Experimenting bi-wiring Wharfedale Dentons

Heyo! Cheers @F1nut. Thanks for the info.

Sexy. Thanks for the link @action pact

Now if I wanted to bi-wire with four connects at the amp end, I'd need spades since my amp only has four posts (two per speaker) so banana plugs are out of the question, correct?

Also, in general, are spades or plugs preferred irrespective of bi-wiring?

 

In your case, go with the shotgun type bi-wire cables. I prefer high quality banana plugs.

 

Agreed.

 

It seems generally frowned upon, but has anyone tried bi-wiring with different brand cables? I only have a pair of kimber 4tc to experiment with - preferred my transparent to it as single runs.

Thinking of trying the Kimber to the tweeter, and transparent to the mid woofer.

 

I use to nearly identical Wireworld cables. Same geometry. One is 14 AWG for the tweets. The other is 13 AWG for the mid/woofs. I've got them using the same termination at the amp end. Works great. I wouldn't go too far afield though.

 

I don't think this is frowned upon at all. Or at least not by everyone. Paul McGowan, the 'P' in PS Audio, has often said that it is THE reason to bi-wire in his opinion. To be fair, he's admittedly talking about some pretty high end cables (not to mention speakers), but, hey, he still said it. I've seen pictures of people doing this with higher end systems using two separates to each speaker. By having spades at the amp end of their dual wires, they can hook them both up to the same set of binding posts. Now I have no idea if this is or isn't advisable, but I gathered it was thought preferable to mating two different styles/companies' wires into one set of banana plugs at the amp end. Please let us know how you get on if decide to try it out. I find all of this quite fascinating.

 

I just picked up a pair of Definitive Technology D11 bookshelf speakers. The manual says that usually heavier gauge cable is used on the lower binding posts. Not sure why that is, but that's what I did.

 

Are you bi-wiring them or just using a single cable and the jumpers?

PS - I'm really intrigued by the D11s but their at the very outside of my price range. I'd love to hear what you think of them once you're up and running. Cheers!

 

Tweeters just don't need much. That's why these bi-wire cables that split the difference are kinda silly.

 

Bi-wire with raw cable. I did put some Canare 4S11 cable in my Amazon cart to maybe try in the future.

I actually just replaced Dentons with the D11's as I was obviously intrigued as well. I found an open box pair for $550 shipped which compelled me to give them a try. I'm a budget audiophile at best and am not good at reviews, but I love them! I find them very open, detailed, engaging with great imaging and a wide sound stage. I didn't feel I was missing anything with the Dentons until I heard the D11's.

 

It would be interesting to see if people bi-wiring their speakers wound notice any difference in sound if they connected both cables to one set of terminals and used the supplied metal jumpers compared to connecting to both sets of connectors.
in other words- is it the heavier cable doing all the "magic" (two runs per speaker, doubling the gauge) compared to single wired speakers - or eliminating the supplied "jumper links" and connecting directly to each set of terminals. interesting experiment for you bi-wire fans.

 

Reading this thread makes me glad my speakers are single wired. Any future pair I buy will hopefully be as well. To each their own though, I can see how bi-wiring could be fun to experiment with.

 

You can obtain the same or damn near the same results as bi-wiring by replacing the crappy binding post plates with the same type of speaker wire you used to connect your speakers.

 

I suspected as much, which is why I prefer a single set of binding posts!

 

At one point I had a set of jumpers that matched my speaker cables and they were IC wire. They were indeed better than the plates, but not as good as a true biwire even with a step down in the product line.

If I were starting from scratch right now?

Wireworld Helicon on the tweets and Solstice on the the mid/lows.

 

Maybe I'm misreading your post, but did you use interconnects as speaker cables?

 

Yes, no need for multiple coonection points... It just degrades the circuit
Plus, when biwing with a canare 4s11, you go from 11awg to the drivers down to 14awg to each driver, thus increasing the resistance. So no big deal on the tweeter, but it could make a difference on the woofer if its impedance drops down to 3ohms.
I like single runs of fat cables with single binding post on the speakers, to keep things simple with a low resistance and therefore a greater damping.

 

I agree about keeping things simple. I also prefer bare wire termination to spades or bananas.

 

Jumper. From the manufacturer.

 

So time to show my ignorance again. What, in your opinion, is it about the Helicon and Solstice cables that makes them match well with the tweeters and woofers respectively?

 

Blue Jeans is currently selling longer pairs of this with their ultrasonic welded spades for less $$.

 

First is I like them for inexpensive wires. Second is that many bi-wire terminated cables split the wire 50/50, where as this solution would run a dedicated 18 AWG wire for the tweeters (much lighter wire) and 13 AWG (heavier wire) for the mid woofers.

It's not ignorance as many electrical engineers would tell you that it makes no difference at all. Still, the tweeters don't need much current capacity and the woofers need a bunch. I'd not want to vary that much in the design of the wires though.

Those I mentioned have a good dielectric and a nice Litz design that is very low inductance. I prefer them after having lived with several options over the last few decades.

 

Thanks, @jupiterboy. I appreciate you sharing your experience.

 

I'm not surprised you're hearing a big improvement. IME, bi-wiring involving a solid state amplifier is equivalent to a cap upgrade on the tweeter. The effect is particularly noticed and beneficial when the cables are modest affairs.

I see no harm in a little redundancy as the result of running separate pairs to the A/B connections on the amp. The manufacturer put the option there to run 2 speaker systems and that is essentially what you're doing; it just so happens that one is the woofer and the other a tweeter. I also see no reason why one couldn't run different cables to each driver if the cables are optimized for the particular driver. With bi-wiring, the cables in question become a part of the circuit they're dedicated to instead of the whole speaker system. A cable with super bass would be wasted on the tweeter, so why use it on the tweeter unless it also has desirable treble qualities?

 

The purpose behind bi-wiring is to eliminate the effect one driver has on the other. This can only be achieved by routing a driver directly back to the amplifier through it's own dedicated cable. This is true particularly for solid state amplifiers with very low output impedances where undesirable driver interactions are effectively shorted out. I'm not sure the effect would be as noticeable if the amp were tube based and transformer coupled to the speakers.