First time viewer here. Great video, informative and perfect length for the topic. My current avr is a Yamaha rx-a2a, it has bi-amp capabilities and I do notice some separation improvements. What is your opinion, is bi-amping technically running 4 channels instead of 2 during 2.1 listening? My main concern is the lower level avr’s, advertise their power ratings with two channels ran, and the power is supposedly dramatically reduced when running multiple channels. Thank you
Thank you! On some AVRs you are right. If that were the case and you try biamping you should probably connect the bass driver to the main left and right and the treble to the other channels then try the other way to see if you hear a difference. Thanks for sharing what you experienced
Just saw this video and it gave me some questions. My now old THX Pioneer receiver I went in the menu and looked at Surr Back System, here I have the alternative to Front Bi-Amp. For years my front speakers is Bi-Wire since I was under the impression that you MUST have two recivers to Bi-Amp your speakers. But did I understand it correctly that my reciver have a adjustment that let me Bi-Amp the front speakers whitout using two separate recivers?
I just bought the Crown XLS1002 Two-channel amp. they have a feature built into the amp called Y Mode. (you simply run one RCA cable from your subwoofer output on your receiver to one channel on the Crown) it's a built-in feature. and it works great, it is so powerful. you can easily drive four 8-inch 2-ohm DVC. not even using bridge mode. works great. if you know how to wire it correctly.
@@AudioAdvice I don't think mine has an ethernet connection. I must say. this is my first D-class amp. I'm very impressed with its capabilities. I will look into the software. thanks a bunch.
I've tried both bi-wiring and bi-amping countless times to determine what I liked more. Bi-amping is certainly the more noticeable upgrade for the average user, however, a great set of speaker cables and a properly calibrated receiver or processor makes a big difference on the performance of bi-wiring (my current setup). I haven't turned back since. Great video!
@Chris Doehla bi-wiring is just that, two sets of wires. The amplification remains the same, one left channel, one right. Bi-amping goes a step further with one channel for each driver. In both scenarios the crossover is passive and there are generally incremental improvements with these two steps. The largest step is to go fully active, again one amplifier channel per driver, but now with a powered or active crossover between the preamp and the power amps. By far the largest improvement due to the removal of the passive crossover and the loss and phase issues it causes.
@@hypnoz7871 The only upgrades in Cables that are worth the Money are: 1. Pure Oxygen Free Copper or Tinned Pure Oxygen Free Copper (Aluminum Wire is only a good substitute for Power Wire in Mobile Audio scenarios if you are on a budget and you could for example instead of 4GA Copper you could buy 1/0 Aluminum… 2. The Gauge of the Wire 16ga through as thick as 8ga you don’t need anything thicker than 8ga. I don’t care what you are running. 3. Terminals. I think it’s worth it to get Banana Terminals or Spades (on the Speaker Side) don’t bother getting anything other than Gold. Don’t waste your Money on Platinum, Rhodium, etc.. 4. Braided Wire Loom but only if you are going to see any of the Cables. It’s nice to have professional looking Cables. Not really necessary otherwise though. Unless you are going to run them through the Walls, then make sure you are buying Shielded Speaker Wire that is made for that usually labeled like CL3 Rated / UL listed. I have 8Ga Bi-Amp Tinned OFC with Gold Banana Plug Terminals including Wire Pants and Braided Loom. (8Ga Knukonceptz Krux Bi-Amp Kable)
I. personally, found bi-amping to be totally worth the effort and expenses. Was using a very old, by now, Cyrus integrated amp, a Cyrus 3i (2x 60 W) plus afterburner, as in a PSX-R, plus a Cyrus Smart Power power amp, plus after burner, as before, to fire Mission 750 floor standers, 2-way, 2 connectors, to then find the improvement to be absolutely *massive*. Especially so, when using the 2x70W Smart Power (in stereo mode, could have used that in mono, if I had happened to have two of them, giving 115 W each, with the PSX-Ra) to drive the tweeters, instead of the 2 woofers/squeakers sitting both below and above the tweeters, at equal distances. What I did not try out was using the stronger Smart Power, being a dedicated power amp, to power both sets of drivers, bi-wiring or not. What I did was using a twisted multi-stranded "Black and White" cable (which Cyrus are recommending against, not he brand, but the construction in general, I now will be threading a big diameter hose of low electroconductivity Teflon hose through their stranding, to drive the woofers, and a set of equal length very low gauge multi-stranded silvered cable to drive the tweeters, might happen to act as an "equalizer" of sorts. Sounded better, to my ears, as far as resolution for male/female vocals went, both The Cyrus system and the Mission speakers being very "polite" and "mellow" to start with. Any comment or recommendations on that? Would be pleased hearing from you.
We appreciate you sharing your experience. That must have been an interesting wiring diagram. We can't figure where the old integrated comes in as the 3i would do one set of drivers with its preouts feeding the Smart power for the other.
@@AudioAdvice Wiring was hardly more interesting than connecting the pre-outs to the power amp via RCA. What I am, by now, am putting it down to is what Paul McGowan from PS-Audio says, i.e. back in the 90ies some amps where better at certain frequency ranges than others, so where the cables (those would be from 2000+), which now can more or less run the whole spectrum. As I said, it never occurred to me to let the 3i just be a pre-amp and have the Smart Power do the work, no bi-wiring, not nothing. Will have to try, and put a thick hollow Teflon hose through the Black and Whites, as recommended by Danny from GR research, assuming stuff is still working, been holed up in Thailand for the last 10y. Keep up the got work, solid info. 👌
@@doctorquestianthen please elaborate…otherwise your post is kind of useless and a bit insulting. No offense. Shall I assume your point was that the extra posts are for bi-amping?
This is from Cambridge Audio: "At Cambridge Audio all of our modern speakers do not have the capacity to be bi-wired. We always want to offer our customers the best possible components in our products, rather than adding an extra set of terminals to the speakers we would rather invest in a better crossover. This philosophy also extends to our views on wiring. Rather than spending your hard earned cash on two sets of mediocre wires that can be bi-wired into a speaker, why not single wire using some really great speaker cable? This is also more space effective as you don’t get the tangling mess of cables at the back of your hi-fi set up which can often come with bi-wiring. There is a lot of discussion around this topic; in fact you’ll find yourself a little lost in a sea of online forums about it! Some believe that bi-wiring is purely a marketing ploy, often referred to as ‘buy wiring’, whilst others believe it makes a noticeable impact particularly to middle range sound. We made the decision not to build our speakers with a bi-wiring option so we can focus on making the components inside of our products the best they can be."
This philosophy makes the most sense, though I didn't even know Cambridge made speakers. There are plenty of very high quality speakers that only have a single pair of terminals. The only reason most hifi brands have two pairs is because they know many of their customers believe that it will sound better when bi-wiring/amping.
@@TH-lo8mq I do not understand why you do not explain to these by wiring people that what they are doing is futile, and at the worst dangerous. They could damage the loudspeakers doing it that way.
Great and simple explanation. The benefits will be base on what people feel and hear in their system. This opens up other options for everyone to either explore or consider.
Bi-amping works great and provides a big improvement to the soundstage. Bi-wiring is identical to straight wiring, at least on a schematic and I have never noticed a difference.
Thanks for sharing. We think active biamping where you totally eliminate the passive crossover offers huge improvements. Its just hard to find as an option on most speakers.
@@AudioAdvice Yes, this setup is hard to find, and I was totally frustrated and went forward with building my own speakers. Two separate crossovers (High/Mid/woofer and Subwoofer). They are powered by two 1968 McIntosh MC250 (fully restored) and two preamps coming off of my mixer board. One amp feeds the upper crossovers and the other feeds the lower crossovers. The speakers are modeled after the Troels Gravesen CNO-4.
The key proviso is "at least on a schematic", and it's sensible of you to put in that caveat. A schematic is a conceptual circuit, and there's a lot of information detail that a basic one doesn't convey. Proper circuit analysis reveals bi-wiring and single wire connection are not identical, but the differences in operation are small and likely to be overpowered by other factors. It's not surprising that people have tried bi-wiring and not heard a difference, and it's not surprising that some are sure they do detect a difference, since the possibility can't rightly be excluded.
@@ivyward1409May I correct you...as you are wrong! In the biwire setup the whole purpose of it is that the point (called the y-point) at which the highs and lows split is brought back to the amplifier end, allowing the highs to travel along the tweeter wire, and the lows to travel along the woofer wire. In a single wire system the 'y-point' is either at the upper terminals or lower terminals depending into which you plug the speaker cables. I leave it to others to argue over whether it makes a difference....but, if it 'works' this is how it does!
I bi-wired a pairs of Linn Kabers form a Linn amp. I heard a big change, but more telling was my very non-audiophile friend. His jaw dropped over the difference. The system sounded great before, but after there was just so much more. More soundstage, more upper and lower extension, more rhythm. If you have the ability to try it, and you have the extra cables, try it! You have nothing to lose and possibly tons to gain!
Electrically in bi-wiring you just move the jumper from the LS itself to the amp end - so there is no difference other than the wire's resistance reduces, which can be achieved by getting a thicker cable in the first place. therefore you can in principle bi-wire all loudspeakers by running a double cable and connect to the same connectors. Passive bi-amping may have pros but surely cons. I used to bi-amp but have left this and bridged my amp instead. Since the wires were already there are bi-wired just for the looks.
Whilst it may look like all you've done is 'move the jumper to the amplifier end', in fact what you have done when you remove the jumper and connect two sets of wires to the upper and lower terminals is pull the 'y-point' (the point at which the highs and lows split to the high and low pass filters) back from the speaker terminals (the y-point in biwirable speakers) to the amplifier end allowing highs to flow along the tweeter cable and the lows to flow along the woofer cable. The debate is whether a significant advantage accrues in doing this.
There was a lot of important information left out of the video. Starting with biwiring, there are 2 ways to do it. An internal biwire is when regular speaker cables are used, and the conductors are split up at the speaker end of the cable. Internal biwiring typically yields small to no audible differences. External biwiring is when you use 2 completely separate runs of speaker cables. You also need to keep the 2 runs of cables separated from each other by a few inches. The explanation as to how it works isn't quite right. Low frequencies don't go back down the speaker cables. What really happens is the cable carrying the low frequencies creates a field around the cable, and if the cable that carries the high frequencies gets to close, they can be effected by that field. Also, not all xovers are made the same way. In order for biwiring to work properly, the xover has to be designed with biwiring in mind. Most speakers are not, so its rare you'll ever hear any sizeable benefits from biwiring. The difference is usually very small, and you're better off investing in something that will make a bigger difference. However, when biwiring is done properly, it does make a substantial difference. But this is not the norm, so don't do it unless you can try the cables first to see what kind of differences you hear, if any. This is a direct quote from the person who invented the concept of biwiring. Here's a link to the entire article. www.vandersteen.com/support/faqs "So we looked at the speaker wires. With two amplifiers, bi-amplification used two sets of speaker cables so we experimented with doubling-up the speaker wires and with larger wire. Neither duplicated the bi-amplification improvements. Then we considered that in a bi-amplified system, one set of wires carries the low-frequencies and the other set of wires carries the high-frequencies. We modified a speaker's crossovers to accept two sets of cables and present different load characteristics to each set so that the low-frequencies would be carried by one set of wires and the high-frequencies by the other set of wires. Finally we heard the sonic improvements of bi-amplification with a single amplifier. Additional experiments with a Hall Effect probe revealed that high-current bass frequencies created a measurable field around the wires that expanded and collapsed with the signal. We believe that this dynamic field modulates the smaller signals, especially the very low level treble frequencies. With the high-current signal (Bass) separated from the low-current signal (Treble) this small signal modulation was eliminated as long as the cables were separated by at least an inch or two. (To keep the treble cable out of the field surrounding the bass cable.) With biamping, you need to know what you're doing or you can waste a lot of money. There are 2 ways to biamp, horizontal and vertical. In the video, you showed an example of horizontal biamping. This almost always a bad idea, and the most common. You have one amp driving the mids/highs, and the other amp drives the lows. You run into 2 problems with this method. Unless you are extremely lucky, there's going to be a volume difference between both amps. That's why an active xover is needed. There's no other way to match the levels. Also, there's usually sound quality issues. The sound of an amp changes the harder you push it. So, even if you have 2 identical amps, the amp driving the bass frequencies will be working much harder than the one driving the highs. Sonically, it turns them into 2 different amps. Vertical biamping gets around the issues with horizontal biamping. To do it, you must have 2 identical, stereo amps. The left channel signal goes into both inputs on one of the amps. Same thing for the right channel. Each amp drives the entire speaker. There's no volume issues, and each amp is doing the same amount of work. Going this route should make a noticeable difference, but there's no guarantee that 2 of the same amps will sound better than one higher quality amp for twice the price. It may, but each situation is different.
