Need Bi Amp Help

[Supercooper188]

I am trying to restore a pair of TSW-910 and I noticed they have 4 terminals (2 upper range and 2 lower range) on the back to connect the speaker wire. What is the best way to bridge the gap and make the two wires (negative and positive) cover the 4 terminals. Normal speakers have 2 terminals. There is no plate connecting the 4 terminals like I have seen on some other speakers.

[ar_pro]

You could solder about 3/4" of speaker cable to a pair of gold spades - I've bridged the terminals on the AR-9 this way, with good results.

[Guest Bret]

To strap my 9s (after losing the unimpressive original wire) I went to Radio Shack and bought some 12-gauge (12) solid copper wire and used that.

[JKent]

A good hardware store will sell 12 ga romex by the foot. Might cost you 10 or 20 cents.

[Supercooper188]

I just read the owners manual for the AR-9 and they say to use 18-22 gauge wire. I wonder if the thicker gauge will raise the damping factor or effect something else.

[JKent]

>I just read the owners manual for the AR-9 and they say to

>use 18-22 gauge wire. I wonder if the thicker gauge will raise

>the damping factor or effect something else.

>

RTFM--Always good advice ;-)

[dynaco_dan]

>>I just read the owners manual for the AR-9 and they say

>to

>>use 18-22 gauge wire. I wonder if the thicker gauge will

>raise

>>the damping factor or effect something else.

>>

>RTFM--Always good advice ;-)

>

Hi there;

You do not need a special, "Golden Cable," just a very simple, but secure cable.

I like, Carol brand, from Home Depot for example, 2 - 10 - 15 - or 20 foot lengths, they should be the same length though.

This is a transparent insulation cable, with two parallel multi-stranded copper wires, bought by the foot or meter.

Good quality, Amp brand or equal connectors soldered onto the cable ends will make a secure cable.

Even good quality crimp-on conectors, with a good physical connection, is much better than just twisting the bare ends and placing them under screw heads.

Try to keep the AC cables away from these cables, as they are not shielded, or cross them at 90 degree angles rather than running them side by side.

Fuses are always a good option as well, go to the, "Other," forum back to Nov/05 and see fast blow fuses.

Good luck.

[Guest Bret]

>I just read the owners manual for the AR-9 and they say to use 18-22 gauge wire. I wonder if the thicker gauge will raise the damping factor or effect something else.<

It's gotta be the EMF backwave. See, with 22 gauge wire the EMF from the woofer can't possibly get to the tweeter since a woofer's EMF wave is thicker than that.

Bret

[Supercooper188]

Now for the stupid question--what is EMF? I am using 16 ga to bridge the gap and it is working fine.

[rrcrain]

He's pulling your leg. Larger wire will work just fine but it's not really needed.

Kimber sells a "special" wire to connect the terminals together, very heavy gauge, exotic insulation, proprietary wire configuration and extremely expensive. I absolutely refuse to believe that three inches of this magic wire will do anything other than lighten my pocket book.

[Guest Bret]

>Now for the stupid question--what is EMF? I am using 16 ga to bridge the gap and it is working fine.<

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause confusion, I was being silly.

EMF - Electro Motive Force - is what happens when the woofer moves its coil through the magnetic field of the woofer magnet. (the woofer's an electric motor) This generates electricity like a generator. It's not much, really, but it has to be dealt-with by the amplifier and it changes things.

How important those changes are is the subject of debate, of course.

You will find "back EMF" cited as the reason people bi-amp their speakers. They want to keep the EMF produced by the woofers from affecting the signal in the more important (to humans) frequency regions.

The reason I "made fun of" the 18-22 gauge specification in the owner's manual is that it really, really doesn't matter in any practical sense (so I was surprised AR had a spec). I suppose if someone tried with 144 gauge wire it might matter.

I'm using the big-fat RS solid copper because "it was there" and fat wire makes me happy.

[rrcrain]

I do biamp with an active crossover and have tried it without as well. If counter EMF were an issue, I should hear a significant improvement running two amps versus a single amp and I do not. There is a change in the sound and the presentation but nothing to write home about and definitely not worth the effort in my opinion.

On the other hand, there is a serious difference biamping using an active crossover. My best guess is there's a drop in the transient intermodulation distortion. My crossover points are 1 db over (400hz) and