Biwire or Single wire for my system, please advise?

AudiobeginnerVN

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Dear Brothers,
I ordered my system (Marantz ND 8006, Roksan Integrated Kandy K3, Tannoy Xt6f) from dealer and it's expected to arrive my home on this Saturday.

Could you plz advise me on these matters:
1. Whether I should do bi-wire or single wire for my system
2. If I do biwire, can I use such bi-wire cables to do single wire (in case I use such speaker cables for my bookshelf speakers which have only two terminals or I dont like biwire in the future)
3. Marantz ND 8006 has both cd playback and network modes but Intergrated Roksan K3 havent got Network Mode. I will use RCA interconnectors to connect ND8006 (audio out) to Kandy K3 (CD terminals in) and I can switch from CD player mode to Network on my ND8006 but I dont know whether Roksan K3 could... understand and play when I do this (as K3 hasn't got network mode).
I am sorry for my English and my inane question as I am just a beginner in this audio world.

Thanks,
David
 
single wire if using one amp

if you already have the cables you could try bi wire and see if you can hear the difference..
 
1) most people on here would suggest single wire but there are a few who disagree.
2) yes but it generally costs more money and you have to be careful you don't short circuit the wires
3) the output from the Marantz will be analog via the rca so it is just an electrical signal that the Roksan will play. Set the Roksan to CD input and play network or CD from the Marantz as you like
 
Single wire. Bi-wiring brings little if any benefit. Some speaker manufacturers put bi-wiring posts on their speakers more as a marketing ploy than something that will show any significant audio improvement to the speaker.

To improve a speakers abilities then bi-amping is by far the best way but again it does depend on the quality of that speaker as well.
 
hmmm....snake oil!
 
As Gibbsy says, bi-amping is the way forward. I also have the K3 (which by itself can easily drive my Kef R700’s) and I added the matching power amp a short while after, which has made a significant improvement to the sound.

My advice would be to go that way if any.
 
If you are considering the extra expense of bi wiring, I would rather pay more for the speaker cable and single wire. There is a technical argument for bi wiring but better speaker cable will generally give better results.
 
What technical argument?
Speaker cable like any cable is an electrical network. Speaker crossover networks present a (very) complex impedance to the amplifier output. This complex impedance is modified by the speaker cable. If you bi wire then you separate the speaker crossover components, thus simplifying the impedance they present to the amp. That is still modified by the speaker cable impedance but it all comes together at the amp output which, if it is any good, should be very low impedance and less susceptible to changes in load. The speaker crossover too is likely to be more controlled and the bass and treble circuit interaction will be less if the driving point is the amp output rather than the amp output on the end of a cable.
As a rider to all of this, in well designed systems, these effects are small so bi wiring is never a clear cut choice. As for bi amping, if, for example, you had £1000 to spend on an amp and speaker cable, it would always be better to spend £750 on the amp and £250 on the cable rather than £375 each on two amps and £125 each on two cables.
 
I can’t work out if you are writing this with any degree of experience or just rehashing something you have read on the net from a cable manufacturer or otherwise possibly biased view.

In the traditional bi-wire (not bi-amp) sense you still have the an electrical connection at the amplifier end that is doing what the bridge plate on the speaker previously did. The speaker cable assuming it is a reasonable one that is suited for the application will present very little to this.

Do you have a link to a peer reviewed example\paper?
 
I can’t work out if you are writing this with any degree of experience or just rehashing something you have read on the net from a cable manufacturer or otherwise possibly biased view.

In the traditional bi-wire (not bi-amp) sense you still have the an electrical connection at the amplifier end that is doing what the bridge plate on the speaker previously did. The speaker cable assuming it is a reasonable one that is suited for the application will present very little to this.

Do you have a link to a peer reviewed example\paper?
No I have no example of a peer reviewed paper, but as a retired electronics engineer who has, together with my husband, designed our own loudspeakers some 25 years ago, I do have some experience of what I am talking about. Advancing years may have impaired the way I am able to express my experience but I am definitely not rehashing previously published material.
 
