do you Bi-Wire? read this !

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  • Eliav
    Senior Member
    • Jul 2005
    • 484

    do you Bi-Wire? read this !

    I came across this technical article from Sweden, (http://www.sonicdesign.se/biwire.html).
    seems like there is a significant disadvantage in bi wiring speakers, mainly by creation of an artificial imaging that sounds good at first, yet is basically a representation of lack of signal synchronization with the speakers drivers.
    Since B&W did create the option for bi wiring, did they address this issue by using a "smart" crossover to eliminate the problem mentioned ?
    Any comments on this article ?
    Thanks
    :T Socrat
  • wettou
    Ultra Senior Member
    • May 2006
    • 3389

    #2
    Originally posted by Eliav
    I came across this technical article from Sweden, (http://www.sonicdesign.se/biwire.html).
    seems like there is a significant disadvantage in bi wiring speakers, mainly by creation of an artificial imaging that sounds good at first, yet is basically a representation of lack of signal synchronization with the speakers drivers.
    Since B&W did create the option for bi wiring, did they address this issue by using a "smart" crossover to eliminate the problem mentioned ?
    Any comments on this article ?
    Thanks
    BI-WIRE, NOT ONLY AN ADVANTAGE
    A popular method to connect an amplifier to a loudspeaker is to use something called bi-wiring. The technical idea behind this special way to connect has not reached the public in other words than "better definition in the mid range", "the bass will be faster" and "the treble more in focus" or similar nonsense. The problems and faults that arise have not been mentioned, of course.


    THE ADVANTAGES FIRST
    The idea with biwiring is to connect the amplifier to the filter halves separately to prevent intermodulation, generated by one driver, to influence the other driver.

    If you look at the damping factor that reduces the unwanted signals however you will find that they differ very little with or without cables (with 5 or 0 metre long cables for example). When using a tube amplifier, the cables in practice have no influence at all to damp the signals from one side of the filter to the other, because the damping factor is too low already in the power amp. The signal will slip through anyway to the other driver, despite the cables.

    Apart from that, a well-designed crossover filter will provide a certain protection against "leaking" intermodulation since each half of the filter (in a two-way system) will damp each half of the frequency range.



    Picture 1: From this graph you can se what damping factor and real damping you get with different cable lengths and different cables (2.5mm2) and different amplifiers. With a good transistor amp the damping will be decreased about 4 dB with a 5-metre long cable. With a good tube amp, the damping will lose about 2 dB (the original damping with the tube amp was about 14 dB less however).

    Picture 2: These two curves show the cross talk from the woofer to the tweeter. Bi-wire for the lower curve.

    Picture 3: The diagram for the simulation. The two components at the far left simulate the woofer resistance and inductance. The two next is the lowpass filter for the woofer. Of the next six components, the horizontal represents the two cables and the vertical represents the output impedance of the amplifier. The broken line converts from bi-wire to single wire. Therefrom come two components representing the high pass filter to the tweeter and five components representing the tweeter.



    Another point using double cables is the ability to choose separate cables that are especially suitable for each half of the frequency range. On the other hand, there are cables made along these lines without being double. (Monster, Isoda, MIT, and others) even if they do not work as the manufacturers claim, they have this in common, that for each frequency range, or level, they have different strand (different materials, areas, winding techniques and such) that are parallel connected. If you assume that the signal always takes the easiest path, the right strand will be chosen automatically.



    AN ALTERNATIVE METHOD
    You do not have to use separate cables to each driver, but may connect two or more cables in parallel if you think they have good qualities in different parts of the frequency spectrum and therefore may supplement each other. By that, it is not certain that you always can make such summing. If you think that it is possible to add a capacitor (that conducts at high frequencies) and a coil (that conducts at low frequencies) and get a circuit that conducts at all frequencies, you will be surprised when nothing gets through (!) at a frequency where each conducted decently before the connection. Cables, however, are less reactive and may therefore be summed without greater trouble.



