Post by sahmen on Aug 20, 2015 18:02:21 GMT -5
I may know the answer to this question, but I thought I should ask anyway to eliminate any doubts, since the situation I am facing involves at lease one unfamiliar twist.
I just received an XPA-100 I purchased to power the center channel speaker in my second HT system. It came with two pairs of binding posts ("to facilitate biwiring." according to the User manual), and that is the "unfamiliar twist" I just mentioned, since I am a lot more used to seeing such pairs of binding posts used on speaker terminals. In this particular case, the speaker I am trying to drive with the XPA-100, which is the Polk Audio LSIM 704c, has only one standard pair of binding posts, and cannot be bi-wired (at least not at the site of the speaker's own terminals)... My question regards how best to handle the connection to the XPA-100's pair of binding posts. I have a nice speaker cable which has a single pair of banana plug connectors at both ends.
My choices seem to be three:
1. Connect my speaker to only one of the two pairs of binding posts available on the XPA-100, and ignore the other pair.
2. Connect my speaker to only one of the two pairs of binding posts on the XPA-100, and use metal jumpers to link those two pairs of binding posts at the terminals of the XPA-100.
3. Have a new speaker cable built with a bi-wirable 4-pin configuration that I can use for the connection at the XPA-100's terminals.
The most skeptical version of responses I am familiar with regarding such questions about bi-wiring (normally, at the speakers terminal) take the position that bi-wiring does not make any sonic difference whatsoever, so one should not waste one's time or money on it. If this is true also for the XPA-100, then option 1 (above) would seem to suffice.
But what if bi-wiring does make some kind of difference, however subtle? For one thing, I do have readily available a bunch of unused metal jumpers that came with my other Polk LSIM models. I could easily use two of them to link the two pairs of binding posts on the XPA-100 at no extra cost to myself. The advantage of this option would be simply to banish from my mind, any suspicion (whether founded or unfounded) that I might be missing some sonic subtleties in the performance of my rig without those metal jumpers in place. However, in order to use this option, I need to be sure that using the jumpers on the XPA-100 would be as safe as they are when used on speakers.
When all is said and done, I would rather not go with option three if I can help it, but if there is the slightest possibility that it might be a better option than either 1 or 2, I may be tempted to try it at some point, in spite of my current reluctance to go that way...
What do you think?
I just received an XPA-100 I purchased to power the center channel speaker in my second HT system. It came with two pairs of binding posts ("to facilitate biwiring." according to the User manual), and that is the "unfamiliar twist" I just mentioned, since I am a lot more used to seeing such pairs of binding posts used on speaker terminals. In this particular case, the speaker I am trying to drive with the XPA-100, which is the Polk Audio LSIM 704c, has only one standard pair of binding posts, and cannot be bi-wired (at least not at the site of the speaker's own terminals)... My question regards how best to handle the connection to the XPA-100's pair of binding posts. I have a nice speaker cable which has a single pair of banana plug connectors at both ends.
My choices seem to be three:
1. Connect my speaker to only one of the two pairs of binding posts available on the XPA-100, and ignore the other pair.
2. Connect my speaker to only one of the two pairs of binding posts on the XPA-100, and use metal jumpers to link those two pairs of binding posts at the terminals of the XPA-100.
3. Have a new speaker cable built with a bi-wirable 4-pin configuration that I can use for the connection at the XPA-100's terminals.
The most skeptical version of responses I am familiar with regarding such questions about bi-wiring (normally, at the speakers terminal) take the position that bi-wiring does not make any sonic difference whatsoever, so one should not waste one's time or money on it. If this is true also for the XPA-100, then option 1 (above) would seem to suffice.
But what if bi-wiring does make some kind of difference, however subtle? For one thing, I do have readily available a bunch of unused metal jumpers that came with my other Polk LSIM models. I could easily use two of them to link the two pairs of binding posts on the XPA-100 at no extra cost to myself. The advantage of this option would be simply to banish from my mind, any suspicion (whether founded or unfounded) that I might be missing some sonic subtleties in the performance of my rig without those metal jumpers in place. However, in order to use this option, I need to be sure that using the jumpers on the XPA-100 would be as safe as they are when used on speakers.
When all is said and done, I would rather not go with option three if I can help it, but if there is the slightest possibility that it might be a better option than either 1 or 2, I may be tempted to try it at some point, in spite of my current reluctance to go that way...
What do you think?
