Bi-wiring speakers. Really?!

Bendy_House

Olinda99 said:

You need a blind  test - get a friend or whoever to wire it up but you don't know how - listen and and see what you think

Repeat several.times then analyst the results

Absolutely.

I haven't seen one of these carried out to compare bi-wiring with single, or between different cables.

Sandtree

prowla said:

The assertion of bi-wiring is that the cables will affect the sound, so splitting the signal paths at the amp end will give a different sound to it all running down the same one.

No it doesn't because both sets of wire go into a single terminal at the amp end and therefore both cables are carrying the full signal.

Have tried bi-wiring in the past simply because I had spare cable with a pair of Mission speakers and again with some Kef R700 with an Arcam amp and it made exactly as little difference as you'd imagine. 

onomatopoeia99

About 20 years ago a student at our local uni did a final year dissertation on speaker wire, comparing the source with the reproduced sound using a variety of different cables, same amp and speakers.  I know about this because the supervising professor is a friend of a friend.  Being done in a university physics department they had access to some very high quality test gear for taking measurements.

2.5mm twin and earth from Wickes came out close to the top for accuracy of reproduction is the one thing I remember from the results when this was recounted to me.

Bendy_House

Anyhoo, I was successful in purchasing an immaculate pair of B&W 685 (decent, tho' obviously not high-end), and these have gold-plated metal links at the bi-wiring-enabled speaker end.

I won't be swapping these links for wired equivalents, regardless of what the cove on YouTube said...

Bendy_House

onomatopoeia99 said:

About 20 years ago a student at our local uni did a final year dissertation on speaker wire, comparing the source with the reproduced sound using a variety of different cables, same amp and speakers.  I know about this because the supervising professor is a friend of a friend.  Being done in a university physics department they had access to some very high quality test gear for taking measurements.

2.5mm twin and earth from Wickes came out close to the top for accuracy of reproduction is the one thing I remember from the results when this was recounted to me.

Lol! I was kidding about including T&E as an option in any blind test. BUT, I am not in the least bit surprised at the student's findings.

From what you say, tho', there WERE some differences detected between cables? Interesting. I wonder if these were merely measurable, or actually audible? (I think I know).

A minimum load-carrying capacity will obviously be required, but beyond that I am struggling to understand how different copper cables can provide an audibly-detectable result at the output stage, stranded or single-core.

Again, I will point out that all the components in even very high-end amps are effectively electrically connected using a lead-substitute.

Username03725

Olinda99 said:

You need a blind  test - get a friend or whoever to wire it up but you don't know how - listen and and see what you think

Repeat several.times then analyst the results

Why on earth would I want to do that? I saw the improvement as described and was happy. Swapping back lost those benefits. I'm quite relaxed about this £30 cable doing what it was meant to do.

Again, I will point out that all the components in even very high-end amps are effectively electrically connected using a lead-substitute.

Really? Silver solder is quite popular esp for soldering spkr cables into plugs. 

This all makes me smile tbh. Years of trying this stuff out - and I used to be as cynical about it as the next man - has shown me that there are differences. It doesn't matter one jot to me if these diffs are actually purely psychological, even though I'm happy to say they're not. If replacing a component with another gives me a perceived improvement that's great; if it doesn't I'll return it and get my money back. That's how the hifi industry tends to work now that it's gone from High Street to niche outlets in converted barns off the beaten track (The Audiobarn) or in an industrial unit in an anonymous industrial park somewhere - see Nintronics. 

None - not one - of my improvements have come from a dealer hard sell. Most of them are from reading forums and hifi mags, getting a sense of what the reality is and if all is fine I'll probably give it a go. No-one's bullying me or making fantastic claims, just that some people say that they thought X was better than Y, or that e.g. dressing all the mains, power supply, interconnects and speaker cables so that there's space between them improves things a bit (it did, all for a 90p length of pipe insulation from Wickes, chopped into little spacers). I wouldn't have thought a Naim Fraim would offer such improvements over an Atacama rack, but it did, to my ears. 

It's much better to be confident that there isn't much else that I could do to know that my system is as good as it can reasonably be, than it is to sit there wondering if it could all be a little bit better. As for cost, there are two parts to consider. One is that ending up with something good doesn't usually happen overnight, it tends to come from years of upgrades, trade-ins, finding ex-demo or used bargains etc with the occasional brand new item as & when. It's a process that doesn't really stop if truth be told. And secondly, it's a hobby that gives massive enjoyment both in the creation of a decent system, and its use. As with most hobbies, there isn't an end point, just ways of finding little bits here and there to try. Except in this case maybe a Naim Statement (Google it...)

Olinda99

"Why on earth would I want to do that?"

Sorry, I assumed you would understand what blind testing was. As always, Google is your friend if you want to learn about this,  bias and particularly confirmation bias.

Username03725

No need to be snide. I swapped the new lead in, saw an improvement; took it out and saw that improvement disappear.

Why would I engage in a blind test facilitated by a 3rd party to prove what I've already seen and am happy with? I see no reason to doubt what I proved to myself and the difference in the tv settings' values were evidence of change. And unusually my wife who is normally immune to these things commented on the picture looking better. So like I said, why on earth would I want to do that, other than to satisfy some chippy bloke on the internet who can't possibly imagine that cables do make a difference?

Ergates

Username03725 said:

No need to be snide. I swapped the new lead in, saw an improvement; took it out and saw that improvement disappear.

Why would I engage in a blind test facilitated by a 3rd party to prove what I've already seen and am happy with? I see no reason to doubt what I proved to myself and the difference in the tv settings' values were evidence of change. And unusually my wife who is normally immune to these things commented on the picture looking better. So like I said, why on earth would I want to do that, other than to satisfy some chippy bloke on the internet who can't possibly imagine that cables do make a difference?

The output from a skybox is via HDMI.  This is a digital signal, streams of 1s and 0s, that your TV interprets into a picture.  It doesn't have separate streams for colour or brightness.  The result you're observing is *literally* impossible - no amount of footling about with a sky box can change the properties of the picture output.  Only software updates, satelite broadcast changes and movement/damage to the dish can do that.

Bendy_House

What Ergates says about the digital signal delivered through an HDMI cable is, I understand, correct. Ie, as long as the cheapest nastiest HDMI cable actually 'works', then it works 100%. You cannot improve on that.

However, if Username's Skybox reception was absolutely borderline, then I can accept - just - that a better-shielded mains cable might work to not introduce troublesome interference to such an on-the-edge signal.

But I still find it highly implausible.

I've looked up Big Orange's claims. "..it will improve the component's performance raised by an order of magnitude. Bass is more extended, leading edges more sharply defined and pitch easier to determine." And "Deeper blacks; finer detail, more vivid colours and clarity; greater contrast; more depth, creating almost 3D picture; better able to follow the action; more engrossing; more light."

That's a Borisian level of modesty. And, until it can be demonstrated via a scientific test, hyperbole.