two 12AWG cables, use a connector which can handle 10AWG wiring and put both wires in since that's what you have.

 

[NoDakNomad]

I'm confused, is Bi-wiring and bi-amping two different things? I guess I'm lost because in my setup I have it bi-amped so I'm running 50w to the tweeter and the mid and a separate 50w to the woofer. Compared to just 50w to the whole set up


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[ImcLoud]

I have played with this before, the bi-wiring is complete BS there is no sq improvement IMO, bi amping is something totally different, and again I never heard a difference with that either, my brother used to use 2- 2 ch amps to power his towers, the amps were both UPA200's , so he was using 2 upa 200's as mono blocks, one for each set of speakers... and when he upgraded to a upa 2 it sounded the same if not better vs the dual upa200's...

 

[zhimbo]

NoDakNomad: Yes, they're different. Bi wiring is just two wires from single amplification source, and is always a waste (or the equivalent of using a larger gauge wire, which is the cheaper way to go). Bi-amping - what you're doing - can, at least in principle, make a difference.

 

[markw]

I'm confused, is Bi-wiring and bi-amping two different things?

Oh, HELL yes!!!

 

[zieglj01]

To do all that work for an optimistic 3 to 5% difference, is amazing

 

[PENG]

Agreed. Effectively all biwiring is doing is increasing the AWG and I've said this a countless number of times - just get a sufficient AWG wire to handle the load and beyond that you are gaining nothing. This has it all:

Speaker Wire

I guess most of us can agree on the waste of time thing but the rest he cited are false.

 

[PENG]

Hi everyone,

I was hoping that you could could give a newbie (ok, a returnee) to the audiophile world a bit of advice on bi-wiring speakers for two-channel music playback. My questions are the following:

1. To bi-wire from an amp that has only one set of speaker outputs for each channel, is there any issue with having two runs of cable, one with banana plugs and one with spades to facilitate the connection to the amp? I once tried to bi-wire with two runs that had spades, and it was all but impossible to get a good connection with two spades jammed under one binding post. They frequently came loose. So, I was assuming one banana and one spade would work fine. Am I correct?

Yes.

2. I'm looking at purchasing the Creek Destiny 2 Integrated Amp, and it has A/B speaker connections. Does it make any sense to attach one speaker run to A and one to B to bi-wire the speakers? Will this be sonically inferior to running both cables from A?

If the amp let you select A+B and in A+B the two runs are effectively connected in parallel, then yes. If you do it right, there is no harm done, but don't expect sonic improvements except you may still feel there is, potentially due to Placebo effect.