I bi-amp my Klipsch La Scalas using a tube amp for the top, and solid state for the bottom. The results are better than using either amp full range. As for bi-wire, it should be spelled "buy wire" because it's a waste of money. Not surprised Paul didn't even mention it.
I love this guy and can't believe I'm just finding his content! He's like your cool uncle who's also a shop teacher, who's also a cool high-school coach! 😂✌🏽❤✊🏽
I always thought Bi-Wiring was a marketing exercise. And in most cases they are. But there are speakers that highly benefit from it, the ones you can right away tell the difference. Example: B&W 602 S2 Anniversary towers, have a very different sound signature while bi-wired compared to regular wiring. It’s immediately heard and the speakers sound way clearer and more nuanced. Another example however is Martin Logan Motion 60XTi, which has literally zero difference between bi-wired configuration and regular. None. It highly depends on the speaker.
Bi-amping (really tri or even sometimes quad amping) is extremely common place in the live audio world where active crossovers are used in great effect. Gotta have different amps for highs, mids and lows! Even in the mainstream consumer space your subwoofers are an example of bi-amping! They have a built in amplifier and the signal is split away from the high frequency information. It's not old school bi-amping but the spirit lives on still and has evolved.
In professional sound reinforcement you NEVER miss mash different amps. You use all identical amps or at least different power versions of the same line. When you are running multiple stacks or arrays each component needs to display the same characterization-- the same dynamics, the same rise time, the same response-- the same controllable variables.
@@keithmoriyama5421 yes you use the same amps of course except for low end but you'll still get the same brand. But what I'm trying to say it's the same concept
@Keith Moriyama I don't care what you do in "professional sound reinforcement." Using different amplifiers in conjunction with active digital crossovers is the way to. Heavy class D for the bottom, class A/B for the mids and tubes for the highs. The only thing you have to watch out for is the power level scaling. I'm willing to bet my active 3-way speakers sound better than 95 percent of everything that's out there at a fraction of the price.
I found a huge opening up of my Wilson Benesch ACT 1s when I got PS Audio Statement bi wire to high & low terminals & Russ Andrews Kimber to the mid terminals from M700 power amps.
What would make more sense to me is to avoid the passive cross-over and use individual amp per speaker driver and use active cross-over. That’s more of a real thing allowing serious optimization.
@@Harald_Reindl The thing is that companies promote what they sell as the ideal setup and an active cross-over setup is not commonly supported by audiophile companies unless you combine with some other products. Recently I bought the miniDSP Flex Eight that provides 8 outputs that can support up to two 4-way speakers (2 could be subwoofers). For a system playing digital music, it is quite awesome.
ThinkingBetter,Active loudspeakers do exist in the marketplace and some are wireless network enabled. Many will argue that preference not reference amplification is superior fidelity and triumphant over efficiency so to each his or her own 😊. Thiel Audio always used single binding posts on there passive network to preserve the first order of this design,it also keeps you out of the tweeter replacement business. Any future claims of Reference amplification inside an active monitor is still subjective to the environment in which it operates.
@@ThinkingBetter Audiofools fear digital and especially DSP like the devil holy water no matter what - their brain stuck in the 1990s and harmonic distortion is beautiful for that clowns - who cares about "audiophile companies" when it comes to real sound quality? my whole chain has no single analog piece before the speaker cables for a good reason...
Good evening sir, I do have a quick question to ask, I am so mixed up and Hopefully you can answer. When connecting my subwoofer to my receiver, I connected my sub with the LFE straight to my rec. now should I turn the crossover all the way up on the Klipsch sub and let my Denon rec. control the crossover (which I can control)
Thanks Paul. Your insights are always informative. But I have to ask: What was for Lunch in that Pyrex cup? And I also wanted to point out that the placement of that Fuller vanity mirror might not necessarily be in the best position for your video vlogs, but that beautiful picture of your wife sure is! Take care and thank you.
I remember before especially in the 70's. almost everyone used THIN cables everywhere. Inside many loudspeakers, thin steel wire conductors were used. I am also disappointed with the Luxman M120 amplifier which uses extremely thin wires from the main power capacitors. Tandber also used very thin wires inside speakers. luxman M120A amplifier is also stupidly made. A power amplifier only with volume adjustment but with a full preamplifier built in and earphone output. Switch at the back for mono or stereo and then you suddenly have 3 times as long audio signal cable route!
@jonathanginofilippi noise does not induce onto speaker wires. Otherwise you'd hear it when your system was turned off as well. Noise is only a concern BEFORE it gets amplified.
