Yamaha A-S501 or A-S801

Huh what!?!

A driver cannot draw a signal, it is sent from the amp to the crossover, which then sends the signal to the proper driver.

 

Electrons travel like a bucket brigade. You have to think of it as an instantaneous action. Nothing happens without a load. And when the binding post bridges are removed, the loads of each driver, or the high and low pass crossovers, filter out the frequencies that don't belong. The blocked frequencies cannot "travel" through the respective cable regardless of where the capacitor or inductor is placed along the path.

Think of it this way, the capacitor in the average high pass crossover is sort of like an orifice in the middle of a conduit (the conduit being the leads of the speaker cable). If the conduit is already filled with water, and something tries to push or pull the water through the conduit, the water will only move at the flow rate (we'll call it frequency for sake of illustration) that the orifice allows.

 

You seem confused. Touch the positive and negative terminals at the end of your speaker cable together and then tell me nothing is happening.

Another thought for you. Why do you suppose the binding posts on any amp are called the outputs?

 

Lol, when one does that, the load is the instant the cables touch, which is basically zero impedance, therefore high current, and hopefully the amp's protection circuit saves that channel.

It's best to think of the amp like it's a water spigot. When the transistors are on, and "output" relays are closed, the electricity is allowed to flow. Nothing is being "sent." Electricity doesn't flow in stages where it's like sending a letter in the mail.

They use that term for laymen. Did you even read the Q Acoustics article? They do a pretty good job of breaking it down for those with little electrical background.
I'll politely suggest you run this by the electrical engineering faculty at any of your local colleges. That or Google how electricity flows in an AC circuit. Anyway, I know 100% for a fact that what I stated is correct, so if you insist on carrying on, we'll just agree to disagree. Peace.

 

I think you should read or re-read that article. It agrees with me.

 

It uses those terms to break it down for laymen. As I said, it's trying to explain something to those with little electrical background as is obviously your case.

 

Instead of admitting you're wrong you continue to troll.......sad.

 

Doesn't understand the most basic aspects of electricity, yet feels inclined to advise others....very sad.

Your arms must be getting tired from all that digging.

 

This question is a little OT, more to do with how to order a Yamaha (for delivery to USA).

I'm thinking about getting a Yamaha 801 either "factory refurbished" (with 1-year warranty) from Accessories4Less, or "like new, open box" (with "full", 2-year warranty) from IQ Home Entertainment, via Amazon. The difference in price is about $60 more for the open-box/full warranty from IQ. I've already had one really good experience with A4L, and SHF's Lebowski has had a good experience with IQ, who are authorized Yamaha dealers.

Is there anything else to consider? It seems like "open box" can mean returns or demos, and it's hard to know how much use a unit's gotten even if it never left the sales floor. "Factory refurb" would almost certainly mean it's been owned by someone and returned? Or maybe I am being absurdly cheap and should pony up the extra $200 for a new unit.

For those thinking about a Yamaha 501, A4L sells refurbs for $370 including free shipping, which seems like a pretty good deal...lower than I've seen it before. (Only the black model; silver costs more.)

 

I have never had experience with those paticular online stores but have gotten Open Box items from Music Direct, and it’s basically like buying a brand new item. I mean I knew the item was a demo but I sure couldn’t tell that from looking at it, even with the packaging. And I was rest assured if there was anything wrong with it, it would be dealt with just as if it was new.

 

You'll probably be happy with any of those choices. The benefit of buying from IQ, or buying new, is that you'll get a 2 year warranty vs. a 1 year for the A4L purchase. That may very well be worth $60 to you.

 

Amplifiers transmit an analog waveform that varies continuously. A loudspeaker is a passive device - a transducer - and it does not draw anything out of an amplifier. Rather, it places a varying impedance load on the amp output circuit, and that varying speaker impedance load causes the amp to produce varying amounts of current. Higher or lower voltage output from the amp usually means higher or lower signal amplitude.

Electrically, a loudspeaker completes an amplifier circuit. The amp sends AC voltage through the speaker cable. Because a loudspeaker requires different amounts of current to produce sounds at different frequencies (at a given amplitude), an amp must also be capable of producing sufficient current as the impedance of the transducer changes.

The layman’s part of this discussion is the notion that a transducer pulls/draws a signal from an amp, which is simply not the case. A transducer is a load in a circuit, but the transducer does nothing until the amp sends a signal. @F1nut suggested that amps send signals and he is precisely correct.

You’re misreading basic electrical theory, and as @F1nut also suggested you’ve misread the Q Acoustics article. Admittedly too, the Q Acoustics article is not particularly well written.

 

Now that'd be something to worry about !

 

Nope, that'd be you sir.

Anyhow, regardless of whether an amp "sends" a signal or not (red rover, red rover, "send" only these frequancies over, lol), the whole point of the argument is that only part of the frequency spectrum will traverse each set of speaker cable leads in a bi-wire circuit.

 

That’s not correct. You’re stating something that cannot be true because it violates physics and electrical theory.

