Bi-wiring - A or A+B

[RedneckHunter]

I have a Sony STR-DE897/s Hooked up to a pair of JBL E60's(mains). I am currently bi-wiring the mains and was wondering, would it be better to utilize the A/B switch instead of just the A? Is there a "power" gain/loss when utilizing this approach? Currently I just have the speakers cable "doubled up" on the A terminals. If the Receiver is 100w per channel, wouldn't it be only 50w when running in A/B?

 

[Nick250]

I have a Sony STR-DE897/s Hooked up to a pair of JBL E60's(mains). I am currently bi-wiring the mains and was wondering, would it be better to utilize the A/B switch instead of just the A? Is there a "power" gain/loss when utilizing this approach? Currently I just have the speakers cable "doubled up" on the A terminals. If the Receiver is 100w per channel, wouldn't it be only 50w when running in A/B?

The answer to your question is probably not the one you are expecting, but here goes. Bi wiring accomplishes nothing, nadda, zip, zilch. Just one of those snake oil things. Wire your speakers the old fashioned way and you are good to go.

 

[jaxvon]

Well, it does do SOMETHING. By using two pieces of cable, you lower the resistance going to your speakers. However, because you're using two cables (probably not kept in a specefic geometry), you're going to be altering the the capacitance and inductance as well. Still, you shouldn't need to use two cables for one speaker, a single 2 conductor 10ga cable should be plenty for any speaker at a reasonable distance from the amplifier. As long as you are using a proper guage of cable (minimum 14, preferably 12 or 10) without rediculous capcitance and inductance, you should be fine.

Like Nick said, you're not going to hear a difference so it's not even worth your time.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I have a Sony STR-DE897/s Hooked up to a pair of JBL E60's(mains). I am currently bi-wiring the mains and was wondering, would it be better to utilize the A/B switch instead of just the A? Is there a "power" gain/loss when utilizing this approach? Currently I just have the speakers cable "doubled up" on the A terminals. If the Receiver is 100w per channel, wouldn't it be only 50w when running in A/B?

If you want to bi-wire, you need to do what you are now doing, run it from the A terminal. If you split it up, you are also altering the speakers impedance that the amp sees, bad idea.

 

[Leprkon]

If you want to bi-wire, you need to do what you are now doing, run it from the A terminal. If you split it up, you are also altering the speakers impedance that the amp sees, bad idea.

the Yamaha RX-V2500 manual tells you to use A+B for bi-wiring.

 

[RedneckHunter]

I did some digging and found that If I use the A&B Switch, I can only run in 2 channel mode, no surrounds or sub.

 

[MDS]

I did some digging and found that If I use the A&B Switch, I can only run in 2 channel mode, no surrounds or sub.

That's because the A & B terminals are wired in parallel. In the old days, they would just caution you about the halving of impedance you will get when running A&B and advise you to only use 16 ohm speakers. That advice obviously falls on deaf ears (and who has ever seen a 16 ohm speaker?). So, now they just make the receiver fall back to 2 channels when both sets of speakers are active. My Onkyo does the exact same thing.