For a budget - True bi-wire or bi-wire?

You have four options:

- More expensive single cable with jumpers on speaker side
- single biwired cable
- shotgun cable (two runs joined at amp's side)
- two separate runs.

Shotgun might be better than two separate runs because it might be taylored for particular speakers (woofer and tweeter) and is most likely better than internally biwired cable. Is it better than single run of more expensive cable? It depends on speaker itself. Some speakers sound much better biwired while others sound the same. Remember that single cable will require quality jumpers for speaker to replace stock brackets.

Two separate runs would allow you to sell one if you buy speakers with just one set of posts (non-biwire) or you don't hear any difference.

Your question presumes that in any given system a $1000 cable set will outperform an identically wired $500 cable set. I would not rule out the possibility that in many cases the reverse might be true. The only way to tell is by trying.

Also, be aware that some users have reported significantly WORSE sound when bi-wiring, compared to single-wiring, particularly in the bass. See the following threads, for example. Near the end of them, I proposed a possible explanation:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1247016622
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1247245568

Regards,
-- Al

Edorr, please forgiving me for butting in but I have a question which relates to the issue of bi-amping that I would like to direct to Al and may be of importance to all. I notice that the damping factor of many high end SS amps such as Pass and Krell is 200 even up to 400. The damping factor of several Ice amps such as Bel Canto and W4S is greater than 1000. As you defined in your related post this is advantageous in bi-amping. Is this an advantage in bi-wiring as opposed to bi-amping and why? Thank you.

I have Magnepan 3.6 speakers. I use a Bryston 4B-SST2 amp. I 'biwire' (two separate sets of wires connected at the amp end to separate inputs at the speaker end).
I would not bother to have one set of wires with two sets of connectors at the speaker end.
I would go for either the two sets of wires conneted to the amp, or the better set of wires.
It's totally up to you.
I have used Kimber 8TC for years, and stick to it. So two sets of Kimber 8TC makes perfect sense for me.
I use WBT connectors at the amp end of the speaker cables. The WBT connectors have set-screws to hold sleeves crimped on the wires. I can make the crimps on each wire, or both of the set, so I can make them as is always together, or, just be able to release the set screw and the cables separate, no problem.