    THE DISADVANTAGE WITH BI-WIRE
    One thing that happens when you biwire your loudspeakers is that the input of the high- and the low-pass filters are fed with different input signals. The difference is a result of the high frequencies and the low frequencies being forced to travel different paths, perhaps through different types of cables, but under all circumstances through cables who have seen different loads (a tweeter with a high pass filter has a completely different impedance response compared to a woofer with a low pass filter!).

    What happens is that the drivers will work less good together than when their filter halves were fed with equal signals. The result is a generation of more static and stochastic phase error sounds at different directions from the loudspeaker. The stochastic phase error sounds appear because there may be different types of unlinearities in the low- and high-frequency paths.

    What does this sound like? Well, usually, just as you may expect from physics, it appears as a change in the reproduction of space and sound stage. Often, the first impression is that the "biwired" sound presents extended "dimensions", more "air", and is more "living". The impression after a week or month, however, is that all recordings sound very much alike, and the "airiness" appears on all records. It does not even sound like air anymore, instead more like a slime that pollutes every record you play. No wonder, since it is not a real, recorded quality but a "speaker characteristic" added to all reproduced material. "Sameness" is another word for it.

    Picture 4: This simulation is based on the diagram of picture 3. Here you can see that a phase difference has arisen when biwiring is used. The reason why the phase difference is largest just above the cross over frequency is that the inductance of the cable resonates with the capacitance of the high pass filter when not the inductance of the low pass filter is available in this range as when single wire is used. The most probable reason to the capricious sound of biwiring is that on top of this steady state error another, transient induced phase error between the cables will appear when playing music. This changes the radiation pattern of the speaker with the music. The human ear is very sensitive to such phenomena.


    A condesation of two articles first published in "Musik och Ljudteknik", Autumn, 1990 and No. 1, 1998, Sweden.
    Text by Ingvar Öhman. Translated by Per Arne Almeflo, Sonic Design, with permission from the author.


    Back to the Sonic Design Homepage.

    Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."Dwight D. Eisenhower

    Comment

    • Horacio
      Senior Member
      • Jan 2005
      • 142

      #3
      I do biwire, but have to admit I have not seriously evaluated the alternative. I made cheap DIY speaker cables and my 804S came with biwiring posts and flock thinking is biwiring is generally better...so I went with it.

      I would be interested in hearing from those who have experimented with the alternatives. When the time comes to spend big money on cables it will matter if single wiring is as good as biwiring, for half the price. I know Jim Thiel, one of the GREAT speaker designers, designed his speakers without the option of biwiring because he believed the benefits of a better single wire cable outperformed a biwired option for the same price (hence each cable being half as expensive). Of course his crossovers reflect this.

      As for the paper...I don't care much about them, even being an engineer myself. We can probably find papers that argue and demonstrate exactly the opposite...so what? To me all that matters is how it sounds. After that, there's nothing more practical than a good theory. It's just tough to figure out which theory is better without experimentation. OK, time to get off my soap box! ops:

      So, anybody tried the alternatives?

      Comment

      • Kal Rubinson
        Super Senior Member
        • Mar 2006
        • 2109

        #4
        Originally posted by Horacio
        I do biwire, but have to admit I have not seriously evaluated the alternative. I made cheap DIY speaker cables and my 804S came with biwiring posts and flock thinking is biwiring is generally better...so I went with it.

        I would be interested in hearing from those who have experimented with the alternatives. When the time comes to spend big money on cables it will matter if single wiring is as good as biwiring, for half the price. I know Jim Thiel, one of the GREAT speaker designers, designed his speakers without the option of biwiring because he believed the benefits of a better single wire cable outperformed a biwired option for the same price (hence each cable being half as expensive). Of course his crossovers reflect this.

