Amko
Standard Member
Greetings all, new member here, delighted to 'meet' you and looking forward to benefiting from the wisdom of your collective experience!
Way back in the day - 1991, to be precise - I set up my first rig, a Marantz PM 35 Mark II 45W x2 amp with JBL XE 4 3-way speakers 10-100W using Straight Wire cables. This set of cables came with two white and two gray wires, each - each cable consisting of 4 wires in one transparent jacket. My dealer advised me to twist together the white and gray wires per cable, effectively resulting in a pair of wires in one transparent jacket, each, if you catch my drift. I proceeded with installation in (what I now understand) was a single-wired set-up.
Edit: Here are cables ( KnuKonceptz Karma Twisted 12 Gauge Bi-Wire OFC Speaker Cable) quite similar to mine, hope this helps.
29 years later it's time to upgrade (finally!), and I just picked up a Cambridge Audio SR 10 85Wx2 stereo amplifier and a pair of JBL A190 2.5 way 6 ohms floorstanders and in an attempt to save I was thinking of re-purposing them for this installation, in a bi-wired set-up, given that the Cambridge have A and B speaker terminals and the JBL, four binding posts each. The Straight Wires (I have really long cables, by the way) seem to be as fresh and new as the day I bought them, no oxidation that I is pretty thick, as Ican apparently see.
Here's the layout I was considering:
Question: Since each cable has 2 white wires (twisted together) + 2 gray wires (twisted together), in one transparent jacket: All I would then need to do is cut each cable once, to result in a total of 4 (naturally, smaller) cables, each cable terminating in L and R (white and gray). Is this correct? Each of the two yellow cables would then be represented by a single Straight Wire bi-wire cable. Again, is this right?
***OR: Do I need to make 8 cables, as per the diagram above?***
I am not certain about the wire gauge *per each wire* (AWG?). It looks like I'll have to buy a cable cutter/wire stripper tool anyway for this project, before purchase, I'll check that any tool should have holes that measure the gauge.
Question: My Cambridge Audio manual recommends the above layout/diagram for bi-wiring, which assumes both System A and System B are wired up as above. Since both A and B are being used, would this place an additional load on the amplifier, and result in any degradation in sound, and/or overheating?
That said, I have seen bi-wiring diagrams where only one set of terminals are used in the amplifier.
(I do not wish to bi-amp at this point, having only a spare Yamaha R-N303 100Wx2 8 ohms.)
The other consideration is whether to use banana plugs or not. I have a sinking feeling the terminals on the Cambridge Audio amp are a tad 'wider' than the banana plugs I've seen. The terminals on the Yamaha seem 'narrower' and more in line with the banana plugs I've seen, too. Which of course, begs the question as to why I don't use the Yamaha in the first place! And the Yamaha is in truth a network amplifier, with all the bells and whistles. But I do prefer the Great British Sound of the Cambridge...
I welcome your thoughts, experience and recommendations, and look forward to resolving my confusion. Thanks, and stay safe.
Way back in the day - 1991, to be precise - I set up my first rig, a Marantz PM 35 Mark II 45W x2 amp with JBL XE 4 3-way speakers 10-100W using Straight Wire cables. This set of cables came with two white and two gray wires, each - each cable consisting of 4 wires in one transparent jacket. My dealer advised me to twist together the white and gray wires per cable, effectively resulting in a pair of wires in one transparent jacket, each, if you catch my drift. I proceeded with installation in (what I now understand) was a single-wired set-up.
Edit: Here are cables ( KnuKonceptz Karma Twisted 12 Gauge Bi-Wire OFC Speaker Cable) quite similar to mine, hope this helps.
29 years later it's time to upgrade (finally!), and I just picked up a Cambridge Audio SR 10 85Wx2 stereo amplifier and a pair of JBL A190 2.5 way 6 ohms floorstanders and in an attempt to save I was thinking of re-purposing them for this installation, in a bi-wired set-up, given that the Cambridge have A and B speaker terminals and the JBL, four binding posts each. The Straight Wires (I have really long cables, by the way) seem to be as fresh and new as the day I bought them, no oxidation that I is pretty thick, as Ican apparently see.
Here's the layout I was considering:
Question: Since each cable has 2 white wires (twisted together) + 2 gray wires (twisted together), in one transparent jacket: All I would then need to do is cut each cable once, to result in a total of 4 (naturally, smaller) cables, each cable terminating in L and R (white and gray). Is this correct? Each of the two yellow cables would then be represented by a single Straight Wire bi-wire cable. Again, is this right?
***OR: Do I need to make 8 cables, as per the diagram above?***
I am not certain about the wire gauge *per each wire* (AWG?). It looks like I'll have to buy a cable cutter/wire stripper tool anyway for this project, before purchase, I'll check that any tool should have holes that measure the gauge.
Question: My Cambridge Audio manual recommends the above layout/diagram for bi-wiring, which assumes both System A and System B are wired up as above. Since both A and B are being used, would this place an additional load on the amplifier, and result in any degradation in sound, and/or overheating?
That said, I have seen bi-wiring diagrams where only one set of terminals are used in the amplifier.
(I do not wish to bi-amp at this point, having only a spare Yamaha R-N303 100Wx2 8 ohms.)
The other consideration is whether to use banana plugs or not. I have a sinking feeling the terminals on the Cambridge Audio amp are a tad 'wider' than the banana plugs I've seen. The terminals on the Yamaha seem 'narrower' and more in line with the banana plugs I've seen, too. Which of course, begs the question as to why I don't use the Yamaha in the first place! And the Yamaha is in truth a network amplifier, with all the bells and whistles. But I do prefer the Great British Sound of the Cambridge...
I welcome your thoughts, experience and recommendations, and look forward to resolving my confusion. Thanks, and stay safe.
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