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Post by audiosyndrome on Sept 2, 2021 18:37:09 GMT -5
Thanks Russ....and you were right.....I need a good explanation going forward so I do NOT repeat such an error. If I had a scope? What would I see? Let's say I looked at the 2 inputs.....the HF and than the LF? Would I see the same voltage or trace there? I know Zero Current flow. And this also seems to indicate the possibility of biwire making a difference. Though I'd rather compare like to like....This gets VERY subbjective. And in my working days? Engineers and mostly managers tended to SKIP over 'the numbers'. I may be as guilty! I once did a LOT of work on thin film reflectance.....The aluminum layer in transistors as deposited. I PROVED statistically that the way we referenced was just WRONG. I had a gigantic spreadsheet with all my raw data and than conclusions. Nobody would pay attention. The goofy engineer who put us on the worng track? Long Gone.... Yes, I am technically inclined. BUT? No Systemic Education. I taught myself minimal statistics. I would go visit one of the PHD engineers (smart and forthcoming) periodically and ask a question than listen. For me? It all became an urge to close the loops. YOU closed one for me. And now my reading about Power Factor and a few otherwise unrelated things starts to make more sense. Thanks again......and Stay in touch. Another way to look at this is when NOT biwiring. Taking just one channel, the amp has one pair of wires going to one pair of terminals on the speaker. The voltage at the amp is full frequency and the pair of wires carries the full frequency range which then gets redirected (as you stipulated) by the crossover in the speaker. However, when biwiring, two separate wire pairs on the amp end run to two separate pairs of terminals on the speaker end. In my example one pair of wires goes to woofer circuit; the other pair of wires goes to the tweeter circuit. So while the amp end has the full frequency range, only the low frequencies go to the woofer circuit, only the high frequencies go to the tweeter circuit. In effect, each pair of wires are part of the two individual crossover circuits thus redirection happens immediately at the amp end. This is the sole reason for biwiring; to eliminate intermodulation distortion due to interaction of the high and low frequency current flowing in the wires. The two pairs of wires need to be separated by an inch or two to eliminate magnetically induced interaction between the wire pairs. I've biwired first my Vandersteen 3A Sigs, second I triwired my Hyperion 938Ws and currently biwire my NHT 2.9s. Biwiring effect is subtle but worth while. The quality of the wires not so much. The manufacturer of the Hyperion speakers loaned me $2K worth of silver speaker cable to try out. Could not hear any difference between that and my Blue Jeans or Audio Signal speaker cables. Russ |
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Post by leonski on Sept 2, 2021 22:17:52 GMT -5
Much appreciate Non-Math explanation. Makes good sense. I'd LOVE to look at this with a good SCOPE. I understand they are very high input impedance so current pretty much becomes a non-starter.
At least that's the idea? No good? I have a CHEAP meter and I spent enough to get a Thermocouple input. Type J or Type K......whichever the yellow one is. I use it on my BBQ to measure temp AT GRID LEVEL.
My setup is what I hope is equal to bwire. I have ONE stereo amp per speaker. And since the crossover in-speaker is about 600hz, and I low cut the mains......I figger I'm fairly close to needing about the same power
for highs and lows.....This at 'redline'...Which I don't do. So audible clipping is Not At Issue. Each run from Amp to speakeer is no more than maybe 2 feet. I could measure but why?
I also use BJ cable. In this case, since Magnepans are of such epic-low sensitivity, I didn't feel bad with 10ga wire. I think that IF I wanted to actually experiment with
'better cables'? It woundn't be silver. What I'd do is buy a bunch of single crystal COPPER. And make up my own biwire / amp (as I have now) cables to about 14ga per side. Certainly not 10, which is wacky overkill.
Question about leaving each strand Insulated or bundle without insulation on the cable interior. I'd solder AFTER crimp to keep the oxygen out. You say keep the hi/low pairs apart, but could you make each run as a twisted pair?
