Speaker Flexibilty

[MylesBAstor]

Do your speakers allow for biamping, biwiring or neither? If so, do you biwire or biamp your speakers and what are the benefits?

[Rust]

My current main speakers are single wire only. I do have two pair which are bi-wire capable but after experimenting with bi-wiring determined it didn't make enough difference to worry about. Better jumpers did make a difference compared to the little metal strips used as jumpers however. Electrically I don't really see what the difference between bi-wiring and good jumpers would be anyhow. Well, excepting paying more for the wire.

I suppose it is possible as one makes it further up the food chain into speakers where bi-wiring was taken into account during the design and development phase the results would be better in conjunction with better components all the way around.

Bi-amplification, be it with a powered bass section (VS, Vandersteen, Legacy etc.) allows for tailoring of the bass response. Bi-amplification with two external amplifiers allows a certain amount of flexibility but matching things up could be both difficult and expensive. Brystons' tri-amplification prototype looks pretty interesting with a flexible line level crossover and two tailored three channel amplifiers specifically made for the speakers.

All in one powered speakers are a non starter for me even if cost were not an issue and the big Genelecs and PMCs are not cheap. It's the "all in" concept where there isn't a lot of equipment swapping possible or system tuning.

[david k]

Without including subs here I have several pairs of speakers that can be bi, tri wired and bi, tri amped and I play them that way. The advantage I find with multi-wiring (multiple amps using speaker's passive crossover) or mult-amping (multiple amps with active crossover) is a more realistic and natural sound.
david