Bi-wiring?

[IronWing]

I got a new pair of speakers (JBL L830 bookshelf) which come with the capacity to bi-wire or bi-amp. I had heard of bi-wiring in passing but hadn't given it much thought. So with the arrival of the new speakers, I read up on bi-wiring and have failed to find a plausible explanation of how it might improve sound quality. The sites that promote it also sell speaker wire, amazingly enough. So, as with all of life's most difficult questions, I come to AT for enlightenment. Anyone come up with a good sounding reason on why bi-wiring should work? Truthiness welcome.

 

[JAG87]

Bi-wiring doesn't improve sound quality. It is nothing more than slapping two wires together to augment the gauge for longer runs, which reduces resistances and therefore increases output power. You can do this without having two sets of binding posts on the speakers, or you can also just buy a bigger wire.....

The reason your speaker has two sets of posts is because it's passive bi-amp ready. One pair of posts is wired to the low crossover network, and one is wired to the high. That can (subjectively) improve SQ, as amplifying low frequencies is much more demanding than high frequencies, so having two separate amplifiers do the job can result in slightly better SQ... but nothing that you couldn't achieve with a beefier amp to begin with.

Active bi-amping is something entirely different and will require you to take your speakers apart and remove their crossovers, and use an external crossover filter prior to amplifying. This can have serious benefits or drawbacks, depending if you think you can tune your speakers better than the engineers who built them....

 

[sdifox]

I got a new pair of speakers (JBL L830 bookshelf) which come with the capacity to bi-wire or bi-amp. I had heard of bi-wiring in passing but hadn't given it much thought. So with the arrival of the new speakers, I read up on bi-wiring and have failed to find a plausible explanation of how it might improve sound quality. The sites that promote it also sell speaker wire, amazingly enough. So, as with all of life's most difficult questions, I come to AT for enlightenment. Anyone come up with a good sounding reason on why bi-wiring should work? Truthiness welcome.

plus they have managed to break physical laws and aligned all the molecules so electrons flow better :awe:

 

[LoveMachine]

plus they have managed to break physical laws and aligned all the molecules so electrons flow better :awe:

Don't forget the lifting of your veils!

In case the OP didn't know, any time you hear that reference to a reviewed product, run. Bi-amping is in that realm.

 

[blackangst1]

IronWing:

You have unknowingly opened a bottomless can of worms with this innocent question. In home audio, there are two camps that never shall meet, and both sides have science behind them. This along with bi-amping, power conditioners, types of speaker cable, and others. Read extensively over at avsforum for a more thorough answer. An answer only YOU will make. Try it. You may or may not hear a difference.

/I bi-wire and I can hear a difference