To biwire or not to biwire, that is the question...
Anonymous
Posted on
Greetings to you all,
I am planning to get 2 MB Quart component sets, one for the rear and one for the front. In addition, I am also planning to run these of a JL Audio 300/4 amplifier. For the subwoofer, I am planning to get a Kicker CompVR 10" running off a separate amplifier of which I have not yet decided yet. Thinking of using a Cadence or a Kicker amp, maybe even a Rockford-Fosgate in the 200-300W rms (bridged) range. Any suggestions?
Anyway, the MB Quarts come with a MusiComp crossover with the option to bi-wire or to bi-amp and I do not think I will be opting for bi-amp. Now, I am having a little bit of a pickle wondering if I should opt to bi-wire or not to bi-wire.
I am pretty much of a newbie so I do not really know much about these stuff so I would like to ask you guys for help. Also, would appreciate any advice on the planned sound system setup. Thanks in advance.
INSTALLGUY
Posted on
BI WIREING CAN IMPROVE TIME ALIGNMENT BETWEEN THE TWEETER AND MID. BUT YOU MUST USE A SPEAKER WIRE THAT IS MADE FOR THIS. BI WIRED SP WIRE COMES IN A SET LENGHTH. AND IS NOT TO BE CUT TO LENTH. THE CONCEPT IS THAT TWEETERS CAN DELIVER MUSIC TO YOUR EAR FASTER THAN THE MIDRANGE. SO TO MAKE UP FOR THIS THEY INCREASE THE WIRE DISTANCE FROM AMP TO TWEETER.BUT THIS DEPENDS ON ROOM SIZE. SO USEING HOME SPEAKERCABLES MAY NOT BE RIGHT IN THE CAR. ALSO IN A HOME, THE LISTENER IS TO BE EQUAL DISTANCE FROM EACH SPEAKER. THIS IS NOT THE CASE IN THE CAR. BUT YOU MIGHT HERE A DIFFERACE IN DESTORION BECAUSE TWEETER AND MID GET ONLY THE FREQUANCYS THE CROSSOVER WANTS IN THE SPEAKER WIRE PATH. BUT THIS CAN BE DONE BY SIMPLY PUTTING THE CROSSOVER AT THE AMP. IT IS POSSABLE TO TIMEALIGN SPEAKERS WITH SPEAKERWIRE LENTHS BUT YOU'LL NEED A MATH PROFESSOR TO HELP WITH THE MATH. AND PLAN ON BUYING ALOT OF SPEAKERWIRE GOODLUCK
simple answer: don't bother with bi-wiring unless you plan to bi-amp the speakers in question. for time alignment issues, you'll need a good RTA, probably a scope, and you'll still be best off doing it with electronic signal processing from something like the time correction circuitry in the higher model head units from good companies like Alpine or Eclipse.
using bi-wire on a single amp channel usually results in more problems than it helps, since having two sets of wires going to the speakers from teh same channel will actually introduce time alignment errors. (I'm not exactly a math professor per se, but I am an E.E., and professional installer with over ten years' experience )
in reality bi-wiring is more likely to cause misalignment and more problems than it's worth if you're not bi-amping the speakers. don't bother. it's more work for no audible improvement.
I use bi-wired bi-amped speakers for my mains and center channel at home, but I wouldn't waste the time or money in a car.
what exactly don't I know about the topic, mark?
if desired, I could cite some refrences on information about how pointless bi-wiring a single amp channel is.
no, it doesn't control time alignment, but it can affect it. the inherant problem with bi-wiring is that you can't get the wires (say for low and high freq inputs) to be perfectly balanced. this will always cause a bit of shift in alignment compared to sending everything to the drivers through one pair of wires. the only theoretical benefit to bi-wire and bi-amping a system really is to prevent the transient demands for current when bass is at it's peak from causing the amp for the rest of the speakers to clip of be affected by that sudden loss of current. the idea is to use two amps, one for lows one for highs, to prevent that sort of problem. the thing is though, in car audio most of us are doing this already anyway, using a sub amp and separate subs. the need for bi-wire or bi-amp applications in car audio is really almost nil, unless you're running a tremendous amount of power to pretty much every single compoennt in the system and you're trying to dedicate an amplifier to every speaker. now, while I've seen this done too, it really causes just as many issues as it may solve, so once again you really have to ask yourself if the theoretical improvements outweigh the real world hassles.
)