Tipping Cable Ends & Bi-Wire Question

Tesla · 5 Feb 2006 at 15:11

Hi,

2 quickies:

1) Is it worth me tipping the bare ends of the speaker cable with solder?

2) I have 4 speaker terminals on the speaker and 2 on the amp. I use bi-wire speaker cable. Is this giving me any benefit over normal speaker cable?

Cheers,

Chris

IceBus · 5 Feb 2006 at 15:53

Most people agree that tipping tends to make the cable ends more brittle and provides a less solid connection so you don't need to bother.

Biwiring should give a benefit, but afaik only if the amp has 4 speaker terminals.

Tesla · 6 Feb 2006 at 00:50

Well I tipped the ends of one cable but I think it made a worse connection as the terminal couldnt tighten on the entire cable so I didnt do it in the end.

tom_nieto · 6 Feb 2006 at 09:06

There are huge debates over biwiring all the time. If it sounds better to you then do it, if not, then don't bother. It's a very personal thing, some people swear by it, others rubbish it. I've not bothered, but I might give it a go after exams, although I'd have to buy more banana plugs.

Ugley_Matt · 6 Feb 2006 at 14:24

Bi-wiring can be slightly benificial as you are getting a larger amount of wire per speaker, if you have the extra cable then you might as well, but if not its probably not worth worrying about.

sinister_stu · 6 Feb 2006 at 15:40

Bi-wiring is not worth it. It just can't be make any difference, especially if you already have quite thick cable. Tinning the ends of the cable may make it easier for you to make the connections and probably won't compromise performance.

Shimmyhill · 6 Feb 2006 at 17:01

sinister_stu said:
Bi-wiring is not worth it. It just can't be make any difference, especially if you already have quite thick cable. Tinning the ends of the cable may make it easier for you to make the connections and probably won't compromise performance.

Bi-wiring can make a difference, its down to each amp and speaker - some will sound better other not or very little. Bi-amping is where you get the most gains but bi-wiring certinally can make a noticable difference.

Oracle · 6 Feb 2006 at 17:36

WTF, people on here DO know what bi-wiring achieves right!? If you have a Bi wireable amp and Bi wireable speakers, the amp Low Pass and High Pass Filters the source so that all the high frequencies travel to the tweeter and the low frequencies travel to the woofer (or sub). If you just bridge bi-wireable speakers with poles then you get full frequency through tweeter and sub.

Its like using Component speakers in car audio, you have a crossover which splits the signal, this is what bi-wireable amps do....How can this NOT be a good thing!? Who on earth wants full range coming through a tweeter!?

It has nothing to do with cable thickness at all! Use Cat 5 Ethernet cable (twisted pairs), as you cannot IMO get better speaker cable!

rG-tom · 6 Feb 2006 at 17:38

Oracle said:
WTF, people on here DO know what bi-wiring achieves right!? If you have a Bi wireable amp and Bi wireable speakers, the amp Low Pass and High Pass Filters the source so that all the high frequencies travel to the tweeter and the low frequencies travel to the woofer (or sub). If you just bridge bi-wireable speakers with poles then you get full frequency through tweeter and sub.

Its like using Component speakers in car audio, you have a crossover which splits the signal, this is what bi-wireable amps do....How can this NOT be a good thing!? Who on earth wants full range coming through a tweeter!?

It has nothing to do with cable thickness at all! Use Cat 5 Ethernet cable (twisted pairs), as you cannot IMO get better speaker cable!

urmm the crossovers in the speaker stop that from happening

Tom.

Oracle · 6 Feb 2006 at 18:41

Not if your speakers dont have crossovers in them (which only co axials would), but then they wouldnt have four terminals on the rear of the speaker!

commited · 6 Feb 2006 at 20:20

Oracle...
I think you've got confused - the speakers still have a crossover in them. I had my speakers bi-wired purely for the fact that that was how my speaker cable was made (nordost).

Oracle · 6 Feb 2006 at 20:57

Mine dont. How can you know what my speakers are like!?? :confused:

I have bi-wireable Eltax Symphonies, the top two inputs on the rear of the speaker serve the tweeter with high frequencies, and the bottom two serve the woofer with the low frequencies.

These signals are split in my Cambridge Audio Amp with four outputs per speaker (two for HF and two for LF per channel) A crossover at the speaker would hamper any filtering done by the amp and would render Bi wiring useless!!

IceAx · 6 Feb 2006 at 21:41

LOL they still have cross overs in!!!

If you dont have a Bi-Wire amp you have to bridge both sets of terminals,
which then runs through a crossover to filter the signals!

Im sure some "high" end speakers are physically split but not the likes of Eltax and
other "affordable" speakers!

