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Bi-wiring and Bi-amping for Dummies (Well, One dummy amyways)

Thanks to fellow list member here I’ve learned recently some about my new equipment. Now about hooking it all up.....

Most of the new gear is pretty simple but there’s a couple of new twists I have no experience with. Bi-wiring and bi-amping.

Bi-wiring. I purchased a pair of Cambridge Audio Edge M monoblocks and a pair of

KEF R11 Meta speakers. The speakers will take normal wiring or bi-wiring  I now understand. I was lucky enough to contact Morrow Audio before they shipped out my new SP6 speaker cables and have the speaker ends changed to bi-wiring. 

The amplifier cable ends will have the normal two connectors while the speaker ends will now have 4. Pretty straightforward or am I missing something?

Bi-amping. Well, this will take another pair of monoblocks. That’s not in this year’s budget but maybe next year if it offers that much improvement. Does it add much improvement? Even when using monoblocks? Will it make the cables I just ordered obsolete? Will I need additional cables? Anything else I need to know? 

I’m sure bi-wiring and bi-amping are covered in the forums elsewhere but I’m trying to be specific for the brands of equipment I purchased. 

Your polite comments and opinions are valued, thank you. 

toddsyr
roadcykler
341 posts
 

Bi-wiring is more money in the pockets of the manufacturer with no objective difference in sound.

 

Bi-amping fails every common sense test because it’s the same power from separate amps which also provides no objective difference in sound. But you do you.

shooter41
137 posts
 

While I agree that bi-wiring can indeed be a dubious experiment there are some speaker manufacturers that recommend it. Greg from Volti Audio comes to mind. I think he prefers running two sets of cables to each speaker though, rather than doubling the terminations on one end of one cable. Not positive about that, it's just how I've seen him do it.

Bi-amping is something I'll probably never try as I agree that it's better to just get the best amp you can rather than 2/4 lesser amps. If I had a cost-no-object system and an unlimited budget then I could see taking the plunge.

mark200mph
849 posts
 

If you have very inefficient woofers like some big speakers do have it makes sense to have bi or tri amp.why does mcintosh  xrt 2k have tri amp even thier xrt 30 have multiple amp capabilities. Maybe they just want to sell more amps or they cater to some demand from customers. I love big kw amps as my krell comes to mind 750 mcx. The mcintosh 1.25 put out 200 amps with those big tranformers.enjoy the music. Power wakes some speakers up and let them hit close to x max.

mark200mph
849 posts
 

I'll have to watch the video and see if they measured very inefficient  woofers with huge magnets that creat alot of emf.enjoy the spl

dekay's avatar
dekay
6,207 posts
 

Your speakers seem to have internal jumpers if the middle binding posts are used for a single run.

If so  - no need for jumpers.

 

DeKay

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