Now? One last quetions for now. What is the effect of moving the wires apart? You decrease the magnetic coupling for Sure. But don't you increase the capacitance? Speaker wire measureables is a black hole so I have
stuck with 'fundamentals'. Low R and Low C with the rest consistent with the makers wishes.
Plenty to think about::
leo
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Post by Ex_Vintage on Sept 3, 2021 7:52:46 GMT -5
Thanks Russ....and you were right.....I need a good explanation going forward so I do NOT repeat such an error. If I had a scope? What would I see? Let's say I looked at the 2 inputs.....the HF and than the LF? Would I see the same voltage or trace there? I know Zero Current flow. And this also seems to indicate the possibility of biwire making a difference. Though I'd rather compare like to like....This gets VERY subbjective. And in my working days? Engineers and mostly managers tended to SKIP over 'the numbers'. I may be as guilty! I once did a LOT of work on thin film reflectance.....The aluminum layer in transistors as deposited. I PROVED statistically that the way we referenced was just WRONG. I had a gigantic spreadsheet with all my raw data and than conclusions. Nobody would pay attention. The goofy engineer who put us on the worng track? Long Gone.... Yes, I am technically inclined. BUT? No Systemic Education. I taught myself minimal statistics. I would go visit one of the PHD engineers (smart and forthcoming) periodically and ask a question than listen. For me? It all became an urge to close the loops. YOU closed one for me. And now my reading about Power Factor and a few otherwise unrelated things starts to make more sense. Thanks again......and Stay in touch. Another way to look at this is when NOT biwiring. Taking just one channel, the amp has one pair of wires going to one pair of terminals on the speaker. The voltage at the amp is full frequency and the pair of wires carries the full frequency range which then gets redirected (as you stipulated) by the crossover in the speaker. However, when biwiring, two separate wire pairs on the amp end run to two separate pairs of terminals on the speaker end. In my example one pair of wires goes to woofer circuit; the other pair of wires goes to the tweeter circuit. So while the amp end has the full frequency range, only the low frequencies go to the woofer circuit, only the high frequencies go to the tweeter circuit. In effect, each pair of wires are part of the two individual crossover circuits thus redirection happens immediately at the amp end. This is the sole reason for biwiring; to eliminate intermodulation distortion due to interaction of the high and low frequency current flowing in the wires. The two pairs of wires need to be separated by an inch or two to eliminate magnetically induced interaction between the wire pairs. I've biwired first my Vandersteen 3A Sigs, second I triwired my Hyperion 938Ws and currently biwire my NHT 2.9s. Biwiring effect is subtle but worth while. The quality of the wires not so much. The manufacturer of the Hyperion speakers loaned me $2K worth of silver speaker cable to try out. Could not hear any difference between that and my Blue Jeans or Audio Signal speaker cables. Russ Russ. Your explanation is incorrect in your example, The impedance between the 2 bi-wire connections at the speakers is virtually zero (the impedance of the speaker wire) and since those wires are connected to the same voltage source, they will be at the same voltage potential regardless of their respective loads. In your example, the current flowing in each bi-wire connection would be different due to the differences in load impedance's of the separate crossovers they are connected to, but the voltage would be the same.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Sept 3, 2021 12:57:00 GMT -5
Errrrrr...... If you actually model it out... modelling each run of wire as a small pure resistance... You'll see that there's nothing to suggest any sort of modulation between the two signals... with either sort of wiring.
With biwiring the one output signal at the output of the amplifier is carried to each set of terminals on the speaker by a different wire. Therefore the VOLTAGE at each set of input terminals on the speaker is almost identical.
However the CURRENT going to each half of the speaker is going through a different wire. The difference in the signal at each set of speaker terminals will be due to the voltage drop in each set of wires, due to the resistance of the wires, which will be slightly different for each. However, because metal wires have very little resistance, this difference will be very small... It will also be linear and proportional to the current going through each wire... (Under normal conditions a speaker cable is simply a small resistor.)
Note that, with normal wiring, since metal wires are really pretty pure resistances, there won't be any intermodulation distortion to speak of anyway. The "woofer signal" and "tweeter signal" will each see a fixed resistance between the amp and the speaker, and neither will alter the resistance seen by the other, so no intermodulation... they simply add by superposition. (The only way you would get intermodulation would be if the resistance of the wire was significantly non-linear... which it is not.)
