andy wrote:

Andy Hewitt wrote:
Yup, I know all that too. However, what astonished me was the nature of
the responses. Ok, so I spouted on about a practice you no longer
believe in, but it was not always so, biwiring is something that *was*
regularly recommended by many as a good thing. I just missed the bit
where it became a *bad* thing.

This is utter nonsense. Nobody with even a modest grasp of the
technical basics has ever recommended biwiring in the sense of the
extra cost being justified in terms of audible improvements.

That's the hi-fi press sent to Coventry then !

Graham

Keith G wrote:

"andy" wrote in message
ps.com...
Andy Hewitt wrote:
Yup, I know all that too. However, what astonished me was the nature of
the responses. Ok, so I spouted on about a practice you no longer
believe in, but it was not always so, biwiring is something that *was*
regularly recommended by many as a good thing. I just missed the bit
where it became a *bad* thing.

This is utter nonsense. Nobody with even a modest grasp of the
technical basics has ever recommended biwiring in the sense of the
extra cost being justified in terms of audible improvements. However,
the audiophile industry has heavily promoted biwiring and biwiring is
well received by audiophiles. As far as I am aware, nobody has said it
is a bad thing just that it is not cost effective and the claims of
significant improvements made for it by the audiophile industry and
believers are largely false.

I don't do 'biwiring debates' because my view is simple - I don't believe it
does any good myself, but if anybody wants to do it, can afford to do it and
perceives a benefit then, fine, let them go ahead!! Let them also claim they
perceive the benefit - it does no harm and others can only disagree with
their own findings. Arguing the theory goes nowhere....

There will certainly be a measurable difference ( possibly audible ) however
neither is absolutely right or wrong !


What I find strange/amusing is that so many speaker manufacturers a) supply
the necessary terminals and b) state that biwiring is advantageous - they
just telling porkies or do they know summat the 'experts' here don't...??

They know the power of reviews/ advertising / marketing.

I was talking to a chap last week who occupies a position kind of mid-way
between pro-audio ( recording, mastering etc ) and the hi-fi lads. He was
talking about a hi-fi product launch and quite simply said words to the effect
"it doesn't really matter if it's any damn good or not - all that matters is
that the reviewer thinks it is ". Things like 'getting the reviewer in the right
frame of mind' were mentioned.

Graham

Keith G wrote:
What I find strange/amusing is that so many speaker manufacturers a) supply
the necessary terminals and b) state that biwiring is advantageous - they
just telling porkies or do they know summat the 'experts' here don't...??

Speaker manufactures produce speakers in order to sell them. If the
market wants and will bear the extra cost of biwirable terminals and
crossovers then they will be produced. When enough sales are lost to a
competitor because a speaker lacks the biwirable "feature" then it will
be added since the additional cost is modest. It does not matter what
the manufacturer knows about what is wise or not they are producing for
a market.

Speaker manufacturers had the same problem earlier with cables. Selling
a loudspeaker without cables is inconvenient for customers but selling
loudspeakers with "normal" cables lead to lost sales from the growing
number of people who believed in magic cables. So manufacturers
effectively had to stop supplying cables with their loudspeakers. I
would not be surprised if in a few years time a growing number of
audiophile amplifiers are not sold without power cables for similar
reasons.

What loudspeakers manufacturers choose to say about cables and biwiring
and such is an interesting test of their marketing/integrity. Some
manufacturers keep as quiet as possible on the subject but provide what
the market wants while others actively promote audiophile beliefs.

Wally wrote:

Andy Hewitt wrote:

Yup, that makes sense, although it does seem to make a difference for
some.

One wonders what difference it actually makes, or whether any of those who
say it makes a difference know which set up they're listening to (rather
than an unsighted comparison).

Well, there's enough bloody fuss made about it :-)

No, you haven't. By splitting them, you've got a single run's worth
going to each 8ohm driver. Assume each run is 1ohm - you've got 1ohm
between amp and each driver. If you put straps on the speakers and
leave the cables in place, you have two 1ohm resistors in parallel,
giving 0.5ohms. If you're going to have two runs of cable to each
speaker, it may well be the case that shorting at both ends is
better than bi-wiring.

Well, yes, although that's no more or less 'scientific' than the rest
of the theory,

What are you talking about? That's Ohm's Law and is about as scientific as
it gets. You ain't got 'thicker wire' while you're bi-wired.

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way, I was referring to the 'better' bit at
the end, and just put it into the context of 'sounding' better.

