Is bi-wiring worth the bother?

[swee'pea99]

I know there are some proper hifi bods around, so I thought I'd ask here, in the hopes of some sensible answers, rather than on a hifi forum, where I'd doubtless be subject to the disdain of the high priests.

Looking to get some new (ebay) speakers - £1000ish new, maybe £400 ebay, give or take - and all the reviews for candidates constantly result in people going on about bi-wiring, which I've read elsewhere is geek territory, and really not worth the hassle (along with £100/metre speaker cable and the like). I'm not a hifi geek, but I do want my music as good as possible, so...is it something I should be investigating, or should I leave it to the geeks and concentrate on the music?

(PS The rest of the kit is middling - rega/arcam...good but nothing sexy.)

 

[cisamcgu]

I have never done bi-wring, but since the pegs on the speaker are joined normally with a big piece of brass, I cannot imagine it makes any difference

 

[Profpointy]

Simply answer is "no" it makes no difference - not unless the laws of physics are wrong - and we don't see many hi fi engineers getting that phone call from Stokholm

Slight caveat - providing the single wire is not so thin that doubling it up is actually nececessary - unlikely if you're using anything remotely sensible for wire - any sensible multi stand copper wire a few mm thick would be fine ( QED79 is a mainstream hi-fi brand that's not especially dear, I'd not pay more than that)

 

[raleighnut]

I wouldn't bother bi-wiring, bi-amping yes but that's a whole different ball game.

 

[Drago]

Don't bother.

 

[Profpointy]

I have never done bi-wring, but since the pegs on the speaker are joined normally with a big piece of brass, I cannot imagine it makes any difference

I think the idea is you remove the piece of brass. The notion is that joining the wires at the amp rather than at the speaker is somehow different - which is still silly of course.

 

[si_c]

Don't bother, you end up with waaaaay too many cables hanging around (DAMHIKT), if you're using good quality speaker cable, just cut a touch off the end of one and use it to replace the brass connectors.

 

[Vapin' Joe]

[QUOTE 5217531, member: 259"]It's made a huge difference to our sound. Having wires going to both speakers means you get noise coming out of both of them instead of just the left one.[/QUOTE]
I'd find that distracting.

 

[Bollo]

I've no skin in the game as my encroaching tinnitus is enough to drown out any sonic subtleties, but this article seems to try and apply some science to bi-wiring. It might not be right or impartial (and solid-state physics was never my strongest) but at least it's something to argue around...

https://www.qacoustics.co.uk/blog/2016/06/08/bi-wiring-speakers-exploration-benefits/

 

[slowmotion]

Simply answer is "no" it makes no difference - not unless the laws of physics are wrong - and we don't see many hi fi engineers getting that phone call from Stokholm

Slight caveat - providing the single wire is not so thin that doubling it up is actually nececessary - unlikely if you're using anything remotely sensible for wire - any sensible multi stand copper wire a few mm thick would be fine ( QED79 is a mainstream hi-fi brand that's not especially dear, I'd not pay more than that)

I'd go for an Oxygen Free Copper cable of at least 2.5mm2, and one with lots of strands. Mine are 322/0.1mm and it cost less than £1.50 a metre. The benefits of paying much more than that are probably psychosomatic due to having an empty wallet and pride.
I don't think that bi-wiring can do much harm at the cost of a few quid, and it might possibly do some good due to doubling the conductor cross sectional area. Maybe.

 

[Profpointy]

I've no skin in the game as my encroaching tinnitus is enough to drown out any sonic subtleties, but this article seems to try and apply some science to bi-wiring. It might not be right or impartial (and solid-state physics was never my strongest) but at least it's something to argue around...

https://www.qacoustics.co.uk/blog/2016/06/08/bi-wiring-speakers-exploration-benefits/

Mmm, whilst it's not exactly my field it does appear they've merely demonstrated what the crossover unit does.... maybe ?

 

[raleighnut]

I've no skin in the game as my encroaching tinnitus is enough to drown out any sonic subtleties, but this article seems to try and apply some science to bi-wiring. It might not be right or impartial (and solid-state physics was never my strongest) but at least it's something to argue around...

https://www.qacoustics.co.uk/blog/2016/06/08/bi-wiring-speakers-exploration-benefits/

Mmm, whilst it's not exactly my field it does appear they've merely demonstrated what the crossover unit does.... maybe ?

Yep he starts off from a false statement in that 4 terminals are fitted to allow bi-wiring, they're not, they're fitted so that multiple amplifiers can be used (either 2 stereo or 4 mono amps) whether 'active' using an adjustable crossover before the amp or 'passive' using the speakers internal crossover in order to reduce the load demanded on them by the speakers.

The main function of the passive crossover inside the speaker is to protect the different sized speakers trying to reproduce the 'wrong' frequencies (ones they were not designed to handle) and overheating as a result (normally pretty terminal for the voicecoil) as well as reducing the distortion caused by them trying to reproduce a frequency out of their design range.

 

[Fnaar]

Hmm ... not sure, though I'm bi-curious now

 

[DCBassman]

Fancy speaker cables are beyond debating. Pure snake oil. So long as there's enough cross-sectional area to handle all the current you need, job done. Unless you're handling many hundreds of watts, and I'm thinking 750+ Watts RMS, any decent two core mains cable will do.

 

[Drago]

But they bring forward the soundstage and highlight the clarity!