BI-WIRE/AMP NEWBIE

[admin_exported]

Recently purchased the following, exposure 2010s amp + cd, rega P3/24 with exact cartridge, creek obh-15 and neat motive 2s. So far I am using regular chord carnival silverscreen speaker cable, after reading a lot about bi-wire/amping my first question would be is bi-wiring a real step forward? and if so do i need to use specific "bi-wire" cable or can i just by another pair of regular cables?

I intend to eventually bi-amp when i see a reasonable 2010s power amp, would i need more cable for this or would 4 lengths be enough? Apologies if this is a simple question but i'm just starting out so please be gentle!

 

[Anonymous]

Whether to bi-wire or just buy single lengths of better (i.e. more expensive) speaker cable and single wire is one of those debates like whether you should warm the pot or not or put the milk in before the tea or not.

What I would say is that if your speakers are designed for bi-wiring then it's likely the nasty brass jumpers across the speaker terminals won't do anything good for the sound, and that the manufacturer of the speaker clearly intended the speakers to be bi-wired. Case in point: my recently acquired ProAc Studio 140s retail at around 1500 quid and came with jumpers that probably cost 99p a set. Your local hifi shoppe can make up jumper cables in decent speaker cable as a stop-gap, but if you're planning on bi-amping eventually I'd bite the bullet and bi-wire from the get-go.

To bi-wire you do this.

Run one dual-channel cable (or one pair of single channel cables) to the bass and a separate cable or pair of cables to the treble terminals on the back of each speaker.

If your amp has dual speaker terminals (like my Cyrus amps do) then plug each cable end into the appropriate left and right channel outlets. On the Cyrus, the two outlets per channel configuration has one pair (+ and -) above the other, so it's easy to use the top pair for the treble and the bottom pair for bass. If you only have single outlets, then you'll need to terminate the amplifier ends of the speaker cables into shared banana plugs or use piggy-back type banana plugs (where one plug goes directly into the amp and the second plug goes into the back of the first). Remember to keep everything properly in phase, with all the +'s and -'s correctly connected. Also, make sure you have left and right channels properly connected. I find bands of electrical insulation tape wrapped round the outer sheath(s) of the cables useful in this respect. Tape each end to identify unique speaker cables in a code (one band, two bands, etc.) of your choice.

When you bi-amp, it depends on whether you're bi-amping in stereo or dual mono.

In stereo, you simply take both the bass channels and hook those up to the appropriate left / right and + / - outlets on one amp, and the trebles channels to the other amp.

In dual mono (if your amps are mono or will work in mono mode with the flick of a switch like mine do), connect all of the cables for the left speaker to one amp, and all of the cables for the right speaker to the other.

Linkey with some nice diagrams:

http://www.cyrusaudio.com/prd_downloads/CyrusxpFigures.pdf