Alright, this may sound like a pretty simple question. If I were to buy a pair of M80ti Axioms for speakers, how do I avoid bi-wiring? I've heard people talk about some sort of a plate or strap between the speaker posts. What do these things look like? Do they come supplied with the speakers?

And if I did choose to bi-wire the speakers, what type of speaker wire do you need. I'm assuming it's a little different than just regular speaker wire??? Or can I just use to separate strands of speaker wire and plug them to the same terminal on the receiver??? If anyone had an example/picture of what this wire looks like, it would certainly be appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Scott

I have no idea how to bi-wire those speakers, but my m60s I just bought 2 weeks ago came with the bridging plates already in place. Connection was as simple as any other speaker, and the binding posts seem of high quality.
Regarding speaker wire, I found a funny and informative article at roger-russell.com that states copper wire is copper wire. Expensive speaker wires are a marketing ploy to part us fools from our money. An electrician friend agreed, though the idea had never occurred to him before.
Might as well save some dough.

Bigwill is right.
You can find PLENTY of info on biwiring within these forums by doing a search.
Ultimately biwiring is a myth and the wire required to do it is more expensive than regular cord.

Scott, forget about bi-wiring; it's electrically identical to one thicker wire, and as chess commented,one of the audio myths which plague us. As Will pointed out the little metal straps on the speaker terminals connect the two sets of terminals when they're tightened, so that it doesn't make any difference which you connect your speaker wire to.

I do agree with BigWill on the cheaper/expensive wiring issue. That pretty much solves it for me if they ship the speakers with the bridging plates. I've read lots already on the myth of bi-wiring, I just figured if that was an easier option than trying to find bridges for it...than that's the way I'd go. But it looks like that point is moot.

Thanks again everyone for all the help.

Scott

You may, however, want to replace the bridging plates with a short length of decent speaker wire between binding posts.

Hmm... Why??? (replacing the plates)

Because it will sound better to you because I told you it should. :P

Bi-wiring is normally a myth. I believe most speakers have the bindings internally connected even. But some are totally separate or have no crossover so full range is sent to the tweets and to the woofer. If you take out the connecting plates and just hook to the upper bindings no sound will come out of the woofers for these speakers. I think....

Saturn

Really depends on what the plates are made of, and whether the gold plating on the plates does any good (other than corrosion resistance).

On the other hand, what about bi-amping? Would that do any good (for example, pick an amp that's "known" for its high end for the tweeter section, and an amp that's good for bass for the woofer) Which leads to another question. Where are the bindings split on 3 way speakers such as the M80s? tweeter/mid and woofer or tweeter and mid/woofer? Or, in this case I suppose it could be tweeter/tweeter/mid and mid/woofer/woofer. The mind boggles.... Wish they made those in invisible. :-P

I am HIGHLY skeptical about bi- or tri-amping, unless you go as far as removing and bypassing the passive crossover circuit inside the speaker cabinet altogether, and use an active crossover upstream of the power amps.

There is only one speaker that I know of that bi-wire or bi-amping would actually be needed.

http://www.reference3a.com/mmdecapo.htm

There is no crossover so full range can be sent to the upper and lower bindings. I believe a resistor or some sort of circuitry is used on the tweeter to send the correct range of frequencies so that the low frequencies will not be played on the tweeter and damage the cone. I believe the full set of frequencies are sent to the woofer.
These speaker were kinda interesting. I demoed this pair ... the sound was very high in detail but I found it very forward (even though the drivers were not metallic). and they are kinda ugly ... looks like a Driod head from Star Wars ...

Saturn

You want to see a droid head speaker?
Check out these lovelies:

the waveform mach solos

wow! Just looking at them makes me go to my knees and start genuflecting. Actually if you make the top more circle and the bottom more square you would actually get the famous B&W Nautilus line.
http://www.bwspeakers.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/products.models/Label/Model%20Signature%20800

I can only IMAGINE explaining those to the wife...