|   how much does biwiring speakers improve quality? | eMmanuil
Sep 14, 2001 8:22 AM | | I have PSB Century 800s with Marantz PM68 integrated amp. I was thinking about biwiring the speakers. Should this noticibly improve my sound quality, or it does not really make a difference unless you have very nice speakers?
thanks |
| If it does make a difference then it is extremely subtle | Azuth
Sep 14, 2001 8:47 AM | | Some say they hear a difference, others don't. I don't think the question is how much it will improve the quality, but if it will improve the quality at all. |
| It can make a huge difference. | Dick Hertz
Sep 14, 2001 9:52 AM | | To the pocketbooks of the guys who sell speaker wire. |
| It can make a huge difference. | bobby
Sep 14, 2001 12:29 PM | | Concurred! |
| re: how much does biwiring speakers improve quality? | tonearm
Sep 14, 2001 5:09 PM | | If you are using a basic inexpensive speaker wire it won't cost you much to find out. With the 800's it will give a slight improvement in the bass response, and a slightly smoother high frequency. If you don't care to venture that far, I'll recommend that you remove the coupling bars between the post, and replace them with copper wire. Those plated bars sound bad. The copper wire will make the tweeter a little smoother sounding. You don't have to spend a fortune to improve the sound. I doubt a salesman will make a huge commission off may a $20 sale (20' of 12 ga. @ $1 per ft.) That's assuming you need 10 feet a side. Better yet, go to Home Depot and get it there, and no one will make a commission. If you try either of these wiring suggestions, post the results, and give your opinion. |
| re: how much does biwiring speakers improve quality? | FLZapped
Sep 15, 2001 7:07 AM | | I haven't seen any hard evidence that it actually does beyond the usual personal reports.
Some even label it as "buy-wire"....
-Bruce |
| It's easy to test | Norm Strong
Sep 15, 2001 11:18 AM | | Bi-wire both speakers. You can now change this from bi-wiring to mono-wiring by simply installing the shorting link that came with the speakers. If you're using banana plugs to connect to the speakers the whole operation is duck soup. You can connect or disconnect the shorting links without even disturbing the wires.
Have someone else flip a coin to determine whether you're listening to bi-wire or mono-wire. Have that person leave the room and you can decide by listening yourself if there's a difference. You should do this at least 10 times, and don't peek at the results until the entire test has been run.
Of course I can save you lots of time and effort, since I've done this on 3 occasions. There is no detectable difference until the wires get very long and very skinny. In every one of the 3 tests, the owner of the speakers was a participant, and he could not tell the difference either. |
| Less than you might think. | Hyades
Sep 15, 2001 1:11 PM | | I had pooh-poohed the idea for years, actually. After all, what's the difference whether you jumper the binding posts with an inch of copper strip, or 10 feet of speaker wire? You're still just jumpering the binding posts.
But out of curiosity, I did try it, and noticed the bass was a little more taut and defined than it was. Please note that I'm not saying "Wow, it opened up a whole new dimension in soundstaging!" or anything... I'm just saying that it did tighten up the bass a little bit. Whether or not it's worth the expense to you, is your decision. It's probably better to just make one run of GOOD cable than multiple runs of lesser stuff. |
| re: how much does biwiring speakers improve quality? | Skier
Sep 16, 2001 8:23 PM | | I didn't know all that much about bi-wiring speakers until I purchased a new 5.1 system. All B&W stuff. Anyway, I hooked it up..sounded pretty good with straight music...speakers bi-wired. BUT I kept losing dialogue with movies...had to turn my amp up +10 on the center channel just to get BARELY acceptable sound. I pissed around with any and all settings I could for months. Then tonight, I checked my cabling job out. Turns out I didn't BI-WIRE my center channel. Bi-wired it up, and now it is perfect, and I turned my center channel amp setting DOWN to +1. So....while I don't know if the sound is any better from all speakers in general....I did find a HUGE difference in setting the center up BI-WIRED. Hope that helps you out. |
| Hold on there | GCM
Sep 17, 2001 10:55 AM | | Biwiring CANNOT produce a 9db increase in volume. If that's what you experienced, something else was going on, but biwirng wasn't it. |
| Hold on there | Skier
Sep 18, 2001 5:18 PM | | I know....it shouldn't have made any difference....but somehow it looks as though it may have. I am not a stereo buff, and really would like to understand what the hell the deal with this is. I may put it back to non bi-wired...just to see if it screws up again. When I checked the connections they were all ok...clean. If I get to it I will let you know. It does sound crazy...doesn't it?! We will see when I flip it back and test. Later... |
| Hold on there | eynlai
Dec 3, 2001 3:01 PM | | I think I may have a answer to your puzzle. I noticed that you wrote that your main front speakers were bi-wired, and that your center speaker was not bi-wired and it sounded terrible... Hint.. Hint... Sounds like you had uneven loads for the front, or technically, uneven impedences. |
| A third possibility | GCM
Sep 17, 2001 10:57 AM | | "Should this noticibly improve my sound quality, or it does not really make a difference unless you have very nice speakers? "
Since it's the same circuit electrically, the third possible answer is that there will be no difference. |
| Not much | Gsson
Sep 18, 2001 3:29 AM | | I´m currently using biwiring and dont think it is a big diffrence.
I use 2x5m of EKK 5G2,5mm2 3-phase highcurrent wire, which i got for free from a friend (he's an electrician).
It is 1 cm in diameter and contains 5 wires.
Street price about $17.
My advice to you is:
Buy a 50-foot extension cord for $4.83 at walmart and biwire with that.
It is made of good quality cupper and should be adequate to evalute the diffrence with biwire |
| |
