Why does bi-wiring work?

I've been having a rather furious debate on the Home Theater Forums about bi-wiring. It's clear from the responses on this board that either:

1. Bi-wiring does work (assuming a good enough system/setup/ears)
2. Bi-wiring doesn't work and all claims to the effect that they do are the result of placebo effect and nothing else.

Given the general forum population here, and the vast amount of audio experience, from making it, to engineering it, to selling it, to listening to it, I would venture to say that #1 above is the answer.

Now, if #1 is the case, then why is it so difficult to explain why bi-wiring works as it does? I've seen some pretty technically detailed posts (just because they're technical, doesn't make them right) explaining how there is no electrical difference whatsoever between bi-wiring and single wiring. However I've only heard one theory on why it DOES work.

So what gives? Is it magic, or is there a real technical reason for why it works?

In the end, I don't really case WHY it does or doesn't work, since as far as I'm concerned if it sounds better, than it is better, regardless of the technical realities... I'm just curious...

 

The second sounds very familiar to me. There's a small (but very noisy) group on the internet who claim that bi-wiring can't make any difference, all Cd players sound the same, all amps sound the same, cables can't make any difference unless they're degrading the sound, yada yada yada...

When dealing with this group these days I follow the following saying: "Don't argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."

Yes, there are always real technical reasons why things sound better. That doesn't mean that any one has looked in the right place for those technical reasons, however.

 

Doesn't bi-wiring just help lessen the effects of wire capacitance? Dunno, I've never tried it.

Either way, it seems like it's case-specific as to whether any benefits are heard. Works here, doesn't work there....

 

I'm not sure why bi-wiring works (or doesn't), but I do know that it works better on some designs than others. Back in the 80s I owned a pair of bi-wired Snell Type Js. The dealer recommended Kimber for the tweeters and Monster for the woofers, and I complied. Well, one day I was in the mood to experiment, and I switched. I heard a definite overall difference in the entire musical presentation...everything became softer and less focused. I then cut my lengths in half (they were too long anyway), and put all Monster combos and then all Kimber combos. Then I wired just one run of each. Eventually I settled on bi-wiring with the Kimber alone, and I gave the Monster to my younger brother.

I learned two lessons that day, that bi-wiring made a difference, and that you could hear differences between cables. The differences in some cases were dramatic and couldn't have been from any placebo effect.

Then again, I tried to bi-wire my Spendor s20s (which replaced the Snells), and I really couldn't hear a difference.

 

My dealer claims that with most of the speakers, bi-wiring is not better than just connecting the high freq./low freq. terminals INSIDE the speaker (combining them to a common terminal) and using only one cable. It works beautifully with my Apogees...

 

They might be electrical engineers among that group, but it doen't mean they know diddly-squart about sound or hearing!

If you could clearly hear a difference when bi-wiring, but some guy with a piece of paper said that you can't because he can't explain it, what would you believe? Your ears or his limited world view?

 

I think that that puts it backwards. The EEs don't say that you can't here it because they can't explain it -- instead they say "prove to me that you can hear it without peeking and I'll find a way to explain it." The point is that the loud and vocal group to which you obviously belong steadfastly refuse to demonstrate whether they can hear a difference when they aren't told in advance what they are listening to and where the person administrating the test isn't able to influence the results. Double blind testing is the only way that scientific proof is accepted in virtually every discipline is only rejected in the audio world, but no where else. If the differences are so obvious, why are the people who clain to hear a difference so reluctant to put their perceptions to the test?

 

In some cases simpler is better.
for example:
IMO
I have a really cool bi amp system with lots of bells and wisles, dynaco with Mullards, Grover interconnects, electronic crossover, sme tonearm Mac C20 Pre amp, silver speaker wires YET
to me my Fisher 400 sounds better.

I keep tweaking the really cool system like today I am putting in carbon fiber woofers.
Yet the Fisher with a Dual turntable or a cd on similar speakers just has that "mid range magic". The bass is not as tight or as low and it does not go as loud, it just sounds better. Plain old 14 g wires and simple 70's interconnects.

I am a firm believer that better is better yet more is not better. Also no matter how hard you try, if it does not have the magic to begin with, Grovers wires or what ever will not give it what is not there to begin with.

 

Agreed.

 

First, I better point out to you that discussion on DBTing is banned on this forum. Go and read the forum rules if you don't believe me.

Second, the onus of proof is on those who propose the testing regime. Every time I come across someone demanding DBTests, I ask them to prove to me that they work for audio. The closest anyone's got yet is to say that they should work. Not good enough - that's just a belief structure.

