Bi-amp vs. Bi-wire
prepress -- Mon, 05/31/2010 - 14:15
For many years now, I've been using two pair of B&KM-200 Sonata monos to bi-amp my Mirage M3-si speakers. One time a pair of my B&Ks was out for repair, and I was running on the one pair remaining. I noticed that there was a slight loss of fullness in the sound, but it was noticeable only on recordings that were light on bass/tonal balance to begin with; a subtle difference, but nonetheless audible. I don't know if this is inherent with a setup such as mine or a result of the particular amps used.
More recently, I've been considering an upgrade to my amplification (that's if my work situation stabilizes). Depending upon the new amps and their cost, I thought to perhaps forego bi-amping and just bi-wire. What would be the technical or theoretical advantages or disadvantages of one method over the other? I'd be interested in the perspective of any out there.
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I spent years bi-wiring then bi-amping. However, this was at a time when the smaller amps in a company's range usually sounded better than their larger and more powerful ones. Nowadays, more powerful amps are sounding as good -if not better as their less power full ones -usualy those with a single pair of output transistors per channel. As a result, I would go with one quality amp or a pair on mono-blocs.
In regards to bi-wiring, I'm still a fan but due to placement went with one better wire and jumpers made from the same wire. This seems to be considered the proper way to go. Hope this helps, Bob
At this point, if I don't decide to simply keep what I have I'd be looking at the Odyssey Stratos Extreme monos; there's an outside chance I'd get a refurb pair of Parasound JC 1s. I had a brief e-mail exchange with Klaus Bunge of Odyssey, and according to him two pair would be overkill, "but a great one." Perhaps I'll follow up on that idea.
For speaker cable I'm using twin pairs of Kimber 8TC currently, and I'd like to hold on to both. There's more detail than with the previous cable. The JC 1s have two terminals already; with the Stratos it's a $50 add-on.