The only real potential benefit to bi-wiring is that you are using the equivalent of a thicker wire, and more contact area at the terminals, resulting in overall lower resistance in the wiring.
(Theoretically, if you had a bad connection somewhere, the bi-wire might be less affected by it.... but at the cost of more connections that could potentially have problems.)
Thanks Russ....and you were right.....I need a good explanation going forward so I do NOT repeat such an error. If I had a scope? What would I see? Let's say I looked at the 2 inputs.....the HF and than the LF? Would I see the same voltage or trace there? I know Zero Current flow. And this also seems to indicate the possibility of biwire making a difference. Though I'd rather compare like to like....This gets VERY subbjective. And in my working days? Engineers and mostly managers tended to SKIP over 'the numbers'. I may be as guilty! I once did a LOT of work on thin film reflectance.....The aluminum layer in transistors as deposited. I PROVED statistically that the way we referenced was just WRONG. I had a gigantic spreadsheet with all my raw data and than conclusions. Nobody would pay attention. The goofy engineer who put us on the worng track? Long Gone.... Yes, I am technically inclined. BUT? No Systemic Education. I taught myself minimal statistics. I would go visit one of the PHD engineers (smart and forthcoming) periodically and ask a question than listen. For me? It all became an urge to close the loops. YOU closed one for me. And now my reading about Power Factor and a few otherwise unrelated things starts to make more sense. Thanks again......and Stay in touch. Another way to look at this is when NOT biwiring. Taking just one channel, the amp has one pair of wires going to one pair of terminals on the speaker. The voltage at the amp is full frequency and the pair of wires carries the full frequency range which then gets redirected (as you stipulated) by the crossover in the speaker. However, when biwiring, two separate wire pairs on the amp end run to two separate pairs of terminals on the speaker end. In my example one pair of wires goes to woofer circuit; the other pair of wires goes to the tweeter circuit. So while the amp end has the full frequency range, only the low frequencies go to the woofer circuit, only the high frequencies go to the tweeter circuit. In effect, each pair of wires are part of the two individual crossover circuits thus redirection happens immediately at the amp end. This is the sole reason for biwiring; to eliminate intermodulation distortion due to interaction of the high and low frequency current flowing in the wires. The two pairs of wires need to be separated by an inch or two to eliminate magnetically induced interaction between the wire pairs. I've biwired first my Vandersteen 3A Sigs, second I triwired my Hyperion 938Ws and currently biwire my NHT 2.9s. Biwiring effect is subtle but worth while. The quality of the wires not so much. The manufacturer of the Hyperion speakers loaned me $2K worth of silver speaker cable to try out. Could not hear any difference between that and my Blue Jeans or Audio Signal speaker cables. Russ |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Sept 3, 2021 13:03:57 GMT -5
True... but, unless you use really weird wires, the inductance and capacitance should be very small... It would have to be a REALLY BAD speaker wire to have enough of either to be noticeable compared to the inductances and capacitances in the drivers and crossover. (There have been legendarily bad speaker wires that had so much capacitance they could cause some amplifiers to oscillate... but they were just simply THAT bad.)
And both inductance and capacitance are still linear... So, yes, you might see a really tiny but measurable difference in frequency response... (measurable but not conceivably audible). But there would still be no distortion...
The Tarnish on copper? Copper oxide, which is a semiconductor and formerly used in rectifiers. This is a vanishingly small number and should not effect speakers, but May come into play on very low voltage circuits, like phono. One other minor point. Speaker wires are not only resistive.....Keith's number are fine. but inductive / capacitive as well. This may also have effects on what you hear. Might be speaker dependent? Might be amp dependent? I have VERY short runs of 10ga oto my speakers. Maybe 24'" each pair. And terminated in Banana at one end and spade at the other. And YES, they are subject to annual inspection. Amp is located right AT the speaker. One per side. |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Sept 3, 2021 13:22:29 GMT -5
When you move the wires apart you will also decrease the capacitance.
