Interesting you ask that question, Josh.
Tyson and I were talking about that on Saturday when he came over to pick up his jumpers.
His home theater is down, due to the fact that he sold all his HT speakers and his new ones haven't arrived. While he was waiting for me to build the Bybee jumpers, he tried out bi-wiring with the M-80s on top and the NITRO for the low end. I suggested he try it out the other way aroynd. The M-80 speaker cable has a truly great low end but is bettered by the NITRO speaker cable in the mids and highs.
I have not heard back from him since then about the results.
I have been looking into bi-wiring again and I
may change my mind on a few things
First off, almost any kind of cable jumper is better than running high current signal through the contacts of a toggle switch. Relying on a spring to maintain pressure against some contacts is looking for trouble, eventually. The contacts in a switch WILL get dirty. Without question a jumper is better than a switch. A switch is there for convenience.
As to bi-wiring, I have been re-reading Jon Risch's notes on it on his website
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/biwiring.htm and I find the idea of the different current draws for each type of driver at different frequencies making a lot of sense. Separating the high current requirements of the woofer at low frequencies from the mids and highs will help to reduce intermodulation distortion. I do feel that the two runs will have to be physically separate from each other to avoid the magnetic fields each cable is putting out.
To give you a grading system I would say that using M-80 with a M-80 jumper would be better than using M-80 and the toggle switch. Using M-80 with a NITRO jumper would be better yet. Then comes NITRO with an M-80 jumper, NITRO with a NITRO jumper. M-80 for lows and NITRO for highs Bi-wire and finally NITRO Bi-wire.
I would put the M-80 biwire between the M-80 with M-80 jumper and the M-80 with NITRO jumper. The NITRO speaker wire is really that much better than the M-80 and to my ears, in the VMPS systems I have listened to, even a short length of speaker cable makes a difference.
Now when you start adding Bybee purifiers into the equation, everything changes. I have not done enough research into what happens with the Bybee at speaker levels, yet. Hopefully in a few weeks The DAM can get together at Tyson's and mess up his place with lots of wires and purifiers and other assorted geek gear.