Thanks for your comments, we know Richard very well and remember the day he called us about bi-wiring. On the passive bi-amping, we did state you MUST use identical power amps. Bi-wiring is definitely an interesting topic of debate. AudioQuest- whose cables Vandersteen used back then, believes its the back feed. Both possibilities make sense. As with anything where you are after improvements, the proof is in the listening.
@@AudioAdvice "On the passive bi-amping, we did state you MUST use identical power amps. " Read my post again, or you can call Richard for his input on the matter. Either way, we're both going to tell you the same thing. In your video, you do show 2 identical stereo amps used to biamp a pair of speakers. However, what you showed is an example of horizontal biamping. Having 2 identical amps for passive horizontal biamping, is almost never going to work properly. Electrically, they almost always become 2 different amps and you'll still need an active xover to fix the problems you encounter. If you read my post, I specifically stated vertical biamping is the correct way to do a passive biamp with 2 identical amps amps. You did not go over this method in your video. "Bi-wiring is definitely an interesting topic of debate. AudioQuest- whose cables Vandersteen used back then, believes its the back feed." There's really nothing to debate. Vandersteen didn't just use AudioQuest cables "back then", whatever that means. He designed products for them, not just used them. As with biamping I clearly stated how it works, and provided references. "As with anything where you are after improvements, the proof is in the listening." I agree. No offence, but given the fact that you don't know what vertical biamping is, tells us you can't have any listening experience to verify anything. The same can be said about biwiring. It only makes a real difference that's worth paying for, if its done properly. There used to be others, but the only speaker I know of, that is currently in production and is designed to be biwired, is Vandersteen. So, unless you have listening experience biwiring with Vandersteen speakers, you really can't know the type of difference that's possible. Any Vandersteen owner will tell you the same thing. If you go back and read my post, my advice to anyone that is thinking of doing biamping or biwiring, is to try it first, before you make a substantial investment. I think that's a pretty reasonable suggestion. Call The Cable Company if you live in the US. They will send you demo cables of anything you want to try, so there is no risk. They also sell components and keep demo units of most pieces. They should be able to send you 2 identical amps to try, so you may want to ask about that, as well. But definitely cables, so take advantage of their demo program.
Rather than use TWO stereo amplifiers to vertically biamp like you described, could I just use four channels from ONE power amplifier to get just as good a result?
@@AudioAdvice what if I buy a 5-channel power amplifier, use one channel for my center and then two channels each for Left and Right bi-amped? Is this a good idea? Or am I better off just buying a beefier 3-Channel power amplifier for the same money and simply bi-wiring Left and Right instead of bi-amping?
Hey guys. I’ve just got a set of speakers with 2 terminals and getting confused with how to connect them. So I can use 2 wires for the +/- channels of the speaker terminals and be able to put both the +\- into one + or - terminal on my amp? So 4 wires from the speaker down to 2?
Just saw this video and it gave me some questions. My now old THX Pioneer receiver I went in the menu and looked at Surr Back System, here I have the alternative to Front Bi-Amp. For years my front speakers is Bi-Wire since I was under the impression that you MUST have two recivers to Bi-Amp your speakers. But did I understand it correctly that my reciver have a adjustment that let me Bi-Amp the front speakers whitout using two separate recivers?
Thanks for this very useful information. If I hadn't seen the video maybe I would never know this thing you have given me about Bi-Amp. Know few people that have Bi-Amp, but they have used two recivers. So they may not know this is possible for all I know. So thank you for the easy short to the seller for point video of information you has given 👍👌
How in the world do you separate signals when both sets of cables end up connected to the same terminal on the receiver? Ohm it out and you’ll see my point.
I just got Sony STR-AN1000 AVR and decided to bi-wire the front Klipsch speakers using the front and surround back/bi plugs (removing the jumper plates from the speakers). The difference was night and day, more pronounced cymbals and sweeter sound in general. I did run the calibration both times.
Bi-amp, bi-amp, bi-amp! Bi-amp the hell out of your front left and right and center channel! It's what you should do before you buy a 2nd sub or go beyond 5.1. I read about so many people with dedicated home theaters that don't bi-amp but then have like MiniDSP and lord knows what else and 15 subs and I wonder why on earth you'd bother feeding 100 watts from an emotiva amplifier to a teeny atmos speaker on your ceiling that plays sound at 1db every 10 days, when you are not separating the power to your LCR which play 90% of the sound and probably cost more than anything in your system. Unfortunately, the days of AVRs with toroidals are coming to an end as along with the glory days of home theater so it's hard to find an amp that can properly bi-amp your LCR with a single box unless you pony up for the Marantz SR8015 or the Rotel 1580 which cost $4,000-$6,000 and I wouldn't. So you will probably need to get external amplification. All is not lost, though, as most AVRs do support preamps and you can use them to bi-amp with another 7 channel external amp (6 for the LCR). Then use the amp's power to power all your other speakers.
Nice explanation on some points. Good explanation of multi-amping. Getting away from the x-over in the speaker cab yields good results. In my experience, I've not seen that wires and amps need to be identical. I've tri-amped using solid state and vacuum tube amps (Onkyo S/S, Fisher and TenTec tubies, NAD S/S, and others I've forgotten over the past 40 years of playing these games). Currently drive a pair of JLB4411 with the x-over removed, tri-amping with S/S amps. Reinforced with Bose 901s for midrange driven with a separate amp, getting only the mid range from the TDM active x-overs (no highs, no lows...must be Bose) The ratio of wavelengths (audio vs electrical) are so far apart the the time delay introduced by extra wire length would be undetectable, and barely measurable even with the right test equipment. Wires: I've mixed and matched, even played with 25 conductor ribbon cable wired even/odd to approximate speaker impedance. I found no difference between zip cord, ribbon cable, individual stranded, and solid core wire. Never found a distinguishable difference in wires. This isn't RF. In my opinion, the money is best spent on good speaker motors and concert tickets.
I own a rare speaker; Panasonic SB-400.. (same as Technic SB-400.) These speakers allow for true Tri-Amping. So VERY cost prohibiting except that there are now so many affordable Class D amps out there such as the Aiyima A07. If you search for images of these speakers you will find several shots of the rear terminals and the switches selecting your preferred use of one amp, two amps or three amps. My problem is I would have no idea how I could ever integrate three amps between my source and my speakers. What preamp could I use? To me this seems to be an exercise in abstract thinking! BTW, these speakers are rare in the States and were made in Japan in the early 1970's. Sensitivity is 93db. My speakers are in perfect working order and sound incredible with just one amp.
Very interesting speakers. It looks like you would need an electronic crossover in between your preamp and power amps. Did they make a matching one back then? Thanks for watching
How far back should the bi-wired cables be connected? Is it ok to split the connection at the wall plate and then run separate wires to the speaker? Or should be wire be separated closer to the amp/AVR?
IMHO, this is nonsense. Bi-wiring is a complete waste of time. If anything, it will make your speakers sound worse. Bi-amping can improve sound, but not the way you are discussing here. The way you are discussing bi-amping, you could achieve the same impact by simply using a more powerful amp instead of bi-amping with 2 amps. And I wouldn’t consider doing any of this in a HT context. And BTW, no one can hear the difference between cable lengths unless we are talking about radically different lengths. I am bi-amping, but I am using speakers designed to be bi-amped which most commercial speakers really aren’t designed to do. The commercial speakers that are designed to be bi-amped typically have a built in amp for the bass region. They are bi-amped, but you as the consumer cannot power anything other than the tweeter and the midrange which have a crossover between them. How do I know my speakers can be truly bi-amped? Because they are custom designed for bi-amping and they demonstrate the situation in which bi-amping can make a difference. The speaker is a 3-way design. One amp powers the tweeter and midrange which have a passive crossover. The woofer is powered by a separate amp with an electronic crossover. One advantage is that you don’t have to use identical amps. This form of bi-amping allows me to use a low powered amp for the tweeter/midrange and a higher power amp for the woofer where it is really needed. This allows me to use a low powered tube or Class A amp for the tweeter/midrange and something like a high powered Class D amp for the woofer. This approach also can provide more control over the response of the speaker in your room. Good Class D plate amps also have EQ to control amplifications of certain bass frequencies due to room geometry. I also have full control over the electronic crossover point and slope. As you can probably tell, these speakers are part of a 2 channel system. For HT, I wouldn’t waste my time or money.
I have some polk s60 towers and they sound super great bi wired wouldn't even try hooking them up any other way, yup bi wiring is definitely the way to go
seriously?!? what was shown is 1/one speaker output to two sets of post of the SAME speaker. I cannot see how this improves ANY thing… single cable with twice the strands = SAME results… and I don’t know that speaker posts are “unlimitedely" large… at some point more strands will not change any thing…
Bi-wiring and bi-amping are not only ‘not worth it’ - they are BAD You will either not gain anything in the best case, or degrade your system in the worst - in both cases you will waste money The reason is simple: Loudspeaker manufacturers design and tune (high-end audio is still an art) their products ASSUMING that the inputs to the high-end side and the low-end are IDENTICAL They have to because they cannot predict anything else Do ANYTHING to upset that assumption (such as bi-wiring or worse, bi-amping) and you will destroy the results of their excellent work
It's all Snake-Oil. Did both numerous times now and there is NO difference in the sound whatsoever... mush the same as expensive speaker wire vs cheap, there is No sound difference to be had.
We briefly showed a visual, of passive bi-amping, you can study the image here www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/speaker-bi-wiring-bi-amping-explained/?. Active bi-amping is more complex and requires speakers that allow you to totally bypass their passive crossover and use and outboard one, which is very rare in the consumer speaker world
When you bi-amp does it matter which input you plug into on the speaker? For instance do you wire the R-Channel to the Top input on the speaker and the R (Bi-Amped) channel to the bottom input on the speaker or does it matter?
@@AudioAdvice I had two Emotive XPA DR1 amps, I upgraded them both to two XPA DR2s. About 500w per channel and then bi amped the speakers. Made a big difference. Bi wiring made no difference.
I'll let the thrill of AV be getting it to work all together as advertised. AV is a complete mess. Why is the newest HDCP advertised as a 'feature'? Because it's less likely to cause problems? Good grief.
only if the amp has built in active crossovers, then & only then bi-amp & bi-wiring has distictive difference audible from a bi-wired large floor main front left & right speaker. this will ease off the load on the internal amp, as low frequency reproduction will put a heavy load in the amp, thus limiting headroom & hifi sound reporduction. put in perspective, perlisten r7t speakers with trinnov's separates. having a bi-amp & bi-wiring setup will have significance sound quality when volume is applied at reference level..and that is tinnitus.
Unless you physically go inside the R7T and remove its crossovers would you just be passively biamping, you would not want something like a Trinnov to add additional crossovers. Yes, an active system with no passive crossovers and external electronic crossovers with a separate amp for each frequency range is usually better. Thanks for watching
Regarding bi-wiring, how different is connecting a jumper connector in the speaker and feeding the input from the amp with 2 source to carrying 4 wire from 2 source
As we said you need to try for yourself. Also the quality of the jumper makes a difference. Ideally it would be made from short pieces of your speakers wire rather than the thin piece usually included. Thanks for watching
@@rogerwebb7501 Because some jumpers are not very good. Many are very thin and plated to look like gold but really are not. If you have decent stranded speaker cable, its pretty easy to make them. If your speakers already have actual speaker wire jumpers there is typically no need to change those out as they are usually they same type of wire that is used to go to the crossover inside the speaker.
@@AudioAdvice The reason I ask is twofold: Firstly surely a manufacturer of quality must know perfectly well that the plates they are using are of sufficient conductivity that their job of conveying either treble or bass (depending on whether one plugs the speaker cable into top or bottom terminals) is not hindered. Secondly, all the 'special' jumpers that I've seen are far longer than they need to be! Surely they must be more effective the shorter they are!....or is it that the manufacturers of them want to seem like they are giving better 'value for money'?!
