bi wiring and speaker cable

[Al ears]

The biwiring debate has been going on for almost as long as I've been alive and longer than many of the posters to this forum have been alive! There has never been any scientific justification for biwiring and doubt that there ever will be.

Chris, it might not be 'scientific' to you, but there is surely a certain logic to using one cable for the tweeter's signal and another for the woofer (in a 2-way). It has certainly waned in popularity, but to me it is a similar logic to the bi-amping approach.

I do suspect the benefits are system dependent, in that some will clearly be better and others won't. As ever, why not just listen and decide rather than hold phoilosophical positions?

Hi

If you read my other posts you will see I'm all in favour of listening and deciding. What I'm not in favour of is attaching some unproven justification for it, especially when companies use it as an argument for you buying their products.

I also agree that there is some logic for biwiring. It is completely possible that some cables could convey higher frequency signals "better" than low frequency signals and ditto the other way round. It's certainly true at very high frequencies but at audio frequencies I very much doubt there is any such effect (or if there is that it is detectable by the human ear) but I'd look at evidence if it were presented to me. I remember trying biwiring in the 1970s and I could not detect any difference then when my hearing was brilliant but if you can then I'm all in favour of you doing it!

Chris

It is interesting to see that the Chord Company is no longer making biwire specific cables.

Having had lengthy discussions in the past with many BT Engineers and loss of signal quality over miles of the thin cable they employed led me to decide much of what is spouted about speaker cables in general is predominantly buhl-sheet!

 

[Anonymous]

I have tried this and IMHO they are as good as very expensive so called high end ones

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VAN-DAMME-HIFI-SERIES-STUDIO-GRADE-SPEAKER-CABLE-2-5mm-/180665380494?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item2a107eee8e

:rofl:

 

[Al ears]

I have tried this and IMHO they are as good as very expensive so called high end ones

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VAN-DAMME-HIFI-SERIES-STUDIO-GRADE-SPEAKER-CABLE-2-5mm-/180665380494?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item2a107eee8e

:rofl:

He is, however, perfectly entitled to have an opinion.

... Epic's eh?

 

[Anonymous]

The biwiring debate has been going on for almost as long as I've been alive and longer than many of the posters to this forum have been alive! There has never been any scientific justification for biwiring and doubt that there ever will be.

Chris, it might not be 'scientific' to you, but there is surely a certain logic to using one cable for the tweeter's signal and another for the woofer (in a 2-way). It has certainly waned in popularity, but to me it is a similar logic to the bi-amping approach.

I do suspect the benefits are system dependent, in that some will clearly be better and others won't. As ever, why not just listen and decide rather than hold phoilosophical positions?

I think if you understand how passive crossovers work then there isn't really any logic in that at all...

 

[matt78]

musicraft,

in reply to your questions. well i will answer them but i found out today one of my tweaters no longer works, hence why i thought my music wasnt right. i am going out next sat to audition moniter audio bx6,rx6 and bx5's also B&W 685's.

right back to your questions well, performance wise it WAs good at volumes from say 11 o clock to about 3 o clock, load and good quality, it lacked quality from no sound to 9. i listen to alot of music at night when mrs at work and my son is in bed. so i do want good sound quality at low volumes but also the power to crank it when necessary. i have had numeriuos house parties with my set up playing at 3/4 volume for 6 to 8 hours and its never cut out or distorted.

i listen to all sorts, drum and bass, house, techno, bands heavy and chilled. pretty much everything but classical. my has a phone stage, headfone input etc. my amp has all the features i want in a amp.

 

[Anonymous]

I have tried this and IMHO they are as good as very expensive so called high end ones

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VAN-DAMME-HIFI-SERIES-STUDIO-GRADE-SPEAKER-CABLE-2-5mm-/180665380494?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item2a107eee8e

:rofl:

He is, however, perfectly entitled to have an opinion.

... Epic's eh?

indeed he is.. :rofl:

I've Just upgraded to the Epic's and lovin them.

 

[Anonymous]

The objective view is that speaker cables of the same resistance can't possibly sound any different - particularly 'bright' or 'warm'. This is an internet old wives tale.

