BiWire Speaker Cable help needed

[BFL]

For a couple decades i have been using my MIT Shotgun 3 biwire speaker cables on non biwire speakers. Finally have a pair of Biwire speakers coming in and i am looking at my cables and the wording has disappeared off the cables where they hook up to the speakers so now i dont know which is the High and which is the Low side...Anybody familiar with these cables know which is which? Apparently MIT quit support on these in 2019.

 

[ryanosaur]

Why would it matter?
Electrical current is electrical current.

If one conductor is a lower gauge than the other, that would be very poor design and you shouldn't use them.

Be prepared, though, you will start getting many comments about Bi-Wire (or Buy-Wire) being a pointless endeavor.

 

[BFL]

Why would it matter?
Electrical current is electrical current.

If one conductor is a lower gauge than the other, that would be very poor design and you shouldn't use them.

Be prepared, though, you will start getting many comments about Bi-Wire (or Buy-Wire) being a pointless endeavor.

Paid too much for the cables even though it was 2 decades ago, so i want to make use of the biwire. The Shotgun cables have a box that purposely splits high and low side and i would think it would hurt performance to reverse it. I can tell u i did hear a difference with these cables vs the Monster 1000 series i believe it was called..Again this was 2 decades ago...

 

[ryanosaur]

Paid too much for the cables even though it was 2 decades ago, so i want to make use of the biwire. The Shotgun cables have a box that purposely splits high and low side and i would think it would hurt performance to reverse it. I can tell u i did hear a difference with these cables vs the Monster 1000 series i believe it was called..Again this was 2 decades ago...

I'm not meaning to poke at you. Things like that often don't do what is advertised. More to the point, many of the current crop of Specialty "audiophile" cables that are directional or have batteries attached to them actual degrade the signal... At best the performance is the same as standard Zip Cord of the appropriate gauge for your cable length and impedance.

Not gonna lie to you. While I don't really find the idea of Bi-wire or passive Bi-Amping useful in most circumstances, it shouldn't harm your system if you make certain to remove the Jumpers on your Speaker. That said, I would get rid of that thing and just buy good 12AWG pure copper Speaker cable and call it a day. Some good Banana plugs are fine if you want... or Spades... or just bare wire.
You will get a better signal than that MIT box.

Or just use it. Plug it in and listen... then turn it the other direction and listen again.

If it really does anything, I would hope you could hear it. *shrugs

 

[BFL]

I understand what you are saying!! I had thought about buying new cables..I had looked at the SKW cables and Kimber cables. I figured i already had these i would use them. If i dont like the sound with the new fronts, i may bite the bullet and get new ones. I would need to start looking at some reviews.

 

[ryanosaur]

I understand what you are saying!! I had thought about buying new cables..I had looked at the SKW cables and Kimber cables. I figured i already had these i would use them. If i dont like the sound with the new fronts, i may bite the bullet and get new ones. I would need to start looking at some reviews.

If you've the coin to drop on Kimber, go for it. They at least don't pretend that their cables massage the electrons. Our fearless leader, Gene, is a Kimber fan and admits that they are more jewelry than anything else. He has done measurements of them compared to Belden and 1 or 2 other, IIRC.

The thing is, Cables are just a conductor and DO NOT change the sound unless it is flawed somehow. If you want to believe that, cool... But that is on you.

FWIW, here is an article by Roger Russell, former Director of Research of McIntosh Labs... You know, every audio-heads favorite gear!

Speaker Wire

I hope you give that a read and perhaps save yourself some money in the process.

 

[j_garcia]

I would love to shotgun some MIT cables. 00 Buck should do nicely I would guess they stopped support because they knew all along it was fluff.

I borrowed some MITs from a friend. I found that they did color the sound. They did not improve the sound, they changed it, and their claim is that this was better. To my ears it was not an improvement.

 

[BFL]

If you've the coin to drop on Kimber, go for it. They at least don't pretend that their cables massage the electrons. Our fearless leader, Gene, is a Kimber fan and admits that they are more jewelry than anything else. He has done measurements of them compared to Belden and 1 or 2 other, IIRC.

The thing is, Cables are just a conductor and DO NOT change the sound unless it is flawed somehow. If you want to believe that, cool... But that is on you.

FWIW, here is an article by Roger Russell, former Director of Research of McIntosh Labs... You know, every audio-heads favorite gear!

