Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions What's up with bi-wiring

You miss my point. I personally have heard a difference. I had a chance to take home wires more expensive than your lamp cords. I heard a difference. I didnt mind shelling out $200 CDN for cable my front mains. I can afford it. If you read articles that said there was no difference and that good enough for you then its good enough for you. And no I would not run Kimbers for my rears so surround because I don't care if I get more definition on my rears or not. My standard 12 gauge is good enough. But I enjoy my stereo music moreso now that I have those Kimber up front. As I said in my earlier email use your ears and my ears told me it sounds better.

Enjoy your budget speakers. Enjoy your lamp cords.

For those of you who claims biwiring is a myth, please, go buy yourself an extra run of speaker cables, try it, and then tell us all if it made a difference. I can't imagine an extra run of 12ga HD cable costing that much. I personally have a 250ft spool of these cables and I have tried different combinations (single wire, biwire, doubling runs, etc), and they all sounded different.

For those of you who claims expensive/exotic speaker wires are snake oil, please, go listen to a few different wires, and then tell us if there is a difference (though not necessarily for the better). They MAY NOT be worth the money, but I think the issue on hand here is whether or not there's a difference.

Naysayers, sometimes, can be even less scientific than the yaysayers (?! Is that even a word )

That different wires can produce a slightly different sound has never been disputed. However, every single double blind experiment I've ever read has indicated that, while the experts were able to identify differences in various cables, NONE were ever able to consistently state that one cable SOUNDED BETTER than any other.

Saturn,

I'd be curious to know by what means you were able to conclude the cables sounded better. Did you take the scientific approach and involve another person to help you construct a viable doube blind test or did you plug in the cables you spent $200 on and convince yourself that you hadn't just wasted $200?

I've never known anyone, myself included, to reliably pass expensive speaker cables through a double-blind.

Regards,
Semi

Soon we'll need 5000 watts just to power 0 guage welding cable speaker wires...lol. But seriously, I love this idea for Do-It-Yourself speaker wires http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

I've seen that before. That guy has WAY more patience than I.

So Chess...I'm curious now, do you have Home Depot in Canada?

In reply to:

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However, every single double blind experiment I've ever read has indicated that, while the experts were able to identify differences in various cables, NONE were ever able to consistently state that one cable SOUNDED BETTER than any other.

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Semi On, I think you are acknowledging my point. My point wasn't any particular (brand of) cable is better; it was that they each sounded different, and because there was a difference, each person, along with the associated equipment, will have a particular perference.

Certain individuals on this board that participated in this thread do NOT acknowledge there is a difference ("myth", "no gain", etc).

I'm all for using cheap cables -- I use them myself; but I won't so readily dismiss other people's "findings" as just opinion (anybody remember the person that made Cat 5 based speaker cables and upgraded to WBT connectors? flamed, crashed and burned in a matter of days).

Man I love this, this forum is quickly turning into AA and AR

I should bi wire my entire system with water cooled cables. That way, after blowing all my money, I'll want it to sound better so badly, that it WILL sound better, because I believe it does......

Semi

I did the Double blind test only with my friends system. I never even mentioned anything to him. He noticed a difference. What the diffenrece is I am not sure. But he liked it more after the fact.
With my system I did replace the cable back and forth many times. Also got the fiancee to listen to the differences if any and she herself noticed a difference. Is the difference better. Now thats hard to quantify. At the very first time when I changed it the highs sounded more shrill or more defined to the point I thought I was going to get sick. Why I felt that way. I do not know but thats how it made me feel. After a couple of days either the cable adjusted or I got used to the sound. I switch back to the old cable and I noticed how the old cable sounded more muted or flat in the highs. I used the same music..same test CD.