Good advice. I could still see bi amping in some situations where you have more money than you know what to do with it and want to exploit the characteristics of certain amps. A SET for mids and highs combined with class D for bass could be interesting for example. I never really got bi wiring. I have tried it. It made a small difference and I think it was not for the better. Probably means my cables are flawed.
@@zizendorf If they were perfect and accurately passed all frequencies I believe it should sound the same biwired or uniwired. In my case it sounded a little more spacious biwired but I came to the conclusion it was artificial as opposed to revealing.
@@user-od9iz9cv1w That's an interesting concept - artificial in contrast to revealing. I think it's all "artificial" as the goal is good-great replication of a form of musical recording. By its very nature isn't there some element of "artificial" solely in the recording process which is then expounded upon (or furthered as "artificial") upon playback? It's always a topic of interest for me, especially so when I attend a symphony performance and try to develop an auditory memory of that live performance as a reference point. My truthful experience has, on many occasions been that the sound via my system is not just different, but better with well engineered recordings. Yes, the holistic ambience may be missing but, is replaced with a pleasing level of what you termed, revealing. Thanks
I do class D for the bass/mids, tubed monoblocks for the highs, pair of subs. Marchand active crossover. This solved my issue with the tubed amps not playing well alone with the Sonusfaber Oly 1s.
More important is that your electronics have 2 sets of terminals where you can A/B speakers, use the second set of terminals for subwoofers (like REL's) or stacking 2 pair of speakers. Japanese companies seem to understand this most (Accuphase, Luxman, Yamaha etc),
The other thing to consider is that avoiding an analog crossover is a means of optimizing the signal for each transducer. Use a DSP to partition out the signal for each transducer, making digital filters also correct for the weaknesses of each transducer. In other words, it's no longer about the amps. An analog crossover has many nasty side-effects, and while the simplest (6dB) may avoid the worst effects it also means that transducers are driven beyond their optimum range.
@@davidfromamerica1871 well, I don’t think I was referring to you, Dave, but that’s funny😉 .. Gimme Back My Bullets…that’s what I say. Or better yet.. Happiness is a warm gun.🥂
I passive bi amped my Infinity RS IIIa's. Never happier. Use the same amp on top and bottom (4 channel amps). I've put 200 watts into them before bi amping with other amps but the amps always ran real hot, if not burning up in a puff of black smoke. The speakers are basically power whores and imho suffer from it but at the same time you cant just shove more power into them (3, 4, 500 watts) and expect them to survive. Now I have up to 240 watts (@ 4ohms) for both top and bottom which means no more sharing power from the same terminal and also the gains can be pulled back. It seemed to make the speakers something I always thought they should be.
I tri-amp. Low and mid are bipolar transistors, and high are Sony V-FETs. The only things between output transistors and voice coils are 12 gauge wires.
I'm glad this mess is going away. Hasn't been necessary in nearly 20 years if you buy a good amp in the first place. I think it is marketing B.S. for speaker manufacturers to add the lousy nearly chrome plated plastic (I only kid there slightly) bus bars connecting two sets of inputs to make a speaker look "high end". Enough already. Give us ONE good set of terminals without any steel in the signal path and quality internal wiring and crossover components, along with drivers that sum well together.
For me bi-amping is the only audio "hack" that I have done that actually works. Unlike switching cables or amps the result is stunning. The speaker floats as if you took off a blanket. Bi-wiring yields no sonic advantage, but I do it anyway-- 14/4 Canare speaker wire double wired is a better connection with lower resistance.
You've completely contradicted yourself: from "the result is stunning" to "Bi-wiring yields no sonic advantage" in one paragraph. You've also demonstrated exactly why bi-wiring is absolute rot - there's a reason it's also known as Buy Wiring. I don't like using terms like snake oil, but that's exactly what cabling became when businessmen say the opportunity to sell something completely unnecessary to a gullible audience who didn't know they needed it.
@@richardt3371 He didn't contradict himself. He was talking about bi-amping in the first three sentences and bi-wiring in the last sentence. Two completely different things. You must have skipped reading comprehension in grade school.
What era are you talking about where power amplifiers couldn’t handle full-range audio, the vacuum tube age? I can’t think of a single solid state amplifier that doesn’t cover the entire audio range.
I never heard any difference from bi-wiring, but them I'm not a cable guy. I use Blue Jeans brand cables. I always felt like if i needed expensive cables to get the sound right I'm not interested in the hobby. That doesn’t mean you might not be right about an entirely different conclusion.