Third, many of the things that people hear in audio are initially dismissed by the electrical engineers. Later a logical explanation for it can be found, as some smart cookie decides to follow his ears and look at the situation from a different perspective.

Think a speaker sounds like it has a upper midrange peak when it measure flat? "Bogus" cry your electrical engineers. But then someone invents a way of looking at the speakers response over time and it can be seen that the speaker has a delayed resonance in the upper midrange, explaining the "impossible" result heard.

I know a couple of amplifier designers. Each of them have told me how they've changed something in their amplifiers that shouldn't - according to electrical theory - make any diference to the sound. When they send the amp off to retailers and distributors around the world, they can hear the difference - without knowing any changes have been made!

The point is that the world is not as black and white as you make out. Our understanding of audio technology is still rudimentry an still growing rapidly - at least among those who realise that their first year electrical engineering handbook doesn't explain everything.

Personally, I hear differences between cables (and amps and CD players). To be honest I don't particularly like the fact that cables sound different in a way that is not explained by L, C and R, but I don't see why I should let a theory get in the way of reality.

 

Lets please end the DBT debate.

Sincerely,

The DBT Debate Rule Enforcer

 

I didn't know that, but now that I do and, given that this discussion is banned, I'm not going to take this bait.

I've heard this before, but no one has ever been able to give a single concrete instance of this. Can you cite even one example where this actually happened?

This seems like a straw man. I believe that anything audible is also measurable, and this example proves my point.

So maybe the electrical theory is incomplete. This proves nothing, other than that the investigation into why there was a difference in sound was incomplete.

You don't know me so don't presume to know my world view. In fact I agree that there much in audio technology that is not fully known. I just believe that the cause of audible differences need to be investigated and that manufacturer's hype shouldn't be taken at face value. And that investigation needs to include all possible causes for the differences, including ones we can't talk about.

Me too, and, FWIW, my speakers ARE bi-wired, but only because I tried it to test them, didn't really hear any appreciable difference, but figured that given all the fuss, it couldn't hurt and might be making an improvement that I just wasn't capable of hearing. Since I went through all the trouble of buying a second run of speaker cable, I was darn sure going to use it.

Gorts, I've tried real hard not to stray into forbidden territory. I'm new here, and it isn't clear where the borderline is.

 

Gary,

How do you tell?
I just replaced my internal hook up wire from 10g super thin strands to 12g medium thin strands. because I have been wanting to do it. Since I changed the woofer at the same time I do not know if it helped or not.
I was under the impression that woofers like thick wires and tweeters like fine thin wires. correctomundo? should hook up wires be thicker or thinner than the speaker wires what is the perfect gauge wire for speaker hook up wire?

 

Er, I did, and you said:

...and then...

Damn right it's incomplete. In fact, that's what I said in my post, that I object to people declaring that changes made by audio designers can't possibly make a difference, simply because that person has a limited view on audio and electronics.

Again, this is what I've been saying. The thing I find most curious is that you've similtaneously disagreed with what I said while agreeing with what I said!

 

Biwiring sure makes a difference with *some* loudspeakers. There are a few (a small, noisy group) who debate this till the cows com' home, and those are the same people who think all cables sound the same ... go figure.

 

Clarification: Biwiring is a term used to describe one amp output being split without any filtering and one pair going to one driver or drivers and the other pair going to a different driver or drivers. How the speaker utilizes this two pair setup is up to the design of the speaker.

Biamplification, on the other hand assumes that a different amp is used to drive different speaker drivers. The output from the amp may be altered to the characteristics of the design at hand.

It is thus difficult to draw any conclusions since there are so many differnet encarnations of this approach out in the wild.

Richard.

 

I heard a huge difference in sound when I installed new speaker wire to my Linn Classik.
Vandenhul something or other, it was like owning a new hifi.

From the amp Linn supply 4 speaker outputs and recommend bi wiring. My speakers are Linn Tukans which also are biwirable. Linn suggest they will be more effective using biwiring.
I'm certain that Linn Tukan's would have decent crossover and internals, and yet Linn seem to be recommending by passing them.

Anyway the Vandenhul speaker wire is designed for biwire so biwire it is.
I noticed a significant improvement when I changed to Vandenhul , although I initially did not utilise the biwire facility. I have to be honest and say that subsequently connecting biwire did not yield the same improvements, in fact I'm not sure it made any difference to what i could hear, but I'd paid for it so I might as well use it