The output at the amplifier speaker terminals does not care and cannot tell where the speaker wires are split into separate connections in a bi-wire cable. The output at the amplifier speaker terminals cannot be told to somehow send only certain frequencies to one speaker connection but not another. The entire, full spectrum signal appears at both bi-wire connections. The crossover does the filtering thereafter.

The load on a bi-wire connection is the crossover first, then the individual drivers to which the crossover routes various parts of the amplifier signal. The speakers are just dumb transducers and cannot communicate anything back to the amplifier other than current demands, but even that is not real communication - it’s just varying impedance. The amp has no way of isolating or separating parts of its output to one or the other pair of terminations in a bi-wire cable.

Conmect a turntable to an amp, and connect speakers to the amp. Turn the system on. Nothing will happen. The speaker can’t produce music from nothing.

Then, turn on the turntable and play an LP. Because the cartridge then begins generating a voltage, the preamp and amplifier have work to do. That work ends up producing a signal strong enough to activate a voice coil connected to a speaker cone or radiator of some sort that receives the appropriate part of the signal from the crossover.

 

YES ! And that's evident to laymen as well

 

99.9percent of your posts are great, but you flat out do not understand current flow in branch circuits. The amplifier does not "send" anything, it simply presents a difference of potential at its speaker terminals. This difference in potential is the measured voltage. Current does not flow until a load is present. The load determines the current flowing. In a series circuit, the current is the same through all components. In a parallel circuit (which a crossover is), the current is split in each branch according to the impedance of each branch. The impedance of the branches is determined by the crossover components and the drivers in each branch.

If you think I am wrong, read here.
Electrical/Electronic - Series Circuits

 

You seem to have missed the fact that we’re in generally in complete agreement on this matter. I phrased my previous post in a way that I thought @Helom would find clear.

 

But the current will be different through the bi-wire legs. Whether it is audible, is up to the guy writing the check for the second set of wires, but the current is different, and can be measured. The voltage does not matter, it is the flow of current that causes magnetic fields. Magnetic fields can do stuff that can cause severe scratching of the head.
If we are agreeing on the current flow, I am sorry I did not read better.

 

There's nothing that needs clarification other than your misunderstanding of electricity.

The speakers are passive loads, the amp doesn't respond to their varying impedance. The amp does control current but it does not "send" it. Electricity doesn't flow like a pinball through a maze the way you describe it. The electrons behave instantly to the entire circuit. To say the crossover is the "first" load in the circuit before the driver motor doesn't make sense. For all practical purposes, the crossover, speakers and wiring constitute a single theoretical load. That load dictates which frequencies can be present on the branched speaker leads.

It's hard for many to grasp, but electrons don't flow in stages the way you and F1 Nut describe. It's not as though every bit of potential current travels down the leads and then gets filtered by the crossover before it arrives at the driver. Just as if you place a calibrated orifice at the end of a conduit, it will dictate how the fluid flows at the start of the conduit. That's basically how the crossover components function. It's an instantaneous process - as fast as it takes
an electron to travel the gap between two adjacent electrons on the Planck scale.

 

2-2; and the match goes on

 

. . . not in any typical and common 2 x 4 bi-wired system I’ve ever tested. The only benefit to that sort of bi-wiring occurs in a system with speakers formerly connected with undergauge wire. The 2 x 4 bi-wiring effectively increased the wire gauge, which reduces resistance.

Electron flow? Electron travel? I think you mean charge transfer. Electrons don’t actually move fast at all. Electron drift is painfully slow. Charge transfer is fast.

I never described anything flowing like a pinball through a maze. And your fluid-in-a-conduit analogy is unsupportable because you also failed to note that in a bi-wired setup there would have to be two of your orifices at the end of one conduit - both orifices can’t separately dictate the condition of your ‘circuit’ simultaneously. You’re suggesting that such a setup constitutes branch circuits that can simultaneously control a source but it doesn’t - not for fluid and not for electricity.

Nobody I’ve worked with (who was prevented, during a listening session, from knowing whether a single wire or a bi-wire connection was in operation) has ever been able to tell the difference between single wiring and 2 x 4 bi-wiring when both wiring sets were of adequate or large gauge. But most listeners in similar sessions who were informed about which connection was in operation reported hearing a difference, even when we fooled them by deliberately not actually connecting the wire we said we connected.

Of course nobody should take my word for any of this. Find an old pair of two-way speakers. Remove the crossovers. Use a 2 x 4 bi-wire to connect the amp to each of the drivers directly. Play some music and listen to the mess that occurs because the entire music signal is being sent to both drivers. Remember to keep the amp at moderate volume to avoid blowing either of the drivers (unless you don’t care about the old pair of speakers).

Enjoy your bi-wiring - seriously. If you feel it’s improving your system(s) then that’s all that matters, as long as you’re not breaking the bank to buy the wire.

 

You're still misinterpreting my posts and this argument is useless. Just as it was useless trying to explain it to you in the now closed bi-wiring thread. We'll just agree to disagree.

BTW, I don't bi-wire any of my systems.

 

Please members

@chervokas
@head_unit

give your authorized opinions

 

I do hope you mean on:

Yamaha A-S501 or A-S801