Andy

Oracle · 6 Feb 2006 at 22:58

My Eltaxs do not have crossovers on them! Simple really, they are just cones, no passive crossover exists on either coil of the tweeter or woofer, (which are seperate btw). My Cambridge Audio amp is bi-wireable, and within this amp, all my 'crossover(ing)' is done! I understand that if I didnt have a Bi-wireable amp or speakers then i'd have to bridge the terminals, but this does not do any justice to the speakers when they are bi wired correctly, they sound awesome bi-wired, they sound pants (muffled and boring) otherwise!

DRZ · 6 Feb 2006 at 23:36

Oracle said:
My Eltaxs do not have crossovers on them! Simple really, they are just cones, no passive crossover exists on either coil of the tweeter or woofer, (which are seperate btw). My Cambridge Audio amp is bi-wireable, and within this amp, all my 'crossover(ing)' is done! I understand that if I didnt have a Bi-wireable amp or speakers then i'd have to bridge the terminals, but this does not do any justice to the speakers when they are bi wired correctly, they sound awesome bi-wired, they sound pants (muffled and boring) otherwise!

You are wrong. Totally wrong.

IF your CA amp had active crossovers before the output stage, you wouldnt be able to use the amp with a non-biwireable speaker. If what you say is true, by removing the second run of cable and connecting the posts on the back of the speaker together, you would only get low frequencies.

This wont happen.

Inside that speaker there are two crossovers, one connected between each set of binding posts and the drivers. Unless you have removed them and installed some active crossovers between the preamp and power amp stages in your amp, you are using those crossovers right now. Simply removing the metal bridges between the posts doesnt somehow "disable" the crossovers inside your amp.

Swap the cables over. Swap them around on the binding posts... I bet you it sounds EXACTLY the same.

EDIT:

Eltax.com said:
The lower and midrange frequencies are handled by a 6" (165mm) woofer developed and produced especially for the Eltax Symphony .4 range - it has a one-piece polypropylene cone, rubber surround, large magnet system with a raised bump-plate for the long-throw twin-wound voicecoil. The large magnet and the accurate and well-build voice-coil ensures a very fast response and a high power performance - the woofer delivers a well-controlled and excellent sound.

The cross-over is designed with a few but high quality (and valuable) components - the capacitors are polypropylene types and the inner cabling are made with thick Ø .75 cables.

The Eltax Symphony 6.4 has a solid bi-wiring connection terminal with large binding post.

Attu · 6 Feb 2006 at 23:47

To quote from the Eltax web site regards the Symphony range....... "The cross-over is designed with a few but high quality (and valuable) components - the capacitors are polypropylene types and the inner cabling are made with thick Ø .75 cables"

If they didnt have a cross-over and they wern't bi-wired the tweeter would last about 2 seconds

IceAx · 7 Feb 2006 at 07:07

LOL are you now saying Eltax are lying to us all?
Go and read up on what your preaching hey!

Andy

IceAx · 7 Feb 2006 at 07:08

Oracle said:
My Eltaxs sound awesome bi-wired, they sound pants (muffled and boring) otherwise!

Have you ever compared them to anything else?

Andy

Oracle · 7 Feb 2006 at 10:56

Hmm, I see, sorry for my mis understanding. BTW, I have Eltax Symphony 7 (which I can't ever seem to find anything about on the internet)

If this is true (maybe my car audio mind is clouding my home cinema mind) why have four inputs at the back of the speaker!? Why not just have two from the amp and two at the speaker and let the crossovers on the speaker (i presume the woofer) deal with splitting the signal.

In car audio, you pull a +ve and -ve cable (just two) from the HU/AMP and run them to a seperate crossover where the signal is then split and you end up with four cables one set for woofer and one for tweeter.

If you have speakers with the crossovers built on to them, you still have one set of cable coming to the speaker, and the tweeter is connected to the woofer by its own cable at the crossover (mounted on the woofer). So what does bi-wiring actually achieve if you have crossovers built on to the speakers!?

The only other set up that i've used these speakers with is with a Sony Amp (non bi-wireable) although its what I call an AV amp as opposed to a pure Audio amp, it sounded complete pants, with the speaker posts in place on the four terminals, there was clearly no definition between high and low, and a muffled appearance to the sound.

DRZ · 7 Feb 2006 at 16:39

Oracle said:
*snip*

OK, so the experience you had to make you believe that they were so much better bi-wired involved you changing your amplifier at the same time? Changing two variables at once is never a good way of creating a bullet-proof opinion on something

The rest of your post is fine though, you have asked many of the questions that fuel the debate surrounding bi-wiring.

At the moment, I dont believe that it makes that much of a difference, having gone back to normal wiring for a short while. The bridges supplied arent usually up to much and changing these seems to make about 90% of the difference. Im not going to assert that for definite, but right now I am perfectly happy with the way I am cabled up...

By the way, the crossovers arent on the back of the drivers usually, they are far too big for that...