Saludos desde Argentina Paul. Te sigo desde hace aproximadamente un año y me resultan muy interesantes e instructivos tus videos, que haces de forma muy amena. Dejando de lado la biamplificación, quisiera saber tu opinión sobre el bicableado, o sea conectar las cajas acústicas con 2 cables diferentes desde el mismo amplificador, cuando estas tienen el dicisor de frecuencias separado con 2 entradas separadas, ya que he leído en algunos artículos técnicos, que si han un solo cable, el midwoofer por ejemplo, se roba la mayor parte de energía. Es así? Sirve bicablear o no? Desde ya muchas gracias y nuevamente saludos.
Bi-wiring as I've understood it meant splitting the two + and - channel amplifier speaker output feeds into four (2+ and 2-) speaker input feeds to connect separately to the lower and upper frequency speakers, and more focused crossover handling of the signals? The idea being to get the bass speaker(s) more directly handling lower frequencies and mid-range and tweeters more directly handling the mid to upper frequencies. The outcome being a more separated and fuller 'bodied' sound. I don’t believe it was never intended to produce a night vs day change (as evidenced by some of the feedback here) and the effects are subtle, system detail and mastering/recording quality specific too. I do get a more ‘preferred’ sound by bi-wiring and I'd suggest if you try it using a 12AWG wire feed into each speaker terminal, meaning amplifier output cable diameter of around 6AWG per terminal. I'm probably agreeing with Paul (surprise, surprise) not necessary, but in my case nice to play with and have!
Have recently tried by BI-wiring on a Myryad 40w pre and 60 w power . Would bi ampimg mean 40w to the top end of speaker inputs and 60w to bass . Plus would this create more power in watts? Or does bi wiring just do the same thing?
@@itisjustacomment Hi, I have no experience with bi-amping. It is very different to bi-wiring however as bi-wiring only involves splitting the outputs from the left and right channels from 2 inputs into 4 inputs per speaker to split low from high frequencies and make the amplifier’s input signal split more defined, which in turn can perceptibly improve the overall detail, clarity, separation etc. There is little or no change in signal amplification involved in bi-wiring as the cable length is so short. Bi-amping needs two amplifiers from my understanding. Hope that clarifies? If you Google bi-amping or wiring there is a lot better explanations and diagrams.
@SparksFun thanks I've looked up bi amping, but find it hard to find info about watts or gain by using two . I'm only guessing both amps used to power 2 speakers between high and lows adds gains . But I'm not sure . I've just bought more speaker cable and a load of banana plugs , which I was meant to set up today, but I didn't due to unseen Circumstances. Would be interesting to know the figure gain on bi amping seems as I have a few amps I'm going to try when time is free . Thank you so much for the info. I really appreciate it.
@3:03 "There's less and less need for it, in an age..." The noun "need" is not the word that I would use, because owning a stereo is not a need. It is a want. So there is less and less demand for it, in an age... But the demand still exists, and probably will for the foreseeable future. Why? There is more to the benefit of bi-amping than Paul spoke to. He focused on days of yore, where amplifiers were best suited for various frequency ranges. That is true. However, any amplifier, no matter how advanced, no matter how amazing, can benefit from bi-amping. Bass notes require heavy lifting (so-to-speak) from amplifiers. Bass notes challenge power supplies more than any other frequencies. For those that are not aware... the power supplies are a major cost of quality gear, and will make or break the sound quality of the gear. One of the major benefits of monoblock amps is that you have dedicated power supplies for each amp. Back to bi-amping... By (virtually) dedicating amps to take on the low frequencies, it relieves the other amps of that exercise, allowing them to focus on the mids and highs. When an amplifier is freed from pushing out deep bass notes, it will deliver more focused mids and highs. Our ears can hear when voices sound right. And an amplifier that can dedicate itself to that job will sound better when it is not simultaneously pumping out bass notes from a church organ. So that dream amplifier, that can effortlessly power all frequencies, will sound even better when not having to deal with deep bass frequencies. It is the reason why Richard Vandersteen's higher grade speakers, including his reference speakers, are bi-amped. It is a contributing factor to his speaker's ability to present startlingly realistic, 3-dimensional sonic images. Note that bi-amping can diminish the sound quality, if not professionally set up. But get it right, and you will be rewarded with better sound quality.
"Because people want it, and it's an extra set of binding posts. Not a big deal." Inherent in Paul's comment is this not nearly an admission of "snake oil"? I haven't seen any verification that bi-wiring has benefits; not any beyond subjective beliefs. Hmmm...
AVR's give you the least benefit from bi-amping. You're probably only slightly better off than bi-wiring in this case. Why? Because the main benefit of bi-amping is to remove the effects of huge transient current demands from the bass altering the supply voltage for the mids & highs. If you're using extra channels in an AVR, you're still using the same power supply, so won't get all the benefits. My AV room system is rigged this way, and doesn't come close to getting the benefits from bi-amping as my other system does, that uses an integrated and a power amp.