Silver has a resistance that is about 5% lower than copper... but at a price that is 20x to 25x higher (by the ounce)...
I am not aware of any electrical benefits of "single crystal copper". Much as some cable vendors like to talk about "the little speed bumps at the crystal boundaries in wires causing noise"... I am unaware of anyone who has documented an actual value for this... Or proven that it has any measurable effect (other than in their minds)...
They do actually make wire where each strand is individually insulated... it's called Litz Wire. It has some uses at extremely high frequencies because it has greater aggregate surface area... However I am unaware of any claims of legitimate benefits at AUDIO frequencies.
The main benefits of twisted pairs is in balancing out external conditions and maintaining conditions... If you have a twisted pair then both wires will be the same distance apart over their entire length... And, if there is a noise source off to one side, each of the two wires will spend the same percentage of its total length near that noise source... (Thus ensuring that both signal leads will be exposed the noise equally... and giving a balanced input at the far end the optimum conditions for being able to cancel that noise.)
The reality is that many of the things you're talking about might have some effect... if we were discussing a wire connecting a radio transmitter to a broadcast antenna... Likewise, some of them would be very significant if you had speaker cables that were 500 feet long...
However none of them are relevant, or have audible effects, at audio frequencies, under normal conditions.
If you REALLY want to experiment with "extreme cables".... Get yourself some really heavy wire... like single conductor stranded 6 gauge... (The sort of wire you would use to make welding cables or jumper cables.)
And run each individual conductor two or three inches apart from all of the others... You could thread them through foam blocks as spacers... or your favorite wood... (And, yes, the idea that the dielectric properties of a foam block, or a nearby carpet, could possibly make an audible difference is so absurd it really isn't worth talking about.)
This will give you resistance, inductance, and capacitance many times lower than in any commercial speaker wire... and far lower than "zip cord"...
So, if there is a difference to be heard, this should enable you to hear it... And it won't even cost you very much.
Much appreciate Non-Math explanation. Makes good sense. I'd LOVE to look at this with a good SCOPE. I understand they are very high input impedance so current pretty much becomes a non-starter. At least that's the idea? No good? I have a CHEAP meter and I spent enough to get a Thermocouple input. Type J or Type K......whichever the yellow one is. I use it on my BBQ to measure temp AT GRID LEVEL. My setup is what I hope is equal to bwire. I have ONE stereo amp per speaker. And since the crossover in-speaker is about 600hz, and I low cut the mains......I figger I'm fairly close to needing about the same power for highs and lows.....This at 'redline'...Which I don't do. So audible clipping is Not At Issue. Each run from Amp to speakeer is no more than maybe 2 feet. I could measure but why? I also use BJ cable. In this case, since Magnepans are of such epic-low sensitivity, I didn't feel bad with 10ga wire. I think that IF I wanted to actually experiment with 'better cables'? It woundn't be silver. What I'd do is buy a bunch of single crystal COPPER. And make up my own biwire / amp (as I have now) cables to about 14ga per side. Certainly not 10, which is wacky overkill. Question about leaving each strand Insulated or bundle without insulation on the cable interior. I'd solder AFTER crimp to keep the oxygen out. You say keep the hi/low pairs apart, but could you make each run as a twisted pair? Now? One last quetions for now. What is the effect of moving the wires apart? You decrease the magnetic coupling for Sure. But don't you increase the capacitance? Speaker wire measureables is a black hole so I have stuck with 'fundamentals'. Low R and Low C with the rest consistent with the makers wishes. Plenty to think about:: leo |
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Post by leonski on Sept 3, 2021 14:22:50 GMT -5
I suggested single crystal as an experiment....but I doubt you can get 12 or 14 ga......So bundle it is from smaller wire. Than the choices start about removing insulation or buying the equivelent of magnet wire?
I had forgotten the term 'litz wire'...... Some of the DIY types have all sorts of 'formulas' involving Magnet wire and all sorts of other helps.
