Biwire with different cables?

I have done it both ways and both worked. I think much as you do, the central point for me is that the task is different for the wire carrying the bass signal than the higher frequencies. I am not a great fan of anitcable, especially on the bottom end. I would try a much heavier wire, or make one yourself. Take some magnet wire, which is similar to anti cable and use 6 or 8 strands twisted around each other with a very slow twist. Blue Jeans cable looks promising also but I haven't used it. There are arguments on both sides of this; I would just try something else on the bottom and see what you think.

I think that the fact that you will be biwiring will make much more of a difference in improving bass tightness than the type of wire you choose to do it with (assuming, of course, that the gauge is adequate).

In bi-wired configuration, back-emf from the woofer is conducted exclusively back to the amplifier output, where it is effectively damped by the amplifier's low output impedance. In non-biwired configuration, some fraction of the back-emf generated by the woofer is conducted through the jumpers to the terminals for the mid/hi frequency drivers, where it is less effectively damped due to the higher impedance presented by those drivers, and more significantly, some fraction of that back-emf will cause extraneous sound to be produced by the mid-frequency driver, resulting in muddied bass.

So I don't think that there is any point in spending huge $ on silver cables, even though as you probably realize they have lower resistance/better conductivity than copper (for equal gauge and length). And conceivably having different cable types for the two runs could negatively impact overall coherence.

Regards,
-- Al

When I wrote the preceding post, obviously I overlooked your statement that you are already bi-wiring, with Anti-Cables. Given that, I have no particular suggestions beyond the thought that I would be hesitant to invest in silver cables (or other expensive cables), at least without having return privileges. And I think that Stan has made some suggestions which seem well worth trying.

Regards,
-- Al

It might be a bit different but it isn't going to get better..maybe worse. Anti-Cables are very, very good.

Thank you Stan and Almarg. I have since read that Richard Vandersteen recommends use of the same wire for biwiring. Maybe he's on to something. Maybe I could try Clear Day shotguns.

Or very, very bad; depending on taste and system. The magnet wire I mentioned is available for about 60 cents a foot so experimenting with it is cheap. There are two schools on using the same wire, one holds that you can optimize the wire for the task at hand, heavy wire for the bass and thin for the upper frequencies. The other is to use the same wire for both. I would probably do the latter out of an unwillingness to spend time experimenting except that I don't want to spend the money right now duplicating my Cardas Gold Reference . Even Cardas doesn't use the same thickness of cable for jumpers as it is. So I am using double runs of OCOS for high end. I was EXTREMELY reluctant to spend big money for long cables so I tried several cheaper alternatives including anti-cable. None was satisfactory IN MY SYSTEM. EVERYTHING you can conceive of has been recommended one time or another by someone. One web reviewer uses romex and insists it is better than any exotic cable. So I would try inexpensive alternatives or ones that can be returned first and see what YOUR impressions are.

I think it is better to have use good quality speaker cable, and use then good quality jumper cables. Biwire might work when you bi-amp. But if you only use 1 stereo or 2 mono amps I don't see how biwire could have any effect.

I'm highly sceptical of biwire.

Actually, bi-wiring with a low impedance cable can improve the damping factor of your amp and deliver more current to the woofers in a 3-way system. The lower the impedance the more benefit you get, so using factors other than impedance may not net you an improvement as stated in some of the responses you've received prior.

Best,

Olufemi Sonuga
Chief Designer
Dynamic Design Corp.

I am currently working on this one too. It would really depend on the speakers in questions and the partnering amps. I am using a pair of Luxman M800a as monoblocks and speakers are Verity Sarastros. Goal is to increase clarity at the bass.

I have been using mostly Stealth Dream single wire with the jumpers. I compared it to true biwire with two pairs of Dreams and also using one pair of biwire dreams (2 to 4; shotgun config). The shotgun one did not do much and I prefer single wire with jumper. ( Caveat is that I had to connect to the upper binding post of the bass module). Running two pairs of single wire cables increased the loudness of the bass and improved clarity of the midrange more than the clarity of the bass. Loudness may be due to more conductors and clarity in midrange is due to effect described by Plelko.

I also tried mixing the Stealth with Ridge street audio Alethias (Silver ribbon) and Analysis PLus Crystal Oval ( coppper) at different locations. The silver cable produce the most leading edge definition at the bass but bass note did not hang in the air as long as the stealth. It did produce the effect of tightening up the bass. One of my friends likes it. I like what it does with the sound of double bass (more bite ) but I feel a piano note should propagates for longer. It is really subjective whether you will like it or not.

To my suprise, the sound was reasonably coherent. This may be due to first order cross over of the Sarastros. there is considerable overlap in the midrange and bass drivers.

The Analysis Plus lands me somewhere in between.

My next experiment is vertical biamp.