It has nothing to do with the internet, that's for sure. I was listening to different cables before computers were even made for the home, let alone the creation of the internet.

Resistance is probably the least relevant factor too, though if you are fortunate to hear no differences then you just saved yourself lots of money!

Mr Piano,

One of the advantages of the internet is that there is a wealth of basic 'how to' guides to circuit analysis available. If you were to work through the maths, you would find that for the audio range (up to 20KHz), capacitive and inductive effects of speaker cable are negligable in comaprison to the effects of cable resistance.

 

[Inter_Voice]

Though our ears can hardly hear 20KHz, when playing back CDs there are 2nd and 3rd harmonics etc present.

 

[andyjm]

Though our ears can hardly hear 20KHz, when playing back CDs there are 2nd and 3rd harmonics etc present.

There is nothing in the output of a CD player above 20KHz, for various reasons associated with the sampling process, the output of a CD player has to be band-limited. So there are no harmonics above 20KHz present.

Interestingly, this one of the few areas where vinyl outperforms a CD. LPs can reproduce signals way above 20KHz, though most recording processes limit this.

Either way, it doesn't matter. No one on this forum can hear above 20KHz (unless we have some pre-school participants), Most of us would be lucky to hear up to 15KHz.

Any harmonic component above our ear's ability to respond is pointless worrying about - because our ears can't respond to it. It is as if the content is not present. So when worrying about speaker cable performance, 20Hz to 20KHz is the band to consider.

 

[Inter_Voice]

Here is an interesting article about amplifier that handles frequencies well above our normal hearing range of 20KHz. That is why a lot of high end amplifiers have very flat freq. response up to 100 KHz. For example Leema Tucana II has a FR range of up to 80KHz.

http://recordinghacks.com/articles/the-world-beyond-20khz/

 

[Covenanter]

Here is an interesting article about amplifier that handles frequencies well above our normal hearing range of 20KHz. That is why a lot of high end amplifiers have very flat freq. response up to 100 KHz. For example Leema Tucana II has a FR range of up to 80KHz.

http://recordinghacks.com/articles/the-world-beyond-20khz/

"The human hearing system uses waveform as well as frequency to analyze signals. It is important to maintain accurate waveform up to the highest frequency region with accurate reproduction of details down to 5µs to 10µs. The accuracy of low frequency details is equally important. We find many low frequency sounds such as drums take on a remarkable strength and emotional impact when waveform is exactly reproduced."

It is interesting but this looks like more mumbo jumbo I'm afraid. The words sound impressive but don't really mean anything. For example what is "waveform"?

Shannon (and others) said pretty much everything that there is to be said about signal analysis just after WWII and indeed it is his "Sampling Theorem" that underpins all of our modern digital communications systems. (When I was at uni for my first degree I could prove the theorem from first principles but not now sadly.) Basically what it says is that, if you sample a signal at twice the highest frequency it contains, the original signal can be completely reconstructed from the samples (actually just by low-pass filtering). When the CD standard was set the highest frequency considered was 20KHz but for technical reasons the sampling rate used is 44.1KHz not the 40KHz the theorem demands. These are useful links for those who are interested in the science:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_rate

Chris

PS My old ears struggle at 12KHz! Don't laugh it's coming your way too. :rofl:

 

[Inter_Voice]

PS My old ears struggle at 12KHz! Don't laugh it's coming your way too. :rofl:

Well, mine is worse than yours, it's less than 10 KHz :doh:

 

[Covenanter]

My doctor tells me it is quite normal. What I dread is tinnitus which my mother had and my sister has.

Chris

 

[Inter_Voice]

You are more lucky than me, now I am suffering from minor tinnitus and the doctor said it cannot be cured I can hear mosquitoes :shifty: .

 

[Anonymous]

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

[Covenanter]

You have my sympathy. I hope it doesn't mar your listening pleasure.

I wonder if the young guys who listen to their music at high volume levels realise that if they prolong this exposure they may be making themselves vulnerable to noise induced hearing loss.

Chris

 

[Al ears]

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Now where have I heard that before?

Oh, aye and lick road clean wit' tongue; while your at it!