        As for the paper...I don't care much about them, even being an engineer myself. We can probably find papers that argue and demonstrate exactly the opposite...so what? To me all that matters is how it sounds. After that, there's nothing more practical than a good theory. It's just tough to figure out which theory is better without experimentation. OK, time to get off my soap box! ops:

        So, anybody tried the alternatives?
        The outcome of the experiment is almost wholly dependent on the design of the simulation network. In addition, the experiment, as it stands, does not offer way to test it for audibility.
        Kal Rubinson
        _______________________________
        "Music in the Round"
        Senior Contributing Editor, Stereophile
        http://forum.stereophile.com/category/music-round

        Comment

        • Eliav
          Senior Member
          • Jul 2005
          • 484

          #5
          I absolutely agree with the concept of " let your ears be the judge". Yet, if a scientific article suggests that the bliss I am in may be a result of an acoustic artifact, and possibly a cheapest more straight-forward option exists ( single-wiring) makes me wonder. More than once I did use 'science' to please my ears ( i.e reflection points and absorption coefficients to treat my listening room, it worked wonderfully well). So, if there is someone there who had made a serious A Vs B comparison ( Bi Wire Vs Single), I would be seriously interested to hear their impression. Kal ?
          Thanks !
          :T Socrat

          Comment

          • Horacio
            Senior Member
            • Jan 2005
            • 142

            #6
            Eliav: I agree 100% with the above post.
            Kal: not really sure what your post means. Maybe you dug too deep in the meaning of "experimentation" in my post? I just meant someone who tried biwire and single wiring with the same quality of cables. That's it.

            Horacio

            Comment

            • Kal Rubinson
              Super Senior Member
              • Mar 2006
              • 2109

              #7
              Originally posted by Horacio
              Kal: not really sure what your post means. Maybe you dug too deep in the meaning of "experimentation" in my post?
              I was really responding to the previously quoted experiment, not to your specific comments.

              I just meant someone who tried biwire and single wiring with the same quality of cables. That's it.
              Horacio
              Many have. I have. I have not heard a difference but I do use bi-wiring because I have them and I can.
              Kal Rubinson
              _______________________________
              "Music in the Round"
              Senior Contributing Editor, Stereophile
              http://forum.stereophile.com/category/music-round

              Comment

              • Space
                Senior Member
                • Aug 2009
                • 118

                #8
                I have read comments by a number of very reasonable and engineering minded people, saying there's no reason bi-wiring should be better. When both wires connect back to the same place at the amp, it's the same signal and the separate wires may as well be one.

                Comment

                • wettou
                  Ultra Senior Member
                  • May 2006
                  • 3389

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Space
                  I have read comments by a number of very reasonable and engineering minded people, saying there's no reason bi-wiring should be better. When both wires connect back to the same place at the amp, it's the same signal and the separate wires may as well be one.
                  Yes Bi-Amping might be better as long as you have an active crossover
                  Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."Dwight D. Eisenhower

                  Comment

                  • beden1
                    Super Senior Member
                    • Oct 2006
                    • 1676

                    #10
                    Bi-wiring is better because I perceive it to be better! :T

                    Comment

                    • bigburner
                      Super Senior Member
                      • May 2005
                      • 2649

                      #11
                      Originally posted by beden1
                      Bi-wiring is better because I perceive it to be better! :T
                      You've just struck the motherload!

                      Comment

                      • wettou
                        Ultra Senior Member
                        • May 2006
                        • 3389

                        #12
                        Originally posted by beden1
                        Bi-wiring is better because I perceive it to be better! :T
                        Yes we all perceive different things which is why listen to music is so personal same with speaker and electronic preferences :T
                        Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."Dwight D. Eisenhower

                        Comment

                        • JesperA
                          Junior Member
                          • Jul 2009
                          • 24

                          #13
                          Ok on a related topic, if biwire can get the signal out of sync, what about bridging a stereoblock into a monoblock, will the mono output be made out of 2 streams that wasnt synced up from the start?