Speaker Wire

I hope you give that a read and perhaps save yourself some money in the process.

thanks for the link, i will give it a read. If i make the switch, it doesn't have to be Kimber, however i do like the point Gene made that the multi strand copper has less resistance than a single core wire. All my surrounds were connected via Monoprice 12awg and sound ok. Just want something a little better for the front stage if i choose not to keep what i have.

 

[j_garcia]

Define "better", better what? Of all the things in the system, speaker wire has the absolute least influence on the sound. Throwing money at speaker wires will net you effectively no gain as long as the AWG is sufficient for the load. This is detailed in the Roger Russel link.

 

[BFL]

Define "better". Of all the things in the system, speaker wire has the absolute least influence on the sound. Throwing money at speaker wires will net you effectively no gain as long as the AWG is sufficient for the load. This is detailed in the Roger Russel link.

im thinking it may be less distance than my rears, however they will be driven harder and are a much more in depth speaker needing a more refined cable or perhaps just a thicker such as 10awg. Not saying it will make a difference, but i also don't want to see the wire i choose being the weakest link either.

 

[BFL]

Also, forgot to ask if there is any data if spades are any better than banana plugs?

 

[j_garcia]

Read the link on wire awg vs. performance, it will shed a lot of light on what you are asking. 10 awg won't perform better than 12 because once you've achieved the ability to meet the signal demand, then adding more wire does not help. Sort of like a water through a hose, if you get a bigger hose but have the same amount of water at the same pressure to deliver, it won't make any difference.

Connectors also don't meaningfully impact the sound so choose the type that works best for your needs. I use locking bananas on the amp side and BFA style on the speaker side.

 

[ryanosaur]

thanks for the link, i will give it a read. If i make the switch, it doesn't have to be Kimber, however i do like the point Gene made that the multi strand copper has less resistance than a single core wire. All my surrounds were connected via Monoprice 12awg and sound ok. Just want something a little better for the front stage if i choose not to keep what i have.

Belden or Canare wire. Call Blue Jeans Cable to get them if you just want certain lengths, terminated.

They'll even make you cables to Bi-Wire with.

FWIW, I'm using Monoprice Choice 12AWG for me system. Works great.

If you find the video Gene did of the Kimber and other cables... I think it was Belden 10AWG he was testing and it came out as clean as you could hope without dropping $$$ per foot of cable, only $ per foot.

 

[j_garcia]

I used to buy raw Canare 4S11 from Bluejeans and terminate them myself, now I just buy them terminated from them in the lengths that I need.

 

[mtrycrafts]

thanks for the link, i will give it a read. If i make the switch, it doesn't have to be Kimber, however i do like the point Gene made that the multi strand copper has less resistance than a single core wire. All my surrounds were connected via Monoprice 12awg and sound ok. Just want something a little better for the front stage if i choose not to keep what i have.

If the surface area of all the multi thread cable is the same as a solid conductor how can resistance be different?
Cables designated as 12 ga may not have the same area as other 12ga cable, hence resistance difference.
Small difference is meaningless.

 

[BFL]

If the surface area of all the multi thread cable is the same as a solid conductor how can resistance be different?
Cables designated as 12 ga may not have the same area as other 12ga cable, hence resistance difference.
Small difference is meaningless.

I was going by Gene's video. Also he noted some of the cables showed a lot more resistance in the upper freq range.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I was going by Gene's video. Also he noted some of the cables showed a lot more resistance in the upper freq range.

That too is most likely immaterial as human hearing up there is less sensitive to changes. Called JND (just noticeable difference).
And some may not even hear highs at all. And, just because we can measure difference doesn't mean it will be audible.
Perceptual coding depends on such known phenomenon.

 

[BFL]

What about the claim that some speaker cables say that their cable is full range and some don't say at all?

 

[j_garcia]

What about the claim that some speaker cables say that their cable is full range and some don't say at all?

The cable has no opinion one way or another about what the humans claim. There is no need to claim a wire is "full range" because there is no controlling that unless the wire is wrong for the application.

 

[Verdinut]

For a couple decades i have been using my MIT Shotgun 3 biwire speaker cables on non biwire speakers. Finally have a pair of Biwire speakers coming in and i am looking at my cables and the wording has disappeared off the cables where they hook up to the speakers so now i dont know which is the High and which is the Low side...Anybody familiar with these cables know which is which? Apparently MIT quit support on these in 2019.

Any wire can carry the full audio frequency spectrum. So make sure you connect them by observing their polarity. By the way, bi-wiring is a waste of time and money, and is based on marketing bullshit. It's profitable for cable manufacturers and resellers.