That's why I said wasn't sure, there are too many people on the pseudo science side with nothing but marketing bluff to speak to. It was starting to sound that way, apologies if that caused any offence.

Am curious how moving the bridge plate to the amp side on what generally be low resistance, short speaker cables would have significant difference. Most speakers cables seem to shy away from mentioning the impedance of their cables (presumably because like the resistance it's minimal of the distances involved)
 
That's why I said wasn't sure, there are too many people on the pseudo science side with nothing but marketing bluff to speak to. It was starting to sound that way, apologies if that caused any offence.

Am curious how moving the bridge plate to the amp side on what generally be low resistance, short speaker cables would have significant difference. Most speakers cables seem to shy away from mentioning the impedance of their cables (presumably because like the resistance it's minimal of the distances involved)
The effects may be small but the ear is very sensitive. The crux is as you mention. Moving the connection point of the tweeter high pass filter and the bass low pass filter from the connection plate to the amp output reduces the interaction between the two filters. This may not be very significant with short speaker leads but it becomes more significant with longer leads. Designing a crossover network is relatively easy if you assume a zero impedance at the connection plate. Unfortunately this impedance is never zero so the two filters interact so the crossover is never perfect. If you try to design a crossover that accommodates a non zero impedance at the connection plate, what impedance do you assume? Why do you think some speaker/amp/ cable combinations sound better than others. One other small point, you mention the resistance of the speaker cable, yes fine but all cables have inductance and capacitance too. With today’s wide bandwidth amps who knows what effect that has on the feedback characteristics of the amp.
Must go offline now.
 
the path from.the amp to speaker cones is.only as good as the weakest link.

whats the point of ''better' speaker cable if the wire from.the crossover to the cones is the same.
 
the path from.the amp to speaker cones is.only as good as the weakest link.

whats the point of ''better' speaker cable if the wire from.the crossover to the cones is the same.
Don't you mean not the same?
 
The effects may be small but the ear is very sensitive. The crux is as you mention. Moving the connection point of the tweeter high pass filter and the bass low pass filter from the connection plate to the amp output reduces the interaction between the two filters. This may not be very significant with short speaker leads but it becomes more significant with longer leads. Designing a crossover network is relatively easy if you assume a zero impedance at the connection plate. Unfortunately this impedance is never zero so the two filters interact so the crossover is never perfect. If you try to design a crossover that accommodates a non zero impedance at the connection plate, what impedance do you assume? Why do you think some speaker/amp/ cable combinations sound better than others. One other small point, you mention the resistance of the speaker cable, yes fine but all cables have inductance and capacitance too. With today’s wide bandwidth amps who knows what effect that has on the feedback characteristics of the amp.
Must go offline now.
That's back to the whole raging debate, but we are not specifically talking about whether particular amps and speakers sound better.

It's a specific example of does speaker cable x sound better, in this case it is not even does a sound different to b, it is does two lots of a sound better than one lot of a. Do people really have golden ears or is there a placebo effect.

I didn't want to get into the whole capacitance and inductance debate as it can get almost religious at some points.
 
Bi-wiring? Didn't even know that was still a thing. Thought that died decades ago.
 
Speaker cable like any cable is an electrical network. Speaker crossover networks present a (very) complex impedance to the amplifier output. This complex impedance is modified by the speaker cable. If you bi wire then you separate the speaker crossover components, thus simplifying the impedance they present to the amp. That is still modified by the speaker cable impedance but it all comes together at the amp output which, if it is any good, should be very low impedance and less susceptible to changes in load. The speaker crossover too is likely to be more controlled and the bass and treble circuit interaction will be less if the driving point is the amp output rather than the amp output on the end of a cable.
As a rider to all of this, in well designed systems, these effects are small so bi wiring is never a clear cut choice. As for bi amping, if, for example, you had £1000 to spend on an amp and speaker cable, it would always be better to spend £750 on the amp and £250 on the cable rather than £375 each on two amps and £125 each on two cables.
The cable connection to a loudspeaker hardly rates as an electrical network. Its series resistance is important because it a in series with the output impedance of the amplifier and therefore affects the damping that the amplifier can impose on the motion of the cone. Current practice is to have very low resistance to kill any overshoot by the cone.
 
