[drober30]

I purchased B&W 603 s3 and the B&W LCR 600 for a home theater setup. I have some quality 16 gauge hooked up to it right now that I used for my whole house audio. I do plan on using better wire but is Bi Wiring what I should do? I know the B&W speakers are built for Bi Wiring. My local dealer suggest Audio Quest wire thats about $200 for the mains and $100 for the center. This is factory terminated wire and he strongly believes Bi Wiring is the way to go. He pointed out that my speakers were expensive and were built to be Bi Wired. By the way this dealer did not sell me the speakers, he is not a B&W dealer I stoped in for the speaker wire. I searched but did not get results. I'm thinking that this could be one of those 50/50 views or maybe not but I always welcome and appreciate all viewpoints.

$300 -$500 in speaker wire? Thats a tuff sell!

 

[Sorny]

Bi-wiring should only make an audible difference if you are using insufficient gauge wire to start with. Bi-wiring is a way for retailers to milk consumers out of more money on wire they don't need. After all, wire is a very high markup item for retailers; less than honest ones will always point you to expensive cables.


What I'd do in your position, drober30, is go to lowes or home depot and buy a 250ft spool of 12 gauge speaker wire. The spool will run you about $60-$75. You can bi-wire all you want for a fraction of what the snake oil salesman would charge, plus you'd have some left over (can get nice gold spades, lugs, and bananna jacks at radio shack for cheap). Or, you could go to partsexpress and buy the sound king 12ga wire, some fancy cladding, and some nice spades or banannas and have your own hi-end cable for pennies on the dollar -it'd look and preform as well as or better than the boutique cables and not break the bank...


Of course, I'll likely get flamed for being blunt about wiring needs, but so be it. IMHO, spending $500 or $300 for wire is folly. Fat copper with good termination is what speaker wire needs to be.


Sorny

 

[Larry Fine]

I agree with Sorny once again. I happen to bi-wire, but not because I particularly desire to. My Sunfire amps have dual terminals on most of the channels, with a slight difference between them (1-ohm resistors on the terminals recommended for the high drivers), and I happened to have plenty of 14 ga. wire when I ran them. If I had had 12 ga., I wouldn't have bothered.

 

[hometheaterguy]

Bi-wire is substantial if you: 1. bi-amp, 2. use this wiring method for 2-channel (music). I have not seen anyone bi-wire home theater speakers, but someone out there may have.

 

[9volt]

i bi-wired my mains with audioquest, not because i thought i needed it, as much as i thought it looked cool. when i upgraded my center to audioquest i didn't biwire it only because the terminators were f-in expensive.


if you do it, do it because you can afford it, and it's neat. Sorny's suggestion would probably sound just as good.

 

[outlier2]

I bi-wired my mains with 12 ga. but only did so because I had bought a heap of the stuff from Home Depot and figured it couldn't hurt (only cost me and extra $20 or so).

 

[drober30]

Thanks for the replies! It seems that Bi Wiring could be done for a whole lot less. I guess if I don't have to take a loan out to do it then it wont hurt to do it. I really don't listen to 2 channel music at home. I use my whole house audio for that because I'm usually on the move cleaning or working on the house. Based on the opinions so far I wont purchase the specialty wire but use some quality 14 or 12 gauge for my mains and center.

 

[John Robert]

Sounds like you are on the right track. I biwired my polk lsi15s in my bedroom system with cheap 14 ga and thought the sound was fuller and more"open". When I tried a set of $200 cables for same purpose (which I returned), couldn't hear any difference...

 

[Larry Fine]

Quote:

Originally posted by hometheaterguy I have not seen anyone bi-wire home theater speakers, but someone out there may have.

As I was saying, all of mine are bi-wired except my sides. They're the only speakers with a single pair of terminals, and I "re-assigned" my amp channels so they're powered by the two channels without the second pair of terminals.

 

[buggs1a]

Can Bi amping really make the sound better? I don't see how.

 

[Ou8thisSN]

I have a pair of Klipsch RF7s, it has the bi-wiring capability, but what I dont understand is how to physically do it:


The speakers have 2 sets of 5-way binding posts, but the reciever only has one set per channel.


Right now on the speaker and the reciever side, I have 1 wire running into spring clip binding posts. they occupy both holes on the reciever and speaker.


When you bi-wire, you send two speaker wires into each of the receivers binding posts right. So if I have the spring clips already covering the binding posts on the reciever, how can I bi-wire?


The only thing I can do is move both the spring clips to the speaker side, and use bare wire for the reciever side.


Is this how you guys do it?

 

[Tom Grooms]

If you are using an A/V receiver with Spring clip connections, I wouldn't worry about bi-wire. A good set of bi-wire speaker cables will cost more than your receiver. But bi-wire cables have four connectors on the speaker side and two on the amp side.

http://www.kimber.com/bixl-b.jpg

 

[Ou8thisSN]

how much are those? I need about 10-12 feet length.

 

[Tom Grooms]

Kimber Kable BiFocal XL $2000 US

 

[Ou8thisSN]

hell yeah, thats what i need, wires that cost as much as the speakers!

 

[buggs1a]

If you have a receiver/amp with only one speaker output, you run 2 seperate speaker wires from that to each of the 2 posts on the speaker. So you have left on receiver and it's only for one speaker. Just put 2 cables in it and run one to the one set for left on that speaker, the other wire to the other binding post for the left.


it's like takeing 2 speaker cables for 2 left speakers, you just twist tie or whatever the cables and then plug them into the receiver.


I have done this one time just for a few minutes to test 2 speakers at the same time and had no issue with it. i had a yamaha RXv-990 receiver.


i however do not know if this will hurt the receiver or not.

 

[Ou8thisSN]

so you want me to stick 2 bare wire connections in each binding post on the reciever?

 

[Tom Grooms]

You should have a look at the $29,500 Transparent Opus MM speaker cables

http://www.transparentcable.com/imag...SC_600x360.jpg


I really wouldn't waste the time and effort to bi-wire the RF7's to an A/V receiver with spring clips. Just listen too what you have and enjoy........


$0.02

 

[Ou8thisSN]

why wouldnt you "waste time or effort"? are the speakers not worth it, or because cabling/other stuff makes it complicated. I dont even see how you can hook it up to the reciever with spring clips,

 

[hometheaterguy]

Long live Kimber Kable ( www.kimber.com ). I like their silver wire. "Oh You Ate This One": you could splice the bare copper ends of the wire to your receiver spring clips, but the will be difficult to insert in the holes. As Tom mentioned you would not really hear a improvement in sound with a receiver costing less than then wire (measurable perhaps, not by ear). With a good amp like Jeff Rowland, or Krell you would.