As I noted in an earlier test... the canadian tire lamp cord vs 12 gauge oxygen free vs Monster XP vs Monster MCX bi wire cable I DID NOT NOTICE any difference between any at all. But with Kimber or QED or Transparent I did notice a difference. Is it a difference that is worth to the listener ... that up to the individual. Is the difference BETTER? Again that is left to the individual. My Monitor Audio Silver S6 speakers are very revealing speakers specially with the highs and mids. I also tried the Kimbers with the M22Ti and also noticed only a slight change but it was noticeable.

I have actually tried this rather than some individuals who say that there are no difference and based their opinion on other individuals written reports and not their own ears.

If all this cable fluff did not work why is there an industry that many people buy into. Why don't the local HIFI shop use Radio Shack lamp cord. Why doesn't www.soundstage.com who has given many reviews to all the product lines of Axiom use RadioSahck lampcord. Places like those use Kimber, QED, Transparent, DH Labs, Nirvana.
Next time you go to your local HIFI shop, ask them why they don't use standard 12 gaugespeaker wire on there Mark Levinsons, Krells, Watt Puppy's, Brystons, Exposures, Blue Circle, Naim, Rega, Classe, Arcam, Meridian systems, TAG McLaren.

OSG,
You've made the biggest error in all of science.
You made a conclusion based on absolutely zero data.

Your inferred conclusion is that we 'naysayers' apparently believe there is no difference in sound with different cables but you based this on your assumption that none of us have even tried different (or more expensive or more elaborate or biwirable) cable when in fact many of us have.
If you had asked some people here first you would have had the knowledge that we are not spouting untested opinion.

I have heard other cable brands (at least 2 beyond what most ppl term generic) and i have biwired my system before. Was there a sound difference?
None that i could detect. My friend thought he heard a difference until i switched the cables a couple more times and all of a sudden he was picking out the cables at near a 50:50 split. He couldn't tell either. HOWEVER, our test was BIASED as are most home 'tests' that people do to attempt to distinguish sound differences.

Does it come down to each individual having different hearing? Although its true some people hear better than others, the majority of people all fall into a population average. My friend and I certainly form a small sample of two but so far the results are consistent.

Is it possible that all these music audiophiles just have more amazing ears than the rest of the human population?
Highly unlikely. That would make for alot of 'special' people and hence the average should then be shifted higher in compensation.

What is likely then?
That these 'audiophiles' are actually deceiving themselves into hearing differences because such is the way of human nature. Ego alone makes one person believe they can do something better than the next guy such as hear finite electronic differences between two cables of the same gauge and same conductive material. Especially for the male sex, you throw in the 'competition' factor and there is no end to what one person can apparently hear/do better than the next guy.

So how do you remove the human emotion as a variable?
One method, and a pretty decent one at that, is through blind tests run by an uninterested third party under controlled conditions.

I read sometime several months ago about a blind test at a home electronics expo where people such as the 'yaysayers' to biwiring were invited to test their apparent ability to hear a difference between cable types using a sound system and a closed sound booth (a relatively unbiased method assuming the ppl running the booth did not have an alternative motive). Formal studies have also been done and you can find info in scientific journals and perhaps some online reprints.

The results of such tests?
The yaysayers became enlightened first hand that they could not tell any differences between cable types as they picked out the normal and biwired cable sets approximately 50:50 regardless of which cable was being used. This is to say, 50% of the time they would pick out the biwired cable when regular cables were used and vice versa.
"Wow" they would say. "Those 12 cent a foot regular cables were up against 5 dollar a foot biwired cables and i couldn't tell the difference?"
"That's correct." said the scientist.

Have i made my point clear now?

The science i am referring to is not fiction. It can be found, read and understood by most any man/woman. If you EVER get the opportunity to enter a blind test and try this out for yourself, then perhaps finally YOU will be the one to 'see the light' so to speak. But until you move your 'tests' out of your home and into the lab, i have very little faith in the subjective data you provide to the discussion. Unless of course you can provide me with some valid data to the contrary. The scientific mind should not be a closed mind but definitely a scrutinzing one.

All that aside, i do like the look of some of the expensive cables. They would fit my room decor much better than the light grey coated ones i have now.