I have the same speakers as you will soon receive and, controversial as it may be, I can hear a slight improvement with separation with bi-wiring. Try single cables and let the Tannoys run in first - my jaw dropped when I first got them - they a bit harsh while they settle in.

Once settled in you can try bi-wire. I am not sure if bi-wiring works with all speakers as effectively as with others
 
I've never been sold on bi wiring either from what I've read (i'm in no way an expert though) or what I've heard. I do think though that the jumpers between biwire terminals can be a weak link so usually remove them and just trim a section out of the cable insulation so it can be run through both sets of terminals.

Neither have i been overly impressed with numerous high end ish cables I've trialled over the years (or bought). Lots of them sound 'different' but not necessarily better. So you can't guarantee a high end cable wont make one setup sound worse even if it improves another. So for me I've always concluded using fairly thick pure copper was the best option. Might be worth experimenting a bit though but don't just get one high end cable and assume it will be an improvement.
 
I changed my setup from bi-wire to single wire, but using a different method of connection, as follows...

Wiring ‘bi-wire’ speakers with a single cable.

For 2-way speakers, first make sure that the jumpers are in place. (I used a section of the speaker cable to make the link).

The red cable plug goes into the ‘HF +’ speaker post.

The black cable plug goes into the ‘LF -‘ speaker post.

That’s it!

My experience with this experiment was that I preferred the sound over the previous bi-wire setup.

This was not some crazy idea of my own, but an idea I read about online here:
Speaker cable guide - The Chord Company

The passage in question...

What connections on the back of the speaker should I connect my single wire speaker cable to?

As a general rule, the treble connections are usually reckoned to produce better sound quality than the bass connections.

However, in many cases, we find that a diagonal connection produces the most musically coherent sound.

To do this, connect the positive (+) speaker cable to the positive treble connection and the negative speaker cable (-) to the negative bass connection.

So in effect, the cable is connected diagonally.

This is quick, easy and fun to do and the results are easy to hear.

Audioquest also state the following...

“For 2-way speakers, be sure to put the red connector to treble + and black connector to bass -.
This is the only way to preserve the tonal voice the speaker designer intended.”

Give it a go, make your own mind up.
:)
 
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I changed my setup from bi-wire to single wire, but using a different method of connection, as follows...

To do this, connect the positive (+) speaker cable to the positive treble connection and the negative speaker cable (-) to the negative bass connection.

So in effect, the cable is connected diagonally.

:)

I have often been amazed that Chord Company don't advise using bi-wiring - they sell less cable that way. They must be sooooo honest. Anyway - you tried this with the Tannoy XT6Fs?

What kind of difference did you hear over regular bi-wiring with your setup?
 
I have often been amazed that Chord Company don't advise using bi-wiring - they sell less cable that way. They must be sooooo honest. Anyway - you tried this with the Tannoy XT6Fs?

What kind of difference did you hear over regular bi-wiring with your setup?
Chord are not the only company that advocate this method of single wiring.

My system is comprised of Kef Q1, Q9c, Q8s & Canon V100 speakers, all driven by a Denon AVR-X4500H. The bi-wirable Kefs are all single wired with QED Silver Anniversary cable, using the method I detailed. The difference I found was the effect of lifting a light veil from the whole system, just a little more clarity to the whole sound, not brighter, just clearer. I was pleasantly surprised and have not felt the need to fiddle or experiment further. :)
 
I have the same speakers as you will soon receive and, controversial as it may be, I can hear a slight improvement with separation with bi-wiring. Try single cables and let the Tannoys run in first - my jaw dropped when I first got them - they a bit harsh while they settle in.

Once settled in you can try bi-wire. I am not sure if bi-wiring works with all speakers as effectively as with others

What amp do you pair with Tannoy xt 6f?
 

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