BI WIRE EXPERIENCE DARK SIDE

04-05-15: Springbok10
Almarg, do you believe that is harmful, for instance to use a copper cable such as Cardas Golden Cross on high frequencies and Clear Day, silver, on low frequencies?

Not necessarily, Denis. Consider, for example, that some highly regarded manufacturers of amplifiers and speakers suggest that in situations where tube amps are being used it may sometimes be desirable to use different amplifier taps for the highs and the lows. That certainly figures to have more of an effect on differences between the highs and the lows than the type of metal that is used in the speaker cables. Different amplifier taps have significantly different signal voltages on them.

That said, if the impedance of the low frequency section of the speaker is low, and/or if the length of the cable is long, personally I'd be hesitant to use a silver cable such as Clear Day for that connection, at least in anything less than the double shotgun version. The relatively narrow gauge of the lesser versions, and of some of the silver speaker cables from other manufacturers, IMO can result in a high enough resistance to be a concern under those circumstances. The opinions of others about that may differ in some cases, but given that the resistance of copper is only about 6 to 8% higher than the resistance of silver, for equal gauge and length, if those other opinions are correct there would seem to be no need for the very heavy gauges of the copper cables many audiophiles use. (Increasing the diameter of a conductor by just one gauge size reduces its resistance by about 20%).

Best regards,
-- Al

Thanks, Al.

I use a pair of 4Ω KEF Reference 107/2 mains, double bi-wired to a Proceed HPA-3 amp. I expect delivery of a pair of LS50s for use as surrounds, but it requires a bit of carpentry to remove the existing 102 surrounds. In the meantime, I wondered about connecting the 8Ω LS50s to the cable that now goes to MF/HF terminals of the 107/2s for a trial. The amp is 500 watts/channel into 4Ω, 250 into 8Ω. Could I damage anything at fairly low sound levels with such a mix of impedances?

db

DB, the only way I can envision that causing any damage, especially given that you will be keeping the volume low, would be if the amp happened to be on the verge of failing anyway, and doing that would put it over the edge.

I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility, though, that the amp's short circuit protection mechanisms, as mentioned in the manual, might interpret the combined loads as being a short, and shut down the amp. I say that in particular because the impedance curve of the LS50, as shown here, dips to 4 ohms around 200 Hz. So the combined impedances would be seen by the amp as about 2 ohms around that frequency. The fact that you would be connecting to the MF/HF terminals of the mains doesn't change that.

My guess, though, is that there would be no problem at all.

Regards,
-- Al

To glean the greatest benefit from bi-wiring, the speakers's crossover should be designed for it....if not, using a double run of speaker cable will still give you positive results...this is called Shotgun. For the best wire to use, shy away from cable that is manufactured with 2 inputs on one end and 4 to be connected to the speaker...use seperate wires.