Because it does nothing useful as most esoteric nonsense like cables and what not audiofools waste their money in rooms with reverb times not suitable for any music reproduction
Why would it improve the sound if you leave all the passive crossover parts in the speaker ? Those are the culprits . The only way to make bi-amping work is to either 1) use a digital crossover that feeds two dac's (followed by two power amps) or to make a line level (from the preamp) active analog crossover that then feeds 2 power amps . Now you got rid of all your distorting energy storage passive crossover devices in the form of caps and coils that impact phase and transient behaviour (attack and decay) of the drivers . Classical bi-amping is audiofoolery and snake oil from the marketing department to sell more amps to naive and technically challenged audiophiles .
@@gerritgovaerts8443 Plonk yourself in a room with a pair of Mission 764i's. BiAmp them and get back to me. Ill admit, its the only time ive ever noticed a difference, but a difference there was, especially in female vocals. The setup wasnt anything special, Arcam Delta 70.3, Cambridge Audio C70 Pre amp, 2x C100 Power amps. The difference was not subtle either.
@@gerritgovaerts8443 don't come up with digital - audiophiles live for distortion - the more distortion the better - vinyl, analog interconnects, separate pre-amps to get more analog interconnects and distortion :-)
@@VeggieManUK I guess it is possible if the amps react negatively to a very complex impedance created by a (badly designed) crossover . Connecting each amp with only half of the crossover can lower the requirements on the amps . But a very stable solid state power amp that can handle low and very complex impedances would see virtually no benefit from bi-amping , coz those caps and coils keep doing their dirty energy storage work impacting transient behaviour
"Just another set of binding posts" I don't get this statement, I thought good speakers with dual sets of binding post fed into the the drivers along dual signal paths so designing for 4 instead of 2 binding posts would be a non-trivial exercise...then again what does a non-audiophile like me know about these things...
When you see it on $500 speakers it paints a picture of why the mfg use it, and that actually only gets worse as you look inside speakers costing substantially more, it's just a way for them to add bling and a sales pitch without adding costs during the manufacturing (these days).
There are a lot of people who misunderstand! BI wire! BI wire from one and the same stereo amplifier is pointless! It gives you nothing. You have to use 2 amplifiers with different characteristics, then there is a point with BI wire!
@@Harald_Reindl It's easy to design and calculate a speaker cable which can make an audible difference. By difference I don't mean a better sound, but a different sound. Most normal and good speaker cables will sound the same, but some "high-end" cables can sound worse by filtering some frequencies or lowering sound level. "Worse" or "better" it's a matter of taste, although these exotic cables decrease information and transparency.
Bi-wiring never was a thing coz it has zero effect . Bi- (or tri or more) amping is only usefull in active speakers with either active analog line level or digital crossovers . Bi- amping and leaving the passive crossover parts in the speaker does not produce any advantage because it is those parts that can produce distortion as they are energy storage devices that impact transient behaviour .
Removing 15 amp+ current swings from the amplifier that's powering your mids & tweeters makes no difference? Ok. Not having 15 amp peaks going down the cables that supply your mids and tweeters also makes no difference? Ok. A perfect amp, with a perfect PSU, and perfect, zero ohm impedance cables would have no benefit from bi-amping or bi-wiring, but those amps and cables do not exist, particularly in the mid-range hi-fi gear that most of us use. Yes, people buying Magico speakers and D'Agostino amplifiers may not benefit from these techniques, but those of us in the real world can get serious gains by adding a power amp to an integrated, and using the integrated to feed the mids / tweeters, and the power amp for the bass.
Perhaps there's less and less need because they can make their money charging big speaker money for little 6" speakers.. I heard a very interesting podcast about why big driver speakers are better than little driver speakers. Very dubious claims made generally that biamping works.. yes sure amplifiers will have their own characteristic audio profile but I'd challenge the people who claim this to name just one double blind testing event that actually showed a statistically significant difference between the sound of a biamp and that of the same speaker single amped. Of course we all know about biwiring..better known as buy wiring. Sorry to be so negative about this topic but the difference if any would not be discernable in biamping.. nobody seems to quote full on blind or double blind tests. Listen to this setup.. Now listen when we connect in biamping configuration..can you hear the strength of the highs and that more punchy base... Yeah yeah I can hear it.. I'll buy the lot Thanks. Lol.
It should be noted thart some speaker designer/engineers are passionate about the sonic improvements that Bi-Wiring CAN offer, if the crossover network inside the speaker is designed accordingly. If executed correctly, it can provide a wonderful improvement in open-ness and transparency and mid-range articulation. My magnificent Totem Acoustic Hawk Towers are proof of it.