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Post by audiosyndrome on Sept 6, 2021 9:44:30 GMT -5
Another way to look at this is when NOT biwiring. Taking just one channel, the amp has one pair of wires going to one pair of terminals on the speaker. The voltage at the amp is full frequency and the pair of wires carries the full frequency range which then gets redirected (as you stipulated) by the crossover in the speaker. However, when biwiring, two separate wire pairs on the amp end run to two separate pairs of terminals on the speaker end. In my example one pair of wires goes to woofer circuit; the other pair of wires goes to the tweeter circuit. So while the amp end has the full frequency range, only the low frequencies go to the woofer circuit, only the high frequencies go to the tweeter circuit. In effect, each pair of wires are part of the two individual crossover circuits thus redirection happens immediately at the amp end. This is the sole reason for biwiring; to eliminate intermodulation distortion due to interaction of the high and low frequency current flowing in the wires. The two pairs of wires need to be separated by an inch or two to eliminate magnetically induced interaction between the wire pairs. I've biwired first my Vandersteen 3A Sigs, second I triwired my Hyperion 938Ws and currently biwire my NHT 2.9s. Biwiring effect is subtle but worth while. The quality of the wires not so much. The manufacturer of the Hyperion speakers loaned me $2K worth of silver speaker cable to try out. Could not hear any difference between that and my Blue Jeans or Audio Signal speaker cables. Russ Russ. Your explanation is incorrect in your example, The impedance between the 2 bi-wire connections at the speakers is virtually zero (the impedance of the speaker wire) and since those wires are connected to the same voltage source, they will be at the same voltage potential regardless of their respective loads. In your example, the current flowing in each bi-wire connection would be different due to the differences in load impedance's of the separate crossovers they are connected to, but the voltage would be the same.
Where did I say the "voltage potential at the two wires would be different". Rhetorical, I never said that! Please stay on topic if you're gong to chime in. I said 'the frequencies carried by both wires are different". I demonstrated that three different ways most explicity using Ohms Law. I understand Ohms Law very well since at least 1954 in the fifth grade at the age of 11 when I obtained my first Ham license KN2OUV. Russ  |
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Post by Ex_Vintage on Sept 7, 2021 12:24:18 GMT -5
Russ. Your explanation is incorrect in your example, The impedance between the 2 bi-wire connections at the speakers is virtually zero (the impedance of the speaker wire) and since those wires are connected to the same voltage source, they will be at the same voltage potential regardless of their respective loads. In your example, the current flowing in each bi-wire connection would be different due to the differences in load impedance's of the separate crossovers they are connected to, but the voltage would be the same.
Where did I say the "voltage potential at the two wires would be different". Rhetorical, I never said that! Please stay on topic if you're gong to chime in. I said 'the frequencies carried by both wires are different". I demonstrated that three different ways most explicity using Ohms Law. I understand Ohms Law very well since at least 1954 in the fifth grade at the age of 11 when I obtained my first Ham license KN2OUV. Russ View AttachmentRuss; You are correct. The frequencies of the currents in the individual bi-wires will be different due to their different load impedance. The frequency of the voltages at the speaker end of the individual bi-wires will be the same (discounting wire drops).
Recommendation: Try not to be such a rash.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2021 12:34:48 GMT -5
Where did I say the "voltage potential at the two wires would be different". Rhetorical, I never said that! Please stay on topic if you're gong to chime in. I said 'the frequencies carried by both wires are different". I demonstrated that three different ways most explicity using Ohms Law. I understand Ohms Law very well since at least 1954 in the fifth grade at the age of 11 when I obtained my first Ham license KN2OUV. Russ View AttachmentRuss; You are correct. The frequencies of the currents in the individual bi-wires will be different due to their different load impedance. The frequency of the voltages at the speaker end of the individual bi-wires will be the same (discounting wire drops).
Recommendation: Try not to be such a rash.
, The deliberate abrasiveness competes with your brilliance at times brother. But we only excuse the deliberate prick if the person is genius  I enjoy your posts and look forward to our future engagements  |
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