                          Comment

                          • BassThatHz
                            Senior Member
                            • Jul 2006
                            • 153

                            #14
                            Take a close look at the first picture in this link.
                            home theater, high fidelity, high end, amplifiers, receivers, projectors, movies, vcrs, cds, laserdiscs, stereo, surround sound, dolby digital, dts, subwoofer, speakers, reviews, video, audio, dvd, digital audio, tubes, consumer electronics, home entertainment, preamplifiers, processors, cables, TVs, AC line conditioners, velodyne, monitor audio, sunfire, paradigm, meridian, nordost, exact power, redgum, osborn, m&k, mirage, perpetual technologies, anthem, sonic frontiers, htdv, dss


                            As you can see those dually-binding posts are fused to the same output wires.
                            (Note: you typically only find those posts on 2-Ch and Monoblocks).
                            Both wires see the same signal, phase etc etc; that's a FACT.

                            The more wiring you have between your amp and speaker, the more opportunity for radio interferrence occurs, FACT.

                            So instead of having a nice short jumper, you have a jumper that's 20ft long.

                            But all of this depends on if the crossovers are coupled or not.

                            Can someone more electrically skilled than me confirm if this 800D crossover is coupled or not? (Looking at electrical stuff gives me a headache :lol: )

                            Comment

                            • dknightd
                              Senior Member
                              • Mar 2006
                              • 621

                              #15
                              In my limited experience it does not matter. Based on maths there is a small difference. Only the speaker designer knows if their speaker was designed to work "better" with biwire or single wire. It might also depend on the amp (s) used. But in practice I don't think the difference is audible. Of course, I could be wrong

                              Comment

                              • Pio
                                Senior Member
                                • Nov 2005
                                • 169

                                #16
                                I bi-wire my speakers simply to get two runs of 12AWG wire between them and the amp since the equipment is not close to the speakers. IMO, the thicker the speaker cable the better.
                                Stereo: Revel F208, Parasound JC2, JC1's, Oppo HA-1, VPI, Dynavector, Moon

                                HT: B&W 802D2, 805S, HTM4, Marantz, OPPO BDP95, Velodyne DD-12's

                                HP / secondary system: Woo Audio W2, Carver Sunfire, Kef LS50, Denon, and too many headphones to list

                                Comment

                                • style
                                  Super Senior Member
                                  • Feb 2006
                                  • 1562

                                  #17
                                  Hallo,

                                  you can found a lot of cables from this or the other "brands catalogue" with
                                  single or bi-wire version....

                                  but the very bi-wiring (bi-cabling)
                                  is a 2 copy of speakers cables in single end for a pair speaker.
                                  4 cables -> 2 speakers.

                                  you agree??

                                  thx style

                                  Comment

                                  • JustinGN
                                    Senior Member
                                    • May 2009
                                    • 105

                                    #18
                                    I actually bi-amp my fronts and bi-wire my rears and center, and have noticed a definite improvement in sound on the fronts and a slight clarity on the rears. The center still needs adjustment, but I think it was an overall worthy investment this time around.

                                    Comment

                                    • JargonGR
                                      Member
                                      • Feb 2009
                                      • 95

                                      #19
                                      I am bi-wiring my 800Ds simply because my Electrocompaniet NEMO monoblocks have 4 binding posts each and being very close to the speakers I only needed 60-70cm cables for each connection.

                                      I have not done any AB testing though but I do it because I can.


                                      For my center speaker the HTM1D I use a Bryston 14BSST and bi-amp it. The reason I do it is because I see no reason of leaving one of the 600 Watts channel of the Bryston stay unused.

                                      For my surrounds (4X 803Ds) I use simple single wiring.

                                      Comment

                                      • Fabian
                                        Junior Member
                                        • Sep 2009
                                        • 6

                                        #20
                                        My opinion.

