here you go 'nut'

it's just a paragraph at the end of the article.


http://www.stereotimes.com/speak051600.shtm

Regarding bi-wiring and bi-amping: I couldn't disagree more. There are great benefits to each of these techniques. I absolutely know for a fact that my speakers (B&W Nautilus 802's) sound more open and extended now that I bi-wired them. You must use seperate legs for this - that is, a seperate plus and minus wire for each upper and lower half. Remember that means 4 seperate wires for each speaker - 8 seperate wires for the speaker pair. For a scientific reason that this is so, check out the Vandersteen speaker website. Richard says it far better than can I. When I called the Outlaws for information on their sub-woofer, the representative told me that the woofer not only makes low sounds, but frees the amps for the mids and highs, therefore making them sound better. This is the basis for bi-amping. It can be prohibitavely expensive, and may not not be worth it for mid-fi, however, there is an increase in quality with its use. I have 2 systems - a high end stereo system, and a totally different one for 5.1 video. They both benefit from many tweeks such as better power cords, anti-resonance devices, better wall plugs, seperate and dedicated power lines, room treatment, on infinitum. With the judicial application of each of these, there can be a step closer to Nirvana.

Partly new and partly word for word from another post I made today:

Most of us are in the habit of not attacking one another, just sharing ideas and experiences, sometimes passionately, sometimes not reaching the same conclusions – but even Outlaws can show respect and often a smile!

My training and experience leads me to somewhat disagree with Stringreen. But I do realize that he and I work with a different set-up in a different environment. Improvement generally comes from two areas: finding a better way of doing something; overcoming problems or limitations. The combination of system/environment variables that Stringreen has may have been noticeably helped by bi-wiring, whereas my system was not. Similarly for changing power cords and other tweaks I find dubious, but I'll try to stay on topic.

Sites for more reading:

The Cobalt Cables web site does not advocate bi-wiring apart from bi-amplification (second half of page): http://www.cobaltcable.com/which/speaker_connections.htm Yet other cable manufacturers that sell bi-wire products do advocate bi-wiring (at increased cost).

Some pros and cons of bi-wiring, mildly technical: http://www.sonicdesign.se/biwire.html After reviewing this information, as I see it, as the lower the resistance/reactance of the speaker wire, both the damping problems and the phase shift problems are minimized, therefore a low resistance, low reactance cable helps whether you bi-wire or not, and both the pros and cons for bi-wiring reach a point of no return as the cable becomes less of an issue. Maintaining damping and signal coherence at the actual drivers is an issue, starting with excellent amplifier damping, preserved as the signal passes through a cable with very low resistance/reactance, and avoiding as much reactance/resistance as possible in the passive crossover, or eliminating the passive crossover altogether.

While the active crossover method introduces a level of complexity and significantly increased expense for both an active crossover network and more channels of amplification, if the active crossover provides the frequency dividing, response shaping and time alignment needed by a particular arrangement of drivers, the direct connection of an amplifier output to each driver provides both better accuracy and power transfer than passive crossover components allow when they are between amplifier and driver.

Most of us are at the other end of the spectrum with a single channel of amplification per loudspeaker and two-way or three-way passive crossovers in our speaker enclosures. Our exposure to active crossover application is limited to the pre/pro or receiver that separates and provides a mono or stereo signal for subwoofers.

My loudspeakers are three-way and have two sets of binding posts, one for lows and one for mids/highs. I have experimented with bi-wiring and split feed (no active crossover) bi-amplification and found no marked improvement over the usual common feed method. In my opinion finding little or no audible change was a testament to three, possibly four factors: the Outlaw amplification is of very high quality such that it drives a full range load just fine, splitting the frequency loads above 80Hz (the subwoofer crossover point set in the pre/pro) was not an aid to amplifier performance; the speaker wire in use introduced no problems that were helped by carrying certain ranges of frequencies separately; the passive crossover components were still between the amplifier and drivers; the rest of the variables present, there are plenty from source material to listening environment, were such that they overshadowed any differences.

As mentioned elsewhere in this forum, “Your results may vary.”

Bi-Amping, particularly in cases were the internal passive crossover can be bypassed and a correct active crossover substituted, makes good sense. Most of the rest is varying degrees of snake oil.

Power cords? Why buy equipment from a company who's not competent to design something as simple as a power cord?

BestBang said it better than I.

i think this topic has been exhausted more than any other. we have concluded that active bi-amping is worthwhile, and bi-wiring is not. everyone should know the lower resistance the better for any wire, unless some desired specific resistance is desired such as in a resistor...

the idea is to get the sound as quickly from the media to your speakers as possible.