Advantages of bi-wire?

I guess I'm going to risk getting into an argument with Cwlondon by disagreeing with him, but I can only offer personal experience in my system.

I have had three primary pairs of speakers that all were capable of bi-wiring. In all cases, the manufacturers recommended bi-wiring. On two of the speakers, I preferred single wire with jumpers...which is to say, I couldn't hear much difference between the approaches.

On the third pair of speakers, I prefer bi-wiring, and I can clearly hear differences that I like, e.g. an image that has more weight and sounds more cohesive.

I really believe every owner who is curious needs to experiment for him/herself. I push back hard against those who are intractable in their view that any difference heard by a listener is a result of wishful thinking, or the placebo effect.

Tvad,

I think I have bi wired the pair of ATC's on my desktop, to the extent that I use two sets of connectors on each speaker which emerge from a single cable?

But I too am a little confused regarding theoretical and actual benefits, so I was just kidding around a bit.

1-14-10: Cwlondon
I think I have bi wired the pair of ATC's on my desktop, to the extent that I use two sets of connectors on each speaker which emerge from a single cable?

Yes, that's one way to do it.

Bi-wiring is for the politically correct audiophile.

Don't hear, don't tell.

I biwire because I had the extra cable available to do so, but I can't honestly say I heard that much of a difference. One thing to try before you spring for the extra cable ...

Try hooking up your single wire cable as follows and see if you hear a difference. + to the treeter + and - to the woofer -. Then use jumpers to the other connectore. Or try reversing it, + to the woofer + and - to the tweeter -.

I've heard good reports that this "cross wiring" will improve on just hooking the cable to the tweeter (or woofer) + and - and jumping from there.

Enjoy,
Bob