                                        Bi-wiring = useless, save your money

                                        Bi-amping passive filtering = I tried connecting an extra amp to my my stereo setup. I found a big improvement to the sound quality. More defined, more controlled low.
                                        Never disconecting the amp again, that's for sure :T

                                        Bi-amping active filtering = This is the best and correct way to bi-amp.
                                        It isn't something you do in 5 minutes and you must know what your doing to do it correct. I'm not driving that lane but it should give a huge impovement.

                                        Rotel RCD-1072 ------ Rotel RA-1070 ------ Rotel RB-1072 ------Rotel RDV-1093 ----- B&W 683

                                        Comment

                                        • style
                                          Super Senior Member
                                          • Feb 2006
                                          • 1562

                                          #21
                                          In the past I had always connect in bi wire but with speaker cables with "only " 2 banana/spade" on the ampli side and 4x the connect the speaker..... .

                                          now I use a silgle ende cable top class.

                                          if I will go make the bi wiring with a very improvement you must have 4 cables single ende-> 2 pairs the price for a s.e.
                                          In this modus you can have a great & very performing bi wire: not a "fake" cable with "only" 4 ending for the speaker part that normaly have the price from not more from the s.e. version.

                                          2 pairs cables (same cable) in single end is anther thing as a cable sell with the name bi-wire that is "only" 100-300 $more expensive vs.the version single.

                                          if you must buy 2 pair single end from Cat, kimber, Transparent, ?! brand is much more expensive but is the only very bi cabling connection.

                                          Comment

                                          • JargonGR
                                            Member
                                            • Feb 2009
                                            • 95

                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by Fabian
                                            My opinion.

                                            Bi-wiring = useless, save your money

                                            Bi-amping passive filtering = I tried connecting an extra amp to my my stereo setup. I found a big improvement to the sound quality. More defined, more controlled low.
                                            Never disconecting the amp again, that's for sure :T

                                            Bi-amping active filtering = This is the best and correct way to bi-amp.
                                            It isn't something you do in 5 minutes and you must know what your doing to do it correct. I'm not driving that lane but it should give a huge impovement.


                                            Bi-Wiring= Dirt cheap if you only use 60cm Belden Cables! :B

                                            Comment

                                            • wettou
                                              Ultra Senior Member
                                              • May 2006
                                              • 3389

                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by JargonGR
                                              Bi-Wiring= Dirt cheap if you only use 60cm Belden Cables! :B
                                              Or Canare and Mogami :B
                                              Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."Dwight D. Eisenhower

                                              Comment

                                              • Fabian
                                                Junior Member
                                                • Sep 2009
                                                • 6

                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by JargonGR
                                                Bi-Wiring= Dirt cheap if you only use 60cm Belden Cables! :B
                                                60cm? Should we open a topic "bi-wire your headphone"? :lol:
                                                Rotel RCD-1072 ------ Rotel RA-1070 ------ Rotel RB-1072 ------Rotel RDV-1093 ----- B&W 683

                                                Comment

                                                • Lex
                                                  Moderator Emeritus
                                                  • Apr 2001
                                                  • 27461

                                                  #25
                                                  in future, topics such as this, belong in general audio unless they are specific B & W topics. as also discussed already, specific cable threads for those are not allowed here. This thread did not violate that, but it is a general audio topic, not specific to B & W. I'll let this one stand, but please try to put topics in correct area, thanks.
                                                  Doug
                                                  "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer

                                                  Comment

                                                  • Alaric
                                                    Ultra Senior Member
                                                    • Jan 2006
                                                    • 4143

                                                    #26
                                                    This is retarded. Calculators and engineering theories don't listen to music. Decide what YOU like and run with it. Just sayin'.
                                                    Lee

                                                    Marantz PM7200-RIP
                                                    Marantz PM-KI Pearl
                                                    Schiit Modi 3
                                                    Marantz CD5005
                                                    Paradigm Studio 60 v.3

                                                    Comment

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