I'll just end up with 10mm/sq of cable to each speaker.
Again, something that'll make insignificant difference ;-)

People need to do the calcs that start with amp power and speaker impedance,
and work how much current they're actually shoving down the wire.

Yebbut, we all know that simple calculations and technical data does not
make a 'good' system.

--
Andy Hewitt
http://www.thehewitts.eclipse.co.uk/
http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/

Andy Hewitt wrote:

Wally wrote:

People need to do the calcs that start with amp power and speaker impedance,
and work how much current they're actually shoving down the wire.

Yebbut, we all know that simple calculations and technical data does not
make a 'good' system.

How do you think home audio progressed to the current high level without those
calculations and data ?

Graham

Andy Hewitt wrote:

What are you talking about? That's Ohm's Law and is about as
scientific as it gets. You ain't got 'thicker wire' while you're
bi-wired.

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way, I was referring to the 'better' bit
at the end, and just put it into the context of 'sounding' better.

I suppose it does mean better in the sense of sounding better, although I
was meaning better in a technical or theoretical sense. My point was that if
biwiring can be an improvement over a single run of cable, and if a single
run of cable of half the resistance can also be an improvement, then it
might be the case that the improvement brought by halving the resistance is
more noticable than that brought by bi-wiring.


--
Wally
www.wally.myby.co.uk
If it ain't broke, fix it until it is.

Laurence Payne wrote:
You're hedging.

But only to the extent of avoiding sweeping statements like: "cables
make no difference", "all amplifiers sound the same", etc...

"andy" wrote in message
ups.com...
Keith G wrote:
What I find strange/amusing is that so many speaker manufacturers a)
supply
the necessary terminals and b) state that biwiring is advantageous - they
just telling porkies or do they know summat the 'experts' here don't...??

Speaker manufactures produce speakers in order to sell them.


Can't knock 'em for that, can you? :-)


If the
market wants and will bear the extra cost of biwirable terminals and
crossovers then they will be produced. When enough sales are lost to a
competitor because a speaker lacks the biwirable "feature" then it will
be added since the additional cost is modest. It does not matter what
the manufacturer knows about what is wise or not they are producing for
a market.


Yes, I suspect it's as hard to buy really cheap 'terminal trays' for single
wiring only as it is to buy a 10 Mb hard disk these days...??



Speaker manufacturers had the same problem earlier with cables. Selling
a loudspeaker without cables is inconvenient for customers but selling
loudspeakers with "normal" cables lead to lost sales from the growing
number of people who believed in magic cables. So manufacturers
effectively had to stop supplying cables with their loudspeakers. I
would not be surprised if in a few years time a growing number of
audiophile amplifiers are not sold without power cables for similar
reasons.


Reminds me that the 'captive cables' I've seen on various speakers in the
past were all thinner than bloody fuse wire....!!



What loudspeakers manufacturers choose to say about cables and biwiring
and such is an interesting test of their marketing/integrity. Some
manufacturers keep as quiet as possible on the subject but provide what
the market wants while others actively promote audiophile beliefs.



Also interesting that some high end (ie expensive) manufacturers *don't*
supply bi-wirable terminals....??

(Doesn't affect us FR boys much...!! ;-)

Wally wrote:

Andy Hewitt wrote:

What are you talking about? That's Ohm's Law and is about as
scientific as it gets. You ain't got 'thicker wire' while you're
bi-wired.

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way, I was referring to the 'better' bit
at the end, and just put it into the context of 'sounding' better.

I suppose it does mean better in the sense of sounding better, although I
was meaning better in a technical or theoretical sense. My point was that if
biwiring can be an improvement over a single run of cable, and if a single
run of cable of half the resistance can also be an improvement, then it
might be the case that the improvement brought by halving the resistance is
more noticable than that brought by bi-wiring.

How do you know which is 'better' though. The bi-wire or the single wire ? It's
only a presumption on the part of believers in bi-wiring based on junk science
reasoning that their method is the 'correct' one !

Graham

Eeyore wrote:

How do you know which is 'better' though. The bi-wire or the single
wire ? It's only a presumption on the part of believers in bi-wiring
based on junk science reasoning that their method is the 'correct'
one !

I'm aware of that. I was assuming that, if there is a change, then it's a
change which brings a technical improvement, in the same way that having
lower resistance cables brings an improvement in technical terms.


--
Wally
www.wally.myby.co.uk
Stress: You wake up screaming and realise you haven't fallen asleep yet.