Thanks for the video, well done. I am considering bi-wiring my center channel with a powered sub to handle the lower frequencies and using my existing amp to power the center for the higher frequencies. The only way I can think of how to do this would be to run a Y-cable connector from my pre-amp center, with one Y going to my amp [as per usual] and the other Y running off to my powered sub. Am i correct in this thinking? If so, with the single RCA going to the sub in this instance be plugged into the LFE, or should I Y connect that signal to the sub's L & R input? Thanks, hope my description makes sense. For the record, I have recently purchased two SVS PB-3000 from Audio Advice and those will be my primary subs.
That could work, it makes sense what you are trying to do. But you need to deal with a way to cross it over. If you tell the processor to cross over your center channel, it will not send any low frequencies to the sub. If you tell your processor the speaker is full range, you are not getting the benefit of taking the bass out of the center speaker. A better way to go would be to tell the processor the signal is full range, run an audio cable from the processor to the subwoofer input, use the internal crossover in the subwoofer, then run an audio cable from the subwoofer audio out back to your power amp for the center channel. Hope this helps and we appreciate your support!
This is. a year ago but this won't work. I understand your wanting to bi wire to the tweeter of the speaker and then not the woofer and instead use your sub as the woofer. Problem is that the woofer is also likely carrying out mid frequency duties as well. So your cutting off your speakers mids and only having highs from tweeter and lows subwoofer. Subwoofer only handles below 120 hz. Your left with a big gap in frequency coverage and it will sound awful.
Good catch, our marketing team pulled those drawings from a speaker wire mfg and no one noticed. The concept is shown properly, but yes, most people use the red for positive. In electrical wiring though black is normally positive and red is a traveler wire.
@@AudioAdvice Haha, yeah I assumed there was a slight slip there. I’ve certainly seen electrical drawings with black=pos as you mentioned, but always home stereo set-ups use the red=pos configuration. Btw, I’m not sold on the biwiring of speakers. My setups usually don’t involve any biwiring and I’m happy with the sound. Certainly fun to experiment with, however.
Bi wiring does nothing. Whatever electrical travel created by the woofer would travel up the wire and right to the tweeter, unless the wire was a mile long (exaggerating obviously,.. but not really). Bi wiring or even the jumper would work with a diode inline allowing one way electrical signals from the source.
Dave, (assuming you are an actual person) I sometimes ask people, have you thought of learning some electrical theory so that you can understand how things like this work? You could save yourself from either jumping to faulty conclusions, or being misled by what other people tell you or what you read in various places.
Well presented. Amp and speakers are in separate rooms routed through basement. To ease bi-wiring JBLs' installation, am running a 1 into 2 setup (or 2 into 4 if you prefer): split single + and - leads from amp into double at speakers. I assume it has the same effect as commercial bi-wires. Am I mistaken? Thank you.
Sounds like it. Feel free to call or chat with our experts at audioadvice.com and they can always run through your options to be sure you have it set up the best!
Bi wiring is stupid.. just put jumpers on the speaker Binding Posts. To really make the best use of Bi-Amping.. you should avoid the passive crossover in the speaker and use a 2 way speaker processor .. Really good passive Home speakers are so good that you really don't need to Bi-Amp anything except when using a subwoofer. get the right products for your application. I am an Audio Engineer. My home system is Passive with a powered sub.. my PA Systems I use for Concerts and events are Tri-Amped... but they are built to do that. Get over yourself... if you want better sound, buy better gear and better and bigger Amplifiers, but remember.. it takes twice the power ( 100 watts to 200 watts ) to get a 3 db boost in volume. It takes 10x the power to get twice the volume. What you're really buying in Home Stereo is better signal to noise in the chain... buy better gear !
bi-amping requires the user to incorporate an "active" crossover network. as the signal leaves the pre-amp, the raw signal is then fed to the input of the active crossover. after the signal is processed there, the high's go to a smaller power amp for tweeters and mids; whilst the lows go to a larger bass amp. Now the user has 2 volume controls for the same signal, one is for the highs, and the other one is for the lows. There might even be a third one for a subwoofer. This is how you bi-amp or tri-amp, making the amplification much more efficient. I know of no other way. The idea of bi-wiring is silly and the user opens up a much bigger possibility of damaging the speaker drivers, and it does nothing to cross over the signal. You are actually asking the tweeter to make bass sounds and the woofer to make the high frequency sound. That would be stupid. If you cannot hear the difference and think it sounds better, then you need to have your hearing checked.
There are many times when a person who is trying to explain how electricity flows will use Water as a parallel. Try imagining that the signal coming from the amplifier is a giant water tank. Your volume control is like a valve, and as you turn the volume control up you allow more of the signal to come through. And then once that signal leaves the amplifier (or water tank), you might have more than one place to hook up pipes or hoses. Now if you hook up a hose and run it to your faucet, the water will flow and you'll have lots of water. If you run another hose from one of the other outlets on the water tank, and then hook that up to the same faucet, you'll still get water. It'll be the same water that the first hose is bringing to you because it comes from the same tank. Bi-wiring is doing what I just described. It does not help anything, actually you are opening yourself up to damaging your speakers, especially your tweeters.
Thanks for all your comments. We welcome you to read our written article which might help. www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/speaker-bi-wiring-bi-amping-explained We discussed in this video, single wiring, bi-wiring, passive bi-amping and active bi-amping. With everyone of of those except active bi-amping, the passive crossovers in the speakers are still in place. We did state this is a controversial subject, but more than 75% of high end speaker manufacturers enable their speakers to be either single wired, bi-wired, or passively bi-amped. About that same percentage of home theater receiver companies offer a passive bi-amp option on their products if you are not using all of the amplifier channels of the speaker. McIntosh, one of the most respected engineering companies in the audio world, even offers power amplifiers designed for passive bi-amping.
As AudioAdvice has pointed out, unless you dismantle the speakers and rip out the crossovers, bi-amping does not require an active crossover. Neither passive bi-amping nor bi-wiring cause any harm to the operation of the crossovers, nor do they pose any threat to the drivers. You've completely misunderstood the principle of bi-wiring.
@@doctorquestian If anyone comes past and reads this "water explanation", don't bother trying to understand it. It is total nonsense and explains nothing about bi-wiring.
hello, I got Bowers & Wilkins 702 S3 speakers which says MAX 300 W total power coming from amp. I also got a Rotel 5 channel Amp with 210 W each channel. Can I use bi-amp (get 2 channels 210 W each from the amp) and feed 210 W on top and 210 W on the bottom on those B&W speaker? Notice when you explain Bi-Amping, you did not mention limitations about power. Thanks.
Video is amazing, but as a small question as a small person in this world. My speakers are Polk Audio RTI9 front Towers and JBL Balboa 30 all set . Receiver Onkyo TX-NR575...... How I shoud connect cabals to get the best of the stuff which i head plz help me if You can.
I actively triamped a pair of tower sapphire stt speakers and boy do they sound so much better after I tuned them with a dsp. It puts all this passive biamp/biwiring to shame 😂
The only cost is the cables. Of course Audio Advice sells some cables that go for thousands of dollars. Expensive cables, bi-wiring and passive bi-amping are a waste of time and money. Put the money into better speakers, another sub, or acoustic treatments to get real results.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. We agree with you for most situations, spending just a little bit on acoustic treatments or even decorative items like hanging quilts and large leafy plants makes more of an improvement than anything
If you don’t have two amps, passive bi-wire CANNOT WORK with two wires going to one output. Rules of physics dictate. Adding connections will add more resistance than it is getting back up the cable. Theory is false
Have you noticed that there is the same number of connections in each system? Bi-wire has a total of 8, single-wire also has 8 (2 binding posts at amplifier, 2 binding posts at speaker, the speaker then has 4 connection points on the two straps or jumper wires joining the LF and HF binding posts together.) If you're interested in what the laws of physics dictate about bi-wire compared to single-wire, it's very interesting to start with a clean sheet and no preconceptions and carefully draw up accurate (with _every_ detail) equivalent circuits for each, and observe the differences. It's the fact that two wires *are* connected to the one output and earth return directly at the amplifier that means bi-wire *can* work, in the sense of creating some moderate difference in operation. It's certainly not as much difference as bi-amping, but if you're not using active crossovers ahead of the amps to directly connect the speaker drivers to the amp outputs, there's surprisingly little difference between single amp bi-wire and dual amp bi-wire when you put detailed circuit layouts side by side.
I think I want to bi-wire my RP600M bookshelfs and my Anthem MCA 225 Gen 2. That's a nice Saturday project. Later in the year some Cornwalls will do the trick!
... but the bi-wired system is still physically linking all the terminals using the same conductive wires. Nothing in the wire knows to split highs from lows and the same "magnetic feedback" will flow through that conductive material. 🤔
This is something that a person who hasn't had training in electrical theory finds hard to visualize. It's also tricky to explain just using words on the internet! 🙂 (It helps to know the difference between voltage and current.) You're quite right to say nothing in the wire knows to split highs from lows - that's true whether it is a single wired or bi-wired system. It's the two sections of the crossover in the speaker that do the splitting. The low frequency crossover receives current from the wire at those low frequencies and passes it to the woofer, ignoring the high frequencies. The HF crossover does the same for the tweeter, "grabbing" the higher frequencies and ignoring the low ones. (I'm generalizing for simplicity.) The current to drive both woofer and tweeter has to travel together in the one wire as a combined quantity. When the crossover sections are split and each has its own wire to the amplifier, the low crossover section gets the low frequency current from its wire, and ignores the high frequency portion, passing no (or little) high frequency current to the woofer. So the low frequency current runs along the low frequency wire. The same happens on the other wire, the HF crossover section is "sucking" the current it's looking for through the "high frequency" wire and stopping lower frequency from going through. So even though each wire has the same stuff "available" as a single wire would, each wire is doing less work, only carrying what current the crossover and driver connected to it wants. Please let me know if this helps to visualize what is going on.
Bi-Wiring with a single amp really makes no difference. All frequencies go along the same cables and any difference is plecebo only. Bi-amping may make a difference, if you have the correct crossovers at the pre-amp stages to give the right outputs at the amps. Anyone using a powered sub-woofer fed from a dedicated LFE output from an amp is actually bi-amping as the subwoofer is amplified separately from the main speakers. If you join the speaker cables together, even just at one end, all signals are on all cables. This rubbish about having reflected signals is just not a thing at speaker levels. Once you join the cables, even at one end, you create a circuit between the two cables, and can actually make it sound worse.
As we stated, this is a hotly debated subject with some speaker manufacturers agreeing with you and others disagreeing. It comes down to trusting your own ears. Thanks for watching and commenting.
I am currently running Klipsch THX650 (thx6000) front 3. I'm using the Marantz sr8015 on pre amp mode to the Sunfire TGA7400 amplifier. 1. I used QED Silver anniversary in shotgun style and made jumpers from Chord odyssey. Actually sounds good. Sounds heavy and solid with great high frequency. 2. I then experimented with bi wire. Simply taking apart the shotgunned cable and used it as bi wire. It sounded OK but I preferred the shotgun cable. This sounded like I connected an eq and boosted 1khz onwards. Clean but fatiguing. 3. Bi Amp. The sunfire has 2 sets of binding post for front left and right (current and Voltage) So I used Current outputs for tweeters and I bi amped to surround back channels to use those for the bass drivers. The sound quality is absolutely fantastic. When listening to music and movies, they are loud (when they need to be!) But controlled. I've limited the volume to -15db max!
When u use high L and R for bywiring we have only surround back for atmos (2spk) for the remaining 2 atmos speaker what is the best solution. Can we take the pre out of same and connect it to a separate 2ch amp and connect.
i could hear the difference between silver and copper. so you wire heights with silver and bass with copper . however if you have bi amping is worth a crossover with dsp , because you put less frequencies on each amp and that makes a real difference.
You have great ears, thanks for sharing. Yes, we agree if you have a speaker where you can remove the internal passive crossover, fully biamping is the way to go.
I have heard that if you can’t bi wire or bi amp, at least remove the bridge and use a short run of quality speaker wire to bridge. Claims are that the bridge connection more easily comes loose, and that the bridge is not shielded.
Bi amping on integrated amps can be possible, you need to house two amps and a crossover on a single integrated amp unit, done. connecting the crossover in between the tone controls and the input of the amps, low and hi frequencies.
i have harman kardon avr745 and hk signature series 2.1 5 channel poweramp. i dunno if i could use my pre’s zone2 channels for bi amping but used a Y cable to double up my stereo channels and hooked up to poweramp separately . the difference is huge! i am using bw 683 tower speakers . Thanks for the video
Hello. So I have a question. On my speakers I dont have 4 plugs only 2. But on my reciever å have Bi-Wire mode + on the back i have HF left right and LF keft right. It also has subwoofer, center and surround left and right for bare wires. And then it also has Subwoofer in. Center, Surround L, Surround R, but for plugs. So the question is, can i still not use bi-wire even tho the reciever has the connection? Atm i have everything connected in the bare wire connectors + Sub in the plug. But only the bi-wire works but really bad or if I switch to center mode then only the center plays :S
@@AudioAdvice Okey i have some of those thicker cables so maybe i can try. Alto i noticed that i had the aux connected to dvd and not cd so when I switched to cd it got a bit better because there i could use the Pro Logic settings. Thank you :)
Heya! You are literally using the power amp I am asking about (woot woot). Bi Amping specific, do I plug a set of cables into both right termals and both left terminals and then run them into my single set of bi-amp speakers? or is this a no no? So 4 outputs into 2 bi-wire speakers? Get me lol?
That's awesome! Do you have jumpers on then back of your speakers? This sounds like a conventional setup unless you have two amplifiers. Check this page out for some visuals and maybe that would help! www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/speaker-bi-wiring-bi-amping-explained/ You can always reach out to our team at audioadvice.com and they can make sure you are set up correctly!
@AudioAdvice thanks for the fast response. Single amp, single set of speakers, 2 sets of outs in amp. Just regular banana plugs into each speaker terminal.
.........bi-amp only if speaker is a 3-way speaker.......otherwise, the sound will be ''pulled apart''.............no point bi-wiring - better to single wire with a better cable than cheaper bi-wire cables...............when single-wire = positive run below, negative run on top.......vice versa if speaker is 3-way design.......
@@AudioAdvice .......most speakers don't need bi-amping anyway, especially those small 2-way speakers - the biwire connectors is just for marketing......that's why you have many high-end 3-way speakers with single wire only......
One question still bugs me and I can't find no answer anywhere: to bi-wire correctly wouldn't you need an amplifier with 4 channels (2 stereo channels, or one like that in your video)? If you bi-wire, let's say with a stereo amplifier, (one left and one right channel) wouldn't you just send the same signal to both speaker cables?
Great question. Two amps is passive biamping which should be better. The theory is the thing biwiring helps is the back feedback from a woofer and by separating the leads the wire feeding the tweeter does not see that. But this is a hotly debated subject and everyone should come to their own conclusion by trying it. Thanks for watching and commenting
I believe you should use DIFFERENT cables when biwiring. Use a cable that does top end better for high frequency crossover, and vice versa. Also, why must cables be same length? You do know the speed of light, right?
Electricity speed varies depending on many factors including wire gauge, but it’s roughly 90% the speed of light , not to be confused with lightning which travels at 270k mph . I don’t believe different cables should be used for biwiring , that’s the crossover’s job . And as far as different length, our ears may not notice a difference but the amplifier will . If you run one speaker at 12 feet and the other at 3 feet , the 3 foot cable will be warmer .
This topic is overridden by the ONLY real way to BI-amp a ROOM. AND it is also the strongest argument for including dual/two HIGH QUALITY sub woofers in your 'theater' . Adjust ALL speakers , other than the subs, to have a low cut off of 125 (or 125-180). NO HUMAN can truly hear the point source of base below 125 , it is omnipresent . (when the subs , located WHEREVER/wherever you like or have space , are turned on you will SWEAR the front speaker just started to produce base frequency even if the subs are in the back of the room. The main ,surround,rear ,center, or atmos speakers are relieved of base (125 and lower) power interferences and perform at their best
That is usually the case, but in rare cases such as mine, I beg to differ. My sensitive ears feels the pressure on of the side of my ear the sub is placed on, even at lowered volumes and lower frequency although more difficult my ears can tell. I ended up getting two small subs to ease the pressure to evenly spread the sound.
I've been debating between the denon s760h and x1700h. Most specs are similar other than marginal power upgrade snd ability to bi amp. But its about a extra $150. Do you believe the bi amping ability is worth the extra cost?
They are very similar, they even weight almost exactly the same. You would probably wind up using all 7 channels and not be able to take advantage of the bi-amping, For more information, please reach out to our team at www.audioadvice.com Thanks for watching
On that particular home theater receiver, you can redo the routing of the amp channels for biamping, on this one you use the height channels. Thanks for watching
@@justaguy4real some home theater receivers let you use two of the amp channels to biamp. You just have to tell the receiver you are doing it that way. In the one we showed it lets you use the height channels. Using A & B would not biamp as those are pulling from the same amp channels but it is a good way to biwire Hope this helps.
Active crossover bi amp - that’s what seems will make the most difference. Can you speak to how that compares as a next step in upgrading? Especially for someone who has a 4 channel amp
That method is by far and away the best. But you need an electronic crossover and a way to fully bypass the internal crossovers. Very few speakers on the market can accommodate that.
@@derekviveiros That would just be passive biamping. If you remove it, you need to replace it with an electronic one, and you would need to know all the crossover points and filter slopes. Its not as easy as you might think
My current outgoing theory for why people hear a difference is the removal of the jumpers. Swapping the jumpers for 6" of speaker wire with y spades on it imo is equal to running new wiring from avr to speaker. Another thing is if you're using say 14 gauge wire and comparing to 2 sets of 14 gauge wire you're technically closer to 12 gauge than 14. Also what kind of speakers you have might make for a bigger difference as a 3 way speaker with the top terminal handling the tweeter + mid vs bottom handling the woofer(s) would make a bigger difference when bi-amping over a 2 way speaker like most bookshelf speakers. Edit: also psycho acoustics such as expectation bias and stuff really make it hard to gauge if it's actually better or not without your mind tricking you
Each element undoubtably contributes. The average plate jumpers are horrible, so that’s a win just by removing them. Doubling up on the wire also improves things, so again, what’s not to like. Finally, the segregation of the signals is a real benefit, delivering a performance jump in any moderately resolving system. My systems are more than moderate, however, I bi-wired my daughter’s system a couple of weeks back and the overall effect of all of the above delighted everyone who heard it.
Biamping has more channels being used. But the connections can look similar if you use speaker A&B, but that does use the same amp though. Thanks for watching
Any recommendations on fans ? I have an old Yamaha with class a and 4 channels. I just bi amped yesterday. Looking into active crossover. But wanna be sure before I chop the passive out. That I’ll be worth it and drop of resell value
If you choose NOT to bi-wire and use the spkrs with the jumpers in place, do the spkr cables from the amp connect to the HF or LF terminals of the spkr?
LF typically. Another way to improve the sound without biwiring is to replace the cheap, flat, thin jumpers with a short piece of your speaker wire. Thanks for watching
@@AudioAdvice Thank you. I only asked because a user's manual from Tannoy online suggested HF posts to connect to. I thought that was really odd. I wonder why...Thanks for the tip re: replacing the cheap jumpers. Does it matter if I use spades at the bottom or banana / bare wire termination to replace the jumpers with speaker wire?
@@AudioAdvice Hi thanks. Bi-wiring I think, I was wondering if you could use an A + B setting to not bi-wire but use 8 outputs rather than 4. I don't think you can.
First time viewer here. Great video, informative and perfect length for the topic.
My current avr is a Yamaha rx-a2a, it has bi-amp capabilities and I do notice some separation improvements.
What is your opinion, is bi-amping technically running 4 channels instead of 2 during 2.1 listening?
My main concern is the lower level avr’s, advertise their power ratings with two channels ran, and the power is supposedly dramatically reduced when running multiple channels.
Thank you
Thank you! On some AVRs you are right. If that were the case and you try biamping you should probably connect the bass driver to the main left and right and the treble to the other channels then try the other way to see if you hear a difference. Thanks for sharing what you experienced
@@AudioAdvice did I win a giveaway?
I received a email about it.
Thank you
@@WardoUSA Thank you for letting us know. We have been reporting these to You Tube. It seems that someone is impersonating us.
Just saw this video and it gave me some questions. My now old THX Pioneer receiver I went in the menu and looked at Surr Back System, here I have the alternative to Front Bi-Amp.
For years my front speakers is Bi-Wire since I was under the impression that you MUST have two recivers to Bi-Amp your speakers.
But did I understand it correctly that my reciver have a adjustment that let me Bi-Amp the front speakers whitout using two separate recivers?
Great explanation! Bi-wiring is definitely worth it if your speakers allow for it.
Very true!
Bi wiring is a waste of effort and money.
All speakers allow bi-wiring. They even allow quad-wiring.
I just bought the Crown XLS1002 Two-channel amp. they have a feature built into the amp called Y Mode. (you simply run one RCA cable from your subwoofer output on your receiver to one channel on the Crown) it's a built-in feature. and it works great, it is so powerful. you can easily drive four 8-inch 2-ohm DVC. not even using bridge mode. works great. if you know how to wire it correctly.
Thanks for sharing. If your Crown has an Ethernet connection you can download their free Hi Q Net software and do a whole lot more.
@@AudioAdvice I don't think mine has an ethernet connection. I must say. this is my first D-class amp. I'm very impressed with its capabilities. I will look into the software. thanks a bunch.
I've tried both bi-wiring and bi-amping countless times to determine what I liked more. Bi-amping is certainly the more noticeable upgrade for the average user, however, a great set of speaker cables and a properly calibrated receiver or processor makes a big difference on the performance of bi-wiring (my current setup). I haven't turned back since. Great video!
Thanks for sharing!
Expensive speaker cable don't make any measurable differences...
They are the most known snake oil of the industry.
Expensive DAC being the next.
@Chris Doehla bi-wiring is just that, two sets of wires. The amplification remains the same, one left channel, one right. Bi-amping goes a step further with one channel for each driver. In both scenarios the crossover is passive and there are generally incremental improvements with these two steps.
The largest step is to go fully active, again one amplifier channel per driver, but now with a powered or active crossover between the preamp and the power amps. By far the largest improvement due to the removal of the passive crossover and the loss and phase issues it causes.
@@hypnoz7871 The only upgrades in Cables that are worth the Money are:
1. Pure Oxygen Free Copper or Tinned Pure Oxygen Free Copper (Aluminum Wire is only a good substitute for Power Wire in Mobile Audio scenarios if you are on a budget and you could for example instead of 4GA Copper you could buy 1/0 Aluminum…
2. The Gauge of the Wire 16ga through as thick as 8ga you don’t need anything thicker than 8ga. I don’t care what you are running.
3. Terminals. I think it’s worth it to get Banana Terminals or Spades (on the Speaker Side) don’t bother getting anything other than Gold. Don’t waste your Money on Platinum, Rhodium, etc..
4. Braided Wire Loom but only if you are going to see any of the Cables. It’s nice to have professional looking Cables. Not really necessary otherwise though. Unless you are going to run them through the Walls, then make sure you are buying Shielded Speaker Wire that is made for that usually labeled like CL3 Rated / UL listed.
I have 8Ga Bi-Amp Tinned OFC with Gold Banana Plug Terminals including Wire Pants and Braided Loom. (8Ga Knukonceptz Krux Bi-Amp Kable)
placebo effect
I. personally, found bi-amping to be totally worth the effort and expenses.
Was using a very old, by now, Cyrus integrated amp, a Cyrus 3i (2x 60 W) plus afterburner, as in a PSX-R, plus a Cyrus Smart Power power amp, plus after burner, as before, to fire Mission 750 floor standers, 2-way, 2 connectors, to then find the improvement to be absolutely *massive*. Especially so, when using the 2x70W Smart Power (in stereo mode, could have used that in mono, if I had happened to have two of them, giving 115 W each, with the PSX-Ra) to drive the tweeters, instead of the 2 woofers/squeakers sitting both below and above the tweeters, at equal distances. What I did not try out was using the stronger Smart Power, being a dedicated power amp, to power both sets of drivers, bi-wiring or not.
