Advantages of bi-wire?

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

completely agree with tvad--having experimented with biwiring with alot of different speakers, i've heard great improvement in some cases and no improvement or no discernible difference in others. i do suspect, however unscientifically, that manufacturers push biwiring because audiophiles generally believe the more wires the better, not necessarily because there's a sonic advantage. note that some very well-regarded manufacturers like thiel that don't offer biwiring and opine that single wiring/amping is superior; i guess like most things audio there are no absolutes.

A very simple, free test to determine if you would be likely to hear the difference bi-wiring makes.

If your speaker is bi-wire capable, simply switch the posts used to feed the speaker. i.e. If you use the bass posts and a jumper to the Mid/Tweeter, switch it around and feed the Mid/tweeter and jump to the bass. I'll bet there are some audiophiles who have never tried that.

What you're doing is testing the difference the jumper in the signal path makes, and in my experience almost universally, if the jumper is not a high end cable, the results are uglier for the "non-wired" driver(s).

If you cannot hear the difference, then you won't likely hear the difference in bi-wiring. If you can tell a distinct difference/improvement on the drivers fed the cable directly, then you likely will likely hear a difference bi-wiring. Then you have to determine if it's worth the cost of the extra cable. With cables running the gammut from affordable to obnoxious, you likely could find something appropriate.