[mb]

Since day 1 with my AKSA 55 (now up to 55N), I've been using a single-run biwire cable to my speakers (4 conductors internally, single connector on amp end, biwire at speaker).

Out of curiosity, I built a set of Jon Risch style cross-connect speaker cables so that I could use the original cables on one terminal, and the DIY cables on another. The JR cable used a good, German low cap instrument cable (copper conductors, used in some good UK interconnects). It could not be twisted because the wire straightens on its own .

Result:
-DIY cable used for bass, original cable shotgunned for treble: BAD! Clearer treble but soft, slow and no bass.
- Reversed.  DIY on treble, original on bass: GREAT! Better than original cable alone. Overall it sounded as if I had swapped in an AKSA 100 for the AKSA 55; ie. more control, more dynamics, better (tigher, deeper) bass. No discernable downside.

Obviously my DIY cable is poor when used for biwiring bass, but is fine for treble. The final result was rather surprising. It seems like the AKSA really likes the shotgunned cable used for the bass. Double the copper, lower resistance?

Anyone other AKSA experiences with shotgunned cabling or bi-wiring?

[Felipe]

Hi,

I did those cross-connected cables recomended by Jon Risch , i used the Belden 89259 and terminated them with gold plated posts.
They are very good cables and work well with my AKSA 100.
Better than my Cable Talk 4.1 bi-wire cables. I use them single ended, no bi-wire. Makes the treble clearer and the bass more dry .

[AKSA]

Thanks Guys,

I learn something;  this is really interesting.  I had always like the Jon Risch/Thorsten Loesch cable idea;  it minimizes capacitance and inductance and really does seem a good thing for a global negative feedback amplifier.

Incidentally, it's clear to me that the differences in cables are the result of interactions between the amplifier and the cable, which either improve or worsen it's phase margin and hence stability.

Thus, cables have a synergy with amplifiers, and must be matched.....  This explains all the snake oil accusations, which in truth is not fair.  There is something going on here!

Cheers,

Hugh

[Pleb Plebian]

FWIW (relatively little :-) - I've always found bi-wiring to make a difference more on speakers, than amps - not that I'm disagreeng with Hugh, just that I've found the results more apparent, with different speaks.

My speakers have 4 mid-bass drivers, with 2 Tonigen ribbon tweeters in parallel: I've always found significant differences in biwiring over mono, altho mainly in the 'image' and 'air' around the performers.
Couple this with bi-amping, tho and the difference was huge. Causes me to agree overall with Hugh's comment: could some sort of back-EMF from the bass drivers be reflected into/"corrupt" more sensitive tweeters??

How would we go about quantifying this? - Hugh's comments re Inductance/Capacitance sound like a starting point...evenif only to group 'good vs bad'?

Certainly I've only found my system to improve as I isolated drive to ea of the driver (sets)....and at all levels, not just 'mind-blastingly loud'.
Hmm - comments anyone?
Cheers
-P

[Seano]

When I first bi-wired my speakers with the AKSA 100 Nirvana I thought I'd broken something. I spent ages building cables to the Risch recipe (with one major out - I used the far more widely available Belden 5929 which has less Teflon in its construction - it's way cheaper and I have a tin ear anyway!) and plugged them in then spent five minutes wondering what was wrong.
Then I figured it out. My ears had to get used to the idea of what was happening. Because I'd taken so long to build Risch cables I'd connected up the first pair and then walked away. The 'improvement' over the routine spaggetti was noticeable in an odd kind of way (there was more to listen to) but nothing anyone else (someone more rational perhaps?) would rave about.
But biwiring bought another factor into play. The Yamaha integrated had the tweeters and the AKSA had the mids and woofers.  Things got rather rich after that. The pre portion of the Yamaha had to lift its gain to get the noise in (and therefore out) initially. After a certain amount of panel beating on the tin ear things have returned to normal in the volume department.

Overall I think I'll bear towards Plebs comment - biwiring works on the speaker and the ear more than the amp.  

But I would have thought that perhaps by sharing the load more widely between two amps instead of one is where you'd get the impact on the amp. Instead of the AKSA trying to punch noise out of six drivers it's now only working with four and over a much narrower band of frequencies. Surely this alteration in effort vs response (between single and biwiring)has some impact on the overall performance of the amp?

[mb]

But I would have thought that perhaps by sharing the load more widely between two amps instead of one is where you'd get the impact on the amp. Instead of the AKSA trying to punch noise out of six drivers it's now only working with four and over a much narrower band of frequencies. Surely this alteration in effort vs response (between single and biwiring)has some impact on the overall performance of the amp?

IOW, bi-amp? Yes, that's the longer-term goal. It's certainly easier to DIY the cable than another AKSA, no matter how much Hugh protests to the contrary... Besides, a pre-requisite for bi-amping is this 2nd run of cable .

Every time I've felt (or been told) that bi-amping is what my system needs, I've managed to tweak something that contradicts the sentiment. I do have low efficiency speakers, but they're hardly every driven really loud. Now that I do have the extra cables, perhaps I should get more serious about testing bi-amping... I do have a spare Krell and gainclone all ready to go. Will need to calibrate the levels, and built an attenuator to match. That's not something I feel like undertaking today.

[PSP]

Hugh,
There is a longstanding general debate in audio about whether long interconnects or long speaker cables are optimum... if we constrain ourselves to Aspen stuff... GK-1 or TLP preamps, which can drive long cables and AKSA amps, do the comments above suggest that we might do better with longer interconnects and shorter speaker wires, perhaps even monoblocks tucked behind the front speaks?

Just an off the wall question...

Peter

[AKSA]

Peter,

I'd certainly support your contention;  long interconnects with the tube preamps are fine and dandy, and long cables for the speakers can be problematic if they are highly capacitive.

You can pretty much mix and match as the situation dictates, but long interconnects and short speaker cables work better in my view.

Of course, you have to watch the noise and high frequency issues with long interconnects!

Cheers,

Hugh