What I did was using a twisted multi-stranded "Black and White" cable (which Cyrus are recommending against, not he brand, but the construction in general, I now will be threading a big diameter hose of low electroconductivity Teflon hose through their stranding, to drive the woofers, and a set of equal length very low gauge multi-stranded silvered cable to drive the tweeters, might happen to act as an "equalizer" of sorts. Sounded better, to my ears, as far as resolution for male/female vocals went, both The Cyrus system and the Mission speakers being very "polite" and "mellow" to start with.
Any comment or recommendations on that? Would be pleased hearing from you.
We appreciate you sharing your experience. That must have been an interesting wiring diagram. We can't figure where the old integrated comes in as the 3i would do one set of drivers with its preouts feeding the Smart power for the other.
@@AudioAdvice Wiring was hardly more interesting than connecting the pre-outs to the power amp via RCA. What I am, by now, am putting it down to is what Paul McGowan from PS-Audio says, i.e. back in the 90ies some amps where better at certain frequency ranges than others, so where the cables (those would be from 2000+), which now can more or less run the whole spectrum. As I said, it never occurred to me to let the 3i just be a pre-amp and have the Smart Power do the work, no bi-wiring, not nothing. Will have to try, and put a thick hollow Teflon hose through the Black and Whites, as recommended by Danny from GR research, assuming stuff is still working, been holed up in Thailand for the last 10y. Keep up the got work, solid info. 👌
Love the video. Super duper helpful. Keeping putting out this type of video. Many of us appreciate it more than you know.
Thanks so much! We are glad you enjoyed it
Tons of information packed into 7 minutes with no fluff or BS. Great job! 👏
Glad you liked it!
@@AudioAdvice I would disagree. You do not understand why the manufacturer of the speaker gave you 4 terminals.
@@doctorquestianthen please elaborate…otherwise your post is kind of useless and a bit insulting. No offense. Shall I assume your point was that the extra posts are for bi-amping?
This is from Cambridge Audio:
"At Cambridge Audio all of our modern speakers do not have the capacity to be bi-wired. We always want to offer our customers the best possible components in our products, rather than adding an extra set of terminals to the speakers we would rather invest in a better crossover. This philosophy also extends to our views on wiring. Rather than spending your hard earned cash on two sets of mediocre wires that can be bi-wired into a speaker, why not single wire using some really great speaker cable? This is also more space effective as you don’t get the tangling mess of cables at the back of your hi-fi set up which can often come with bi-wiring.
There is a lot of discussion around this topic; in fact you’ll find yourself a little lost in a sea of online forums about it! Some believe that bi-wiring is purely a marketing ploy, often referred to as ‘buy wiring’, whilst others believe it makes a noticeable impact particularly to middle range sound. We made the decision not to build our speakers with a bi-wiring option so we can focus on making the components inside of our products the best they can be."
Thanks for sharing! It is definitely a hot topic of debate. As long as you enjoy the sound, then that's all that matters!
This philosophy makes the most sense, though I didn't even know Cambridge made speakers. There are plenty of very high quality speakers that only have a single pair of terminals. The only reason most hifi brands have two pairs is because they know many of their customers believe that it will sound better when bi-wiring/amping.
Also amplifier takes only 2 connections and speaker has 4 connections. I don't understood how frequencies separate out in middle of wires?
@@abhijeetupadhye6821 they don't.
@@TH-lo8mq I do not understand why you do not explain to these by wiring people that what they are doing is futile, and at the worst dangerous. They could damage the loudspeakers doing it that way.
Great and simple explanation. The benefits will be base on what people feel and hear in their system. This opens up other options for everyone to either explore or consider.
Thanks for sharing, glad you liked it
Bi-amping works great and provides a big improvement to the soundstage. Bi-wiring is identical to straight wiring, at least on a schematic and I have never noticed a difference.
Thanks for sharing. We think active biamping where you totally eliminate the passive crossover offers huge improvements. Its just hard to find as an option on most speakers.
@@AudioAdvice Yes, this setup is hard to find, and I was totally frustrated and went forward with building my own speakers. Two separate crossovers (High/Mid/woofer and Subwoofer). They are powered by two 1968 McIntosh MC250 (fully restored) and two preamps coming off of my mixer board. One amp feeds the upper crossovers and the other feeds the lower crossovers. The speakers are modeled after the Troels Gravesen CNO-4.
@@AudioAdvice Is it easy to remove the passive crossover in the speaker?
@@derekviveiros yes, just unsolder it from the terminals
The key proviso is "at least on a schematic", and it's sensible of you to put in that caveat. A schematic is a conceptual circuit, and there's a lot of information detail that a basic one doesn't convey. Proper circuit analysis reveals bi-wiring and single wire connection are not identical, but the differences in operation are small and likely to be overpowered by other factors. It's not surprising that people have tried bi-wiring and not heard a difference, and it's not surprising that some are sure they do detect a difference, since the possibility can't rightly be excluded.
In biwiring how crossover works. At amplifier side we have only 2 plugs and speaker has 4 plugs. How highs and lows separate out?
There are more details here www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/speaker-bi-wiring-bi-amping-explained, but it is a highly debatable subject
Correct me if I am wrong but they don’t separate out.
@@ivyward1409May I correct you...as you are wrong! In the biwire setup the whole purpose of it is that the point (called the y-point) at which the highs and lows split is brought back to the amplifier end, allowing the highs to travel along the tweeter wire, and the lows to travel along the woofer wire. In a single wire system the 'y-point' is either at the upper terminals or lower terminals depending into which you plug the speaker cables. I leave it to others to argue over whether it makes a difference....but, if it 'works' this is how it does!
My spekaers has 3 connectors one red and two black. Is for biwiring too?
I bi-wired a pairs of Linn Kabers form a Linn amp. I heard a big change, but more telling was my very non-audiophile friend. His jaw dropped over the difference. The system sounded great before, but after there was just so much more. More soundstage, more upper and lower extension, more rhythm. If you have the ability to try it, and you have the extra cables, try it! You have nothing to lose and possibly tons to gain!
Thanks for sharing. The Kaber was a great speaker. It was also one of the few speakers you could actively bi amp.
Do u notice any difference? I use Bose and Wilson Audio, never Bi-amped. Should try it.
Electrically in bi-wiring you just move the jumper from the LS itself to the amp end - so there is no difference other than the wire's resistance reduces, which can be achieved by getting a thicker cable in the first place. therefore you can in principle bi-wire all loudspeakers by running a double cable and connect to the same connectors. Passive bi-amping may have pros but surely cons. I used to bi-amp but have left this and bridged my amp instead. Since the wires were already there are bi-wired just for the looks.
Yes, it is a very debatable subject. Thanks for watching
Whilst it may look like all you've done is 'move the jumper to the amplifier end', in fact what you have done when you remove the jumper and connect two sets of wires to the upper and lower terminals is pull the 'y-point' (the point at which the highs and lows split to the high and low pass filters) back from the speaker terminals (the y-point in biwirable speakers) to the amplifier end allowing highs to flow along the tweeter cable and the lows to flow along the woofer cable. The debate is whether a significant advantage accrues in doing this.
There was a lot of important information left out of the video. Starting with biwiring, there are 2 ways to do it. An internal biwire is when regular speaker cables are used, and the conductors are split up at the speaker end of the cable. Internal biwiring typically yields small to no audible differences. External biwiring is when you use 2 completely separate runs of speaker cables. You also need to keep the 2 runs of cables separated from each other by a few inches. The explanation as to how it works isn't quite right. Low frequencies don't go back down the speaker cables. What really happens is the cable carrying the low frequencies creates a field around the cable, and if the cable that carries the high frequencies gets to close, they can be effected by that field. Also, not all xovers are made the same way. In order for biwiring to work properly, the xover has to be designed with biwiring in mind. Most speakers are not, so its rare you'll ever hear any sizeable benefits from biwiring. The difference is usually very small, and you're better off investing in something that will make a bigger difference. However, when biwiring is done properly, it does make a substantial difference. But this is not the norm, so don't do it unless you can try the cables first to see what kind of differences you hear, if any.
This is a direct quote from the person who invented the concept of biwiring. Here's a link to the entire article. www.vandersteen.com/support/faqs
"So we looked at the speaker wires. With two amplifiers, bi-amplification used two sets of speaker cables so we experimented with doubling-up the speaker wires and with larger wire. Neither duplicated the bi-amplification improvements. Then we considered that in a bi-amplified system, one set of wires carries the low-frequencies and the other set of wires carries the high-frequencies. We modified a speaker's crossovers to accept two sets of cables and present different load characteristics to each set so that the low-frequencies would be carried by one set of wires and the high-frequencies by the other set of wires. Finally we heard the sonic improvements of bi-amplification with a single amplifier.
Additional experiments with a Hall Effect probe revealed that high-current bass frequencies created a measurable field around the wires that expanded and collapsed with the signal. We believe that this dynamic field modulates the smaller signals, especially the very low level treble frequencies. With the high-current signal (Bass) separated from the low-current signal (Treble) this small signal modulation was eliminated as long as the cables were separated by at least an inch or two. (To keep the treble cable out of the field surrounding the bass cable.)
With biamping, you need to know what you're doing or you can waste a lot of money. There are 2 ways to biamp, horizontal and vertical. In the video, you showed an example of horizontal biamping. This almost always a bad idea, and the most common. You have one amp driving the mids/highs, and the other amp drives the lows. You run into 2 problems with this method. Unless you are extremely lucky, there's going to be a volume difference between both amps. That's why an active xover is needed. There's no other way to match the levels. Also, there's usually sound quality issues. The sound of an amp changes the harder you push it. So, even if you have 2 identical amps, the amp driving the bass frequencies will be working much harder than the one driving the highs. Sonically, it turns them into 2 different amps.
Vertical biamping gets around the issues with horizontal biamping. To do it, you must have 2 identical, stereo amps. The left channel signal goes into both inputs on one of the amps. Same thing for the right channel. Each amp drives the entire speaker. There's no volume issues, and each amp is doing the same amount of work. Going this route should make a noticeable difference, but there's no guarantee that 2 of the same amps will sound better than one higher quality amp for twice the price. It may, but each situation is different.
Thanks for your comments, we know Richard very well and remember the day he called us about bi-wiring. On the passive bi-amping, we did state you MUST use identical power amps. Bi-wiring is definitely an interesting topic of debate. AudioQuest- whose cables Vandersteen used back then, believes its the back feed. Both possibilities make sense. As with anything where you are after improvements, the proof is in the listening.
@@AudioAdvice "On the passive bi-amping, we did state you MUST use identical power amps. "
Read my post again, or you can call Richard for his input on the matter. Either way, we're both going to tell you the same thing. In your video, you do show 2 identical stereo amps used to biamp a pair of speakers. However, what you showed is an example of horizontal biamping. Having 2 identical amps for passive horizontal biamping, is almost never going to work properly. Electrically, they almost always become 2 different amps and you'll still need an active xover to fix the problems you encounter. If you read my post, I specifically stated vertical biamping is the correct way to do a passive biamp with 2 identical amps amps. You did not go over this method in your video.
"Bi-wiring is definitely an interesting topic of debate. AudioQuest- whose cables Vandersteen used back then, believes its the back feed."
There's really nothing to debate. Vandersteen didn't just use AudioQuest cables "back then", whatever that means. He designed products for them, not just used them. As with biamping I clearly stated how it works, and provided references.
"As with anything where you are after improvements, the proof is in the listening."
I agree. No offence, but given the fact that you don't know what vertical biamping is, tells us you can't have any listening experience to verify anything. The same can be said about biwiring. It only makes a real difference that's worth paying for, if its done properly. There used to be others, but the only speaker I know of, that is currently in production and is designed to be biwired, is Vandersteen. So, unless you have listening experience biwiring with Vandersteen speakers, you really can't know the type of difference that's possible. Any Vandersteen owner will tell you the same thing.
If you go back and read my post, my advice to anyone that is thinking of doing biamping or biwiring, is to try it first, before you make a substantial investment. I think that's a pretty reasonable suggestion. Call The Cable Company if you live in the US. They will send you demo cables of anything you want to try, so there is no risk. They also sell components and keep demo units of most pieces. They should be able to send you 2 identical amps to try, so you may want to ask about that, as well. But definitely cables, so take advantage of their demo program.
Rather than use TWO stereo amplifiers to vertically biamp like you described, could I just use four channels from ONE power amplifier to get just as good a result?
@@lawpenner if it is a four channel power amp yes
@@AudioAdvice what if I buy a 5-channel power amplifier, use one channel for my center and then two channels each for Left and Right bi-amped? Is this a good idea?
Or am I better off just buying a beefier 3-Channel power amplifier for the same money and simply bi-wiring Left and Right instead of bi-amping?
Oh yes it does I have upgraded wires over the years and they do make a difference even the missus can hear it
Awesome, thanks for sharing!
Hey guys. I’ve just got a set of speakers with 2 terminals and getting confused with how to connect them. So I can use 2 wires for the +/- channels of the speaker terminals and be able to put both the +\- into one + or - terminal on my amp? So 4 wires from the speaker down to 2?
That is basically it, yes, follow the link in the video to the written article which has some diagrams.
Just saw this video and it gave me some questions. My now old THX Pioneer receiver I went in the menu and looked at Surr Back System, here I have the alternative to Front Bi-Amp.
For years my front speakers is Bi-Wire since I was under the impression that you MUST have two recivers to Bi-Amp your speakers.
But did I understand it correctly that my reciver have a adjustment that let me Bi-Amp the front speakers whitout using two separate recivers?
Yes, some receivers will have this option in the menu!
Thanks for this very useful information. If I hadn't seen the video maybe I would never know this thing you have given me about Bi-Amp. Know few people that have Bi-Amp, but they have used two recivers. So they may not know this is possible for all I know. So thank you for the easy short to the seller for point video of information you has given 👍👌
How in the world do you separate signals when both sets of cables end up connected to the same terminal on the receiver? Ohm it out and you’ll see my point.
I just got Sony STR-AN1000 AVR and decided to bi-wire the front Klipsch speakers using the front and surround back/bi plugs (removing the jumper plates from the speakers). The difference was night and day, more pronounced cymbals and sweeter sound in general. I did run the calibration both times.
Thanks for sharing!
Bi-amp, bi-amp, bi-amp! Bi-amp the hell out of your front left and right and center channel! It's what you should do before you buy a 2nd sub or go beyond 5.1.
I read about so many people with dedicated home theaters that don't bi-amp but then have like MiniDSP and lord knows what else and 15 subs and I wonder why on earth you'd bother feeding 100 watts from an emotiva amplifier to a teeny atmos speaker on your ceiling that plays sound at 1db every 10 days, when you are not separating the power to your LCR which play 90% of the sound and probably cost more than anything in your system.
Unfortunately, the days of AVRs with toroidals are coming to an end as along with the glory days of home theater so it's hard to find an amp that can properly bi-amp your LCR with a single box unless you pony up for the Marantz SR8015 or the Rotel 1580 which cost $4,000-$6,000 and I wouldn't. So you will probably need to get external amplification.
All is not lost, though, as most AVRs do support preamps and you can use them to bi-amp with another 7 channel external amp (6 for the LCR). Then use the amp's power to power all your other speakers.
Great insight, thanks for watching!
Nice explanation on some points. Good explanation of multi-amping. Getting away from the x-over in the speaker cab yields good results. In my experience, I've not seen that wires and amps need to be identical. I've tri-amped using solid state and vacuum tube amps (Onkyo S/S, Fisher and TenTec tubies, NAD S/S, and others I've forgotten over the past 40 years of playing these games). Currently drive a pair of JLB4411 with the x-over removed, tri-amping with S/S amps. Reinforced with Bose 901s for midrange driven with a separate amp, getting only the mid range from the TDM active x-overs (no highs, no lows...must be Bose) The ratio of wavelengths (audio vs electrical) are so far apart the the time delay introduced by extra wire length would be undetectable, and barely measurable even with the right test equipment. Wires: I've mixed and matched, even played with 25 conductor ribbon cable wired even/odd to approximate speaker impedance. I found no difference between zip cord, ribbon cable, individual stranded, and solid core wire. Never found a distinguishable difference in wires. This isn't RF. In my opinion, the money is best spent on good speaker motors and concert tickets.
Thanks for sharing, yes concerts are fun!
I own a rare speaker; Panasonic SB-400.. (same as Technic SB-400.) These speakers allow for true Tri-Amping. So VERY cost prohibiting except that there are now so many affordable Class D amps out there such as the Aiyima A07. If you search for images of these speakers you will find several shots of the rear terminals and the switches selecting your preferred use of one amp, two amps or three amps. My problem is I would have no idea how I could ever integrate three amps between my source and my speakers. What preamp could I use? To me this seems to be an exercise in abstract thinking! BTW, these speakers are rare in the States and were made in Japan in the early 1970's. Sensitivity is 93db. My speakers are in perfect working order and sound incredible with just one amp.
Very interesting speakers. It looks like you would need an electronic crossover in between your preamp and power amps. Did they make a matching one back then? Thanks for watching
How far back should the bi-wired cables be connected? Is it ok to split the connection at the wall plate and then run separate wires to the speaker? Or should be wire be separated closer to the amp/AVR?
They should be separated at the AVR. Thanks for watching
Great info here. Really appreciate the info in this video. Subscribed. Keep em coming
Glad you liked it! Thanks
Bi-amping certainly makes a difference. Bi-wiring… yeah I wouldn’t waste my time
We hear you! Everyone has a different take on this. It's really interesting to get everyone's thoughts on this topic. Thanks for watching!
IMHO, this is nonsense. Bi-wiring is a complete waste of time. If anything, it will make your speakers sound worse. Bi-amping can improve sound, but not the way you are discussing here. The way you are discussing bi-amping, you could achieve the same impact by simply using a more powerful amp instead of bi-amping with 2 amps. And I wouldn’t consider doing any of this in a HT context. And BTW, no one can hear the difference between cable lengths unless we are talking about radically different lengths.
I am bi-amping, but I am using speakers designed to be bi-amped which most commercial speakers really aren’t designed to do. The commercial speakers that are designed to be bi-amped typically have a built in amp for the bass region. They are bi-amped, but you as the consumer cannot power anything other than the tweeter and the midrange which have a crossover between them.
How do I know my speakers can be truly bi-amped? Because they are custom designed for bi-amping and they demonstrate the situation in which bi-amping can make a difference. The speaker is a 3-way design. One amp powers the tweeter and midrange which have a passive crossover. The woofer is powered by a separate amp with an electronic crossover. One advantage is that you don’t have to use identical amps. This form of bi-amping allows me to use a low powered amp for the tweeter/midrange and a higher power amp for the woofer where it is really needed. This allows me to use a low powered tube or Class A amp for the tweeter/midrange and something like a high powered Class D amp for the woofer. This approach also can provide more control over the response of the speaker in your room. Good Class D plate amps also have EQ to control amplifications of certain bass frequencies due to room geometry. I also have full control over the electronic crossover point and slope. As you can probably tell, these speakers are part of a 2 channel system. For HT, I wouldn’t waste my time or money.
Thanks for sharing
I have some polk s60 towers and they sound super great bi wired wouldn't even try hooking them up any other way, yup bi wiring is definitely the way to go
Thanks for sharing
seriously?!?
what was shown is 1/one speaker output to two sets of post of the SAME speaker. I cannot see how this improves ANY thing…
single cable with twice the strands = SAME results…
and I don’t know that speaker posts are “unlimitedely" large… at some point more strands will not change any thing…
We said in the very beginning this was a highly debated subject. Did you actually watch the entire video?
Why didn’t you demonstrate how to connect these wires to that receiver next to you
Go to about 3:15. We show it there!
Bi-wiring and bi-amping are not only ‘not worth it’ - they are BAD
You will either not gain anything in the best case, or degrade your system in the worst - in both cases you will waste money
The reason is simple:
Loudspeaker manufacturers design and tune (high-end audio is still an art) their products ASSUMING that the inputs to the high-end side and the low-end are IDENTICAL
They have to because they cannot predict anything else
Do ANYTHING to upset that assumption (such as bi-wiring or worse, bi-amping) and you will destroy the results of their excellent work
Thanks for sharing!
It's all Snake-Oil.
Did both numerous times now and there is NO difference in the sound whatsoever... mush the same as expensive speaker wire vs cheap, there is No sound difference to be had.
Appreciate your input. It's not for everyone
Very confusing bi-ampling explanation. No examples of how to go about it.
We briefly showed a visual, of passive bi-amping, you can study the image here www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/speaker-bi-wiring-bi-amping-explained/?. Active bi-amping is more complex and requires speakers that allow you to totally bypass their passive crossover and use and outboard one, which is very rare in the consumer speaker world
When you bi-amp does it matter which input you plug into on the speaker? For instance do you wire the R-Channel to the Top input on the speaker and the R (Bi-Amped) channel to the bottom input on the speaker or does it matter?
That might depend on your receiver. If the internal amps are identical, it should not matter. Thanks for watching
Generally the main front L & R go to the base, and the second jacks labeled Bi-Amp go to the tweeters.
Bi-wiring is a complete waste of perfectly good wire...bi-amping does provide benefits with the right speakers and receiver/amp
Yes, there are many views on this and that one is very popular. Thanks for sharing!
I did not hear much difference from bi wiring. I have a paid of B&W 803D. When I bi amped with two separate power amps I heard a huge difference.
Thanks for sharing. Did you upgrade both amps or add one more?
@@AudioAdvice I had two Emotive XPA DR1 amps, I upgraded them both to two XPA DR2s. About 500w per channel and then bi amped the speakers. Made a big difference. Bi wiring made no difference.
Very interested in learning how to bi-wire/bi-amp my system.
Glad it was helpful
years of standards out the window. Black = '+' / red = '-' ?? why?
Sorry, that graphic is incorrect. Thank you for the feedback.
I'll let the thrill of AV be getting it to work all together as advertised. AV is a complete mess. Why is the newest HDCP advertised as a 'feature'? Because it's less likely to cause problems? Good grief.
Very detailed information. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
I like active and run network mode in my vehicles. It really makes a difference when you have good components.
Yes many car audio systems are fully active. Thanks for watching
only if the amp has built in active crossovers, then & only then bi-amp & bi-wiring has distictive difference audible from a bi-wired large floor main front left & right speaker. this will ease off the load on the internal amp, as low frequency reproduction will put a heavy load in the amp, thus limiting headroom & hifi sound reporduction. put in perspective, perlisten r7t speakers with trinnov's separates. having a bi-amp & bi-wiring setup will have significance sound quality when volume is applied at reference level..and that is tinnitus.
Unless you physically go inside the R7T and remove its crossovers would you just be passively biamping, you would not want something like a Trinnov to add additional crossovers. Yes, an active system with no passive crossovers and external electronic crossovers with a separate amp for each frequency range is usually better. Thanks for watching
@AudioAdvice precisely. if i'm not mistaken, trinnov alt16/32 can do active crossover internally..correct me if i'm wrong
@@QAT4969 That is correct, it can, but that Perlisten speaker is not set up for that, it would require tearing into and removing crossovers.
Regarding bi-wiring, how different is connecting a jumper connector in the speaker and feeding the input from the amp with 2 source to carrying 4 wire from 2 source
As we said you need to try for yourself. Also the quality of the jumper makes a difference. Ideally it would be made from short pieces of your speakers wire rather than the thin piece usually included. Thanks for watching
@@AudioAdvice Thank you. My jumper is made of solid gold coated one.
@@AudioAdviceWhy should it make any difference whether the jumper is made from the same wire as the speaker cable?
@@rogerwebb7501 Because some jumpers are not very good. Many are very thin and plated to look like gold but really are not. If you have decent stranded speaker cable, its pretty easy to make them. If your speakers already have actual speaker wire jumpers there is typically no need to change those out as they are usually they same type of wire that is used to go to the crossover inside the speaker.
@@AudioAdvice The reason I ask is twofold: Firstly surely a manufacturer of quality must know perfectly well that the plates they are using are of sufficient conductivity that their job of conveying either treble or bass (depending on whether one plugs the speaker cable into top or bottom terminals) is not hindered. Secondly, all the 'special' jumpers that I've seen are far longer than they need to be! Surely they must be more effective the shorter they are!....or is it that the manufacturers of them want to seem like they are giving better 'value for money'?!
Bi-amp forever! What about Tri-Amping?
Yes, you can triamp a few speakers on the markets. Thanks for watching
I'm new with receivers and I'm not interested in bi wiring
Fair enough! It's not needed!
EXCELENTE TRABAJO
MUCHAS GRACIAS
UN FUERTE ABRAZO DESDE SANTIAGO DE CHILE
Thank you for watching!
Excellent, clear, and comprehensive explanation. Thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
Great explanation of the differences between them.
Glad you liked it. Thanks for watching
Thanks for the video, well done. I am considering bi-wiring my center channel with a powered sub to handle the lower frequencies and using my existing amp to power the center for the higher frequencies. The only way I can think of how to do this would be to run a Y-cable connector from my pre-amp center, with one Y going to my amp [as per usual] and the other Y running off to my powered sub. Am i correct in this thinking? If so, with the single RCA going to the sub in this instance be plugged into the LFE, or should I Y connect that signal to the sub's L & R input? Thanks, hope my description makes sense. For the record, I have recently purchased two SVS PB-3000 from Audio Advice and those will be my primary subs.
That could work, it makes sense what you are trying to do. But you need to deal with a way to cross it over. If you tell the processor to cross over your center channel, it will not send any low frequencies to the sub. If you tell your processor the speaker is full range, you are not getting the benefit of taking the bass out of the center speaker. A better way to go would be to tell the processor the signal is full range, run an audio cable from the processor to the subwoofer input, use the internal crossover in the subwoofer, then run an audio cable from the subwoofer audio out back to your power amp for the center channel. Hope this helps and we appreciate your support!
This is. a year ago but this won't work. I understand your wanting to bi wire to the tweeter of the speaker and then not the woofer and instead use your sub as the woofer. Problem is that the woofer is also likely carrying out mid frequency duties as well. So your cutting off your speakers mids and only having highs from tweeter and lows subwoofer. Subwoofer only handles below 120 hz. Your left with a big gap in frequency coverage and it will sound awful.
Also... Side note but VERY important... USE GOOD SPEAKER CABLE. There is a difference.. although slight but noticeable in a real A/B comparison
We agree, thanks for sharing
Black = negative and red = positive, right? Why are the diagrams opposite on this video?
Good catch, our marketing team pulled those drawings from a speaker wire mfg and no one noticed. The concept is shown properly, but yes, most people use the red for positive. In electrical wiring though black is normally positive and red is a traveler wire.
@@AudioAdvice Haha, yeah I assumed there was a slight slip there. I’ve certainly seen electrical drawings with black=pos as you mentioned, but always home stereo set-ups use the red=pos configuration. Btw, I’m not sold on the biwiring of speakers. My setups usually don’t involve any biwiring and I’m happy with the sound. Certainly fun to experiment with, however.
Bi wiring does nothing. Whatever electrical travel created by the woofer would travel up the wire and right to the tweeter, unless the wire was a mile long (exaggerating obviously,.. but not really). Bi wiring or even the jumper would work with a diode inline allowing one way electrical signals from the source.
As we said, it is a controversial subject. Thanks for watching
Dave, (assuming you are an actual person) I sometimes ask people, have you thought of learning some electrical theory so that you can understand how things like this work? You could save yourself from either jumping to faulty conclusions, or being misled by what other people tell you or what you read in various places.
@@PlatypusPerspective ssssh. Adults are speaking.
@@_.Dave._ So I'm guessing your answer is no, you've never thought of learning?
Well presented. Amp and speakers are in separate rooms routed through basement. To ease bi-wiring JBLs' installation, am running a 1 into 2 setup (or 2 into 4 if you prefer): split single + and - leads from amp into double at speakers. I assume it has the same effect as commercial bi-wires. Am I mistaken? Thank you.
Sounds like it. Feel free to call or chat with our experts at audioadvice.com and they can always run through your options to be sure you have it set up the best!
Bi wiring is stupid.. just put jumpers on the speaker Binding Posts. To really make the best use of Bi-Amping.. you should avoid the passive crossover in the speaker and use a 2 way speaker processor .. Really good passive Home speakers are so good that you really don't need to Bi-Amp anything except when using a subwoofer. get the right products for your application. I am an Audio Engineer. My home system is Passive with a powered sub.. my PA Systems I use for Concerts and events are Tri-Amped... but they are built to do that. Get over yourself... if you want better sound, buy better gear and better and bigger Amplifiers, but remember.. it takes twice the power ( 100 watts to 200 watts ) to get a 3 db boost in volume. It takes 10x the power to get twice the volume. What you're really buying in Home Stereo is better signal to noise in the chain... buy better gear !
It is a highly debatable subject, thanks for sharing
bi-amping requires the user to incorporate an "active" crossover network. as the signal leaves the pre-amp, the raw signal is then fed to the input of the active crossover. after the signal is processed there, the high's go to a smaller power amp for tweeters and mids; whilst the lows go to a larger bass amp. Now the user has 2 volume controls for the same signal, one is for the highs, and the other one is for the lows. There might even be a third one for a subwoofer. This is how you bi-amp or tri-amp, making the amplification much more efficient. I know of no other way. The idea of bi-wiring is silly and the user opens up a much bigger possibility of damaging the speaker drivers, and it does nothing to cross over the signal. You are actually asking the tweeter to make bass sounds and the woofer to make the high frequency sound. That would be stupid. If you cannot hear the difference and think it sounds better, then you need to have your hearing checked.
There are many times when a person who is trying to explain how electricity flows will use Water as a parallel. Try imagining that the signal coming from the amplifier is a giant water tank. Your volume control is like a valve, and as you turn the volume control up you allow more of the signal to come through. And then once that signal leaves the amplifier (or water tank), you might have more than one place to hook up pipes or hoses. Now if you hook up a hose and run it to your faucet, the water will flow and you'll have lots of water. If you run another hose from one of the other outlets on the water tank, and then hook that up to the same faucet, you'll still get water. It'll be the same water that the first hose is bringing to you because it comes from the same tank. Bi-wiring is doing what I just described. It does not help anything, actually you are opening yourself up to damaging your speakers, especially your tweeters.
Thanks for all your comments. We welcome you to read our written article which might help. www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/speaker-bi-wiring-bi-amping-explained We discussed in this video, single wiring, bi-wiring, passive bi-amping and active bi-amping. With everyone of of those except active bi-amping, the passive crossovers in the speakers are still in place. We did state this is a controversial subject, but more than 75% of high end speaker manufacturers enable their speakers to be either single wired, bi-wired, or passively bi-amped. About that same percentage of home theater receiver companies offer a passive bi-amp option on their products if you are not using all of the amplifier channels of the speaker. McIntosh, one of the most respected engineering companies in the audio world, even offers power amplifiers designed for passive bi-amping.
As AudioAdvice has pointed out, unless you dismantle the speakers and rip out the crossovers, bi-amping does not require an active crossover. Neither passive bi-amping nor bi-wiring cause any harm to the operation of the crossovers, nor do they pose any threat to the drivers. You've completely misunderstood the principle of bi-wiring.
@@doctorquestian If anyone comes past and reads this "water explanation", don't bother trying to understand it. It is total nonsense and explains nothing about bi-wiring.
hello, I got Bowers & Wilkins 702 S3 speakers which says MAX 300 W total power coming from amp. I also got a Rotel 5 channel Amp with 210 W each channel. Can I use bi-amp (get 2 channels 210 W each from the amp) and feed 210 W on top and 210 W on the bottom on those B&W speaker? Notice when you explain Bi-Amping, you did not mention limitations about power. Thanks.
Thanks for the question. Reach out to our team of experts via chat or phone at audioadvice.com and they can help you out with this. Thanks!
Video is amazing, but as a small question as a small person in this world. My speakers are Polk Audio RTI9 front Towers and JBL Balboa 30 all set . Receiver Onkyo TX-NR575...... How I shoud connect cabals to get the best of the stuff which i head plz help me if You can.
Thanks. Pick the ones that sound best and make them your main front. Then use the other pair as surround. Hope this helps
I actively triamped a pair of tower sapphire stt speakers and boy do they sound so much better after I tuned them with a dsp. It puts all this passive biamp/biwiring to shame 😂
Yes active is awesome. Thanks for sharing
The only cost is the cables. Of course Audio Advice sells some cables that go for thousands of dollars. Expensive cables, bi-wiring and passive bi-amping are a waste of time and money. Put the money into better speakers, another sub, or acoustic treatments to get real results.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. We agree with you for most situations, spending just a little bit on acoustic treatments or even decorative items like hanging quilts and large leafy plants makes more of an improvement than anything
If you don’t have two amps, passive bi-wire CANNOT WORK with two wires going to one output. Rules of physics dictate. Adding connections will add more resistance than it is getting back up the cable. Theory is false
Have you noticed that there is the same number of connections in each system? Bi-wire has a total of 8, single-wire also has 8 (2 binding posts at amplifier, 2 binding posts at speaker, the speaker then has 4 connection points on the two straps or jumper wires joining the LF and HF binding posts together.) If you're interested in what the laws of physics dictate about bi-wire compared to single-wire, it's very interesting to start with a clean sheet and no preconceptions and carefully draw up accurate (with _every_ detail) equivalent circuits for each, and observe the differences. It's the fact that two wires *are* connected to the one output and earth return directly at the amplifier that means bi-wire *can* work, in the sense of creating some moderate difference in operation. It's certainly not as much difference as bi-amping, but if you're not using active crossovers ahead of the amps to directly connect the speaker drivers to the amp outputs, there's surprisingly little difference between single amp bi-wire and dual amp bi-wire when you put detailed circuit layouts side by side.
I think I want to bi-wire my RP600M bookshelfs and my Anthem MCA 225 Gen 2. That's a nice Saturday project. Later in the year some Cornwalls will do the trick!
Great idea! Have fun!
... but the bi-wired system is still physically linking all the terminals using the same conductive wires. Nothing in the wire knows to split highs from lows and the same "magnetic feedback" will flow through that conductive material. 🤔
This is something that a person who hasn't had training in electrical theory finds hard to visualize. It's also tricky to explain just using words on the internet! 🙂 (It helps to know the difference between voltage and current.)
You're quite right to say nothing in the wire knows to split highs from lows - that's true whether it is a single wired or bi-wired system. It's the two sections of the crossover in the speaker that do the splitting. The low frequency crossover receives current from the wire at those low frequencies and passes it to the woofer, ignoring the high frequencies. The HF crossover does the same for the tweeter, "grabbing" the higher frequencies and ignoring the low ones. (I'm generalizing for simplicity.) The current to drive both woofer and tweeter has to travel together in the one wire as a combined quantity.
When the crossover sections are split and each has its own wire to the amplifier, the low crossover section gets the low frequency current from its wire, and ignores the high frequency portion, passing no (or little) high frequency current to the woofer. So the low frequency current runs along the low frequency wire. The same happens on the other wire, the HF crossover section is "sucking" the current it's looking for through the "high frequency" wire and stopping lower frequency from going through. So even though each wire has the same stuff "available" as a single wire would, each wire is doing less work, only carrying what current the crossover and driver connected to it wants.
Please let me know if this helps to visualize what is going on.
Bi-Wiring with a single amp really makes no difference. All frequencies go along the same cables and any difference is plecebo only.
Bi-amping may make a difference, if you have the correct crossovers at the pre-amp stages to give the right outputs at the amps. Anyone using a powered sub-woofer fed from a dedicated LFE output from an amp is actually bi-amping as the subwoofer is amplified separately from the main speakers.
If you join the speaker cables together, even just at one end, all signals are on all cables. This rubbish about having reflected signals is just not a thing at speaker levels. Once you join the cables, even at one end, you create a circuit between the two cables, and can actually make it sound worse.
As we stated, this is a hotly debated subject with some speaker manufacturers agreeing with you and others disagreeing. It comes down to trusting your own ears. Thanks for watching and commenting.
I had the Audioquest bi wire CV4 it was decent. Then upgraded to way better DH labs speaker cables which make Audioquest sound like AM radio.
AM radio... not a serious comment
wow u are talking about the 600 dollar audioquest cables? i could just dream of that. crazy. thats more then my whole setup
You need to be a millionaire to buy DH Labs high end cables US $8500.00 for a 15' cable? Yeah...Nah...
I am currently running Klipsch THX650 (thx6000) front 3. I'm using the Marantz sr8015 on pre amp mode to the Sunfire TGA7400 amplifier.
1. I used QED Silver anniversary in shotgun style and made jumpers from Chord odyssey. Actually sounds good. Sounds heavy and solid with great high frequency.
2. I then experimented with bi wire. Simply taking apart the shotgunned cable and used it as bi wire. It sounded OK but I preferred the shotgun cable. This sounded like I connected an eq and boosted 1khz onwards. Clean but fatiguing.
3. Bi Amp. The sunfire has 2 sets of binding post for front left and right (current and Voltage) So I used Current outputs for tweeters and I bi amped to surround back channels to use those for the bass drivers. The sound quality is absolutely fantastic. When listening to music and movies, they are loud (when they need to be!) But controlled. I've limited the volume to -15db max!
Thanks for sharing. We wonder what would happen with two sets of the shotgun style :)
why not using 2-nd channel output 4 the tweakers? if you have multiple output Amp? I mean low on 1 and high to 2 output ch? (each have own cables)
If you have speaker A + B connectors that is a good way to go.
Great video. When bi-amping, does speaker impedance change? I would expect a hard to drive 3ohm speaker's impedance will increase with the bi-amping?
Thank you, it should be similar, but we have actually not measured the individual drivers to see
bi-wiring works with BW bookshelf's.
lets not debate this.
what cable does Audio Advice recommend?
Thanks for sharing, please reach out to our team at www.audioadvice.com for the best advice.
My receiver identifies as "Non Binary" but my speakers are "Ferro Fluid" so what do you suggest?
Ferro Fluid is just what is used to cool the tweeter diaphram. What brand and model are your speakers and receiver?
When u use high L and R for bywiring we have only surround back for atmos (2spk) for the remaining 2 atmos speaker what is the best solution. Can we take the pre out of same and connect it to a separate 2ch amp and connect.
You could.
i could hear the difference between silver and copper. so you wire heights with silver and bass with copper . however if you have bi amping is worth a crossover with dsp , because you put less frequencies on each amp and that makes a real difference.
You have great ears, thanks for sharing. Yes, we agree if you have a speaker where you can remove the internal passive crossover, fully biamping is the way to go.
I have heard that if you can’t bi wire or bi amp, at least remove the bridge and use a short run of quality speaker wire to bridge. Claims are that the bridge connection more easily comes loose, and that the bridge is not shielded.
Yes, in most speakers the bridge pieces are very flimsy, changing to two short pieces of good speaker wire will improve things for sure
Hey what if I already own 2 identical SONY receivers. Also, can I use an equalizer as a bridge?
No
What will happen if you bi-wire a speaker without removing the jumper brackets first?
You will not hurt anything but then you are not biwiring. Thanks for watching
Bi amping on integrated amps can be possible, you need to house two amps and a crossover on a single integrated amp unit, done. connecting the crossover in between the tone controls and the input of the amps, low and hi frequencies.
Yes, but we do not really know of an integrated amp with that full feature set. Thanks for watching and commenting
I bi-amped tri-wired with Wireworld Eclipse Silver - best move ever.
Thanks for sharing!
i have harman kardon avr745 and hk signature series 2.1 5 channel poweramp. i dunno if i could use my pre’s zone2 channels for bi amping but used a Y cable to double up my stereo channels and hooked up to poweramp separately . the difference is huge! i am using bw 683 tower speakers . Thanks for the video
Thanks for sharing, moving up to the separate power amp probably made the difference you are hearing.
Hello. So I have a question. On my speakers I dont have 4 plugs only 2. But on my reciever å have Bi-Wire mode + on the back i have HF left right and LF keft right. It also has subwoofer, center and surround left and right for bare wires. And then it also has Subwoofer in. Center, Surround L, Surround R, but for plugs. So the question is, can i still not use bi-wire even tho the reciever has the connection? Atm i have everything connected in the bare wire connectors + Sub in the plug. But only the bi-wire works but really bad or if I switch to center mode then only the center plays :S
Your speakers are not set up to be biwired. Your best bet to improve them might be higher quality speaker cable. Thanks for watching
@@AudioAdvice Okey i have some of those thicker cables so maybe i can try. Alto i noticed that i had the aux connected to dvd and not cd so when I switched to cd it got a bit better because there i could use the Pro Logic settings. Thank you :)
Great review, what size gauge are those speaker wires please?? I have the same aurora speaker
Nice! 14 Gauge. You can find them here: www.audioadvice.com/audioquest-single-rocket-33-speaker-cables
Heya! You are literally using the power amp I am asking about (woot woot). Bi Amping specific, do I plug a set of cables into both right termals and both left terminals and then run them into my single set of bi-amp speakers? or is this a no no? So 4 outputs into 2 bi-wire speakers? Get me lol?
That's awesome! Do you have jumpers on then back of your speakers? This sounds like a conventional setup unless you have two amplifiers. Check this page out for some visuals and maybe that would help! www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/speaker-bi-wiring-bi-amping-explained/
You can always reach out to our team at audioadvice.com and they can make sure you are set up correctly!
@AudioAdvice thanks for the fast response. Single amp, single set of speakers, 2 sets of outs in amp. Just regular banana plugs into each speaker terminal.
.........bi-amp only if speaker is a 3-way speaker.......otherwise, the sound will be ''pulled apart''.............no point bi-wiring - better to single wire with a better cable than cheaper bi-wire cables...............when single-wire = positive run below, negative run on top.......vice versa if speaker is 3-way design.......
Thanks for sharing. It’s definitely a subject of much debate.
@@AudioAdvice .......most speakers don't need bi-amping anyway, especially those small 2-way speakers - the biwire connectors is just for marketing......that's why you have many high-end 3-way speakers with single wire only......
One question still bugs me and I can't find no answer anywhere: to bi-wire correctly wouldn't you need an amplifier with 4 channels (2 stereo channels, or one like that in your video)? If you bi-wire, let's say with a stereo amplifier, (one left and one right channel) wouldn't you just send the same signal to both speaker cables?
Great question. Two amps is passive biamping which should be better. The theory is the thing biwiring helps is the back feedback from a woofer and by separating the leads the wire feeding the tweeter does not see that. But this is a hotly debated subject and everyone should come to their own conclusion by trying it. Thanks for watching and commenting
@@AudioAdvice I see. This is much more clear now, thanks for clarifying!
I believe you should use DIFFERENT cables when biwiring. Use a cable that does top end better for high frequency crossover, and vice versa. Also, why must cables be same length? You do know the speed of light, right?
Some people agree with that. It’s all about testing and listening. The lengths are more about resistance. Thanks for watching
Electricity speed varies depending on many factors including wire gauge, but it’s roughly 90% the speed of light , not to be confused with lightning which travels at 270k mph . I don’t believe different cables should be used for biwiring , that’s the crossover’s job . And as far as different length, our ears may not notice a difference but the amplifier will . If you run one speaker at 12 feet and the other at 3 feet , the 3 foot cable will be warmer .
Or if I go for 11.2 ch rather 9.2 will it help me??
You should test biamp first to see if you hear a difference before changing.
Excellent explanation.
Glad you think so!
This topic is overridden by the ONLY real way to BI-amp a ROOM. AND it is also the strongest argument for including dual/two HIGH QUALITY sub woofers in your 'theater' .
Adjust ALL speakers , other than the subs, to have a low cut off of 125 (or 125-180).
NO HUMAN can truly hear the point source of base below 125 , it is omnipresent . (when the subs , located WHEREVER/wherever you like or have space , are turned on you will SWEAR the front speaker just started to produce base frequency even if the subs are in the back of the room.
The main ,surround,rear ,center, or atmos speakers are relieved of base (125 and lower) power interferences and perform at their best
That is usually the case, but in rare cases such as mine, I beg to differ. My sensitive ears feels the pressure on of the side of my ear the sub is placed on, even at lowered volumes and lower frequency although more difficult my ears can tell. I ended up getting two small subs to ease the pressure to evenly spread the sound.
It certainly is a controversial topic, but we love hearing your viewpoint. Thanks for watching!
Nice! Thanks for sharing your setup!
👍🇬🇧
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching
I've heard generally a heavier unit is better than lighter units bc they have more components inside.
With audio components themselves, that is a general rule, more because the power supply will be stout. Thanks for watching
Over my head I like to learn more thanks for sharing
You can always check out our article at the link in the description to learn more!
I've been debating between the denon s760h and x1700h. Most specs are similar other than marginal power upgrade snd ability to bi amp. But its about a extra $150. Do you believe the bi amping ability is worth the extra cost?
They are very similar, they even weight almost exactly the same. You would probably wind up using all 7 channels and not be able to take advantage of the bi-amping, For more information, please reach out to our team at www.audioadvice.com Thanks for watching
I really think Bi-Wiring is stupid thing to do. It’s the same with using the jumper.
To each their own. Thanks for watching!
Not tried it then, I guess.
4:57 what exactly is the Height connectors?
And I have 2 tower speakers using speakers A&B for each. Thoughts?
On that particular home theater receiver, you can redo the routing of the amp channels for biamping, on this one you use the height channels. Thanks for watching
@@AudioAdvice can you clarify that?
@@justaguy4real some home theater receivers let you use two of the amp channels to biamp. You just have to tell the receiver you are doing it that way. In the one we showed it lets you use the height channels. Using A & B would not biamp as those are pulling from the same amp channels but it is a good way to biwire Hope this helps.
Great explanation 👍👍👍👍👍🔌🔌🔌🔌🔌🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵
Glad you liked it! Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
Active crossover bi amp - that’s what seems will make the most difference. Can you speak to how that compares as a next step in upgrading? Especially for someone who has a 4 channel amp
That method is by far and away the best. But you need an electronic crossover and a way to fully bypass the internal crossovers. Very few speakers on the market can accommodate that.
@@AudioAdvice What about an external passive crossover ? And how simple is it to just remove the crossover in a speaker?
@@derekviveiros That would just be passive biamping. If you remove it, you need to replace it with an electronic one, and you would need to know all the crossover points and filter slopes. Its not as easy as you might think
My current outgoing theory for why people hear a difference is the removal of the jumpers. Swapping the jumpers for 6" of speaker wire with y spades on it imo is equal to running new wiring from avr to speaker. Another thing is if you're using say 14 gauge wire and comparing to 2 sets of 14 gauge wire you're technically closer to 12 gauge than 14. Also what kind of speakers you have might make for a bigger difference as a 3 way speaker with the top terminal handling the tweeter + mid vs bottom handling the woofer(s) would make a bigger difference when bi-amping over a 2 way speaker like most bookshelf speakers. Edit: also psycho acoustics such as expectation bias and stuff really make it hard to gauge if it's actually better or not without your mind tricking you
Thanks for sharing! Its a very debated subject.
Each element undoubtably contributes. The average plate jumpers are horrible, so that’s a win just by removing them. Doubling up on the wire also improves things, so again, what’s not to like. Finally, the segregation of the signals is a real benefit, delivering a performance jump in any moderately resolving system. My systems are more than moderate, however, I bi-wired my daughter’s system a couple of weeks back and the overall effect of all of the above delighted everyone who heard it.
From the diagram it looks like the same thing
Biamping has more channels being used. But the connections can look similar if you use speaker A&B, but that does use the same amp though. Thanks for watching
Also use fans to pull heat out from the receiver, and to keep it cooler especially in bi-amp mode.
Good tip!
Any recommendations on fans ? I have an old Yamaha with class a and 4 channels. I just bi amped yesterday. Looking into active crossover. But wanna be sure before I chop the passive out. That I’ll be worth it and drop of resell value
Nice video, thanks!! 👍🏼
No problem 👍
If you choose NOT to bi-wire and use the spkrs with the jumpers in place, do the spkr cables from the amp connect to the HF or LF terminals of the spkr?
LF typically. Another way to improve the sound without biwiring is to replace the cheap, flat, thin jumpers with a short piece of your speaker wire. Thanks for watching
@@AudioAdvice Thank you. I only asked because a user's manual from Tannoy online suggested HF posts to connect to. I thought that was really odd. I wonder why...Thanks for the tip re: replacing the cheap jumpers. Does it matter if I use spades at the bottom or banana / bare wire termination to replace the jumpers with speaker wire?
@@shrimpu Spades or bare would be better as you can torque them tighter
@@AudioAdvice 🙏
I have an amp on which the connections look like the Rotel on the bottom there. You do't explain how to use those connectors.
We are not sure what you mean? Are you referring to biwiring or biamping? Thanks for watching
@@AudioAdvice Hi thanks. Bi-wiring I think, I was wondering if you could use an A + B setting to not bi-wire but use 8 outputs rather than 4. I don't think you can.
@@informedchoice2249 Thanks. You could either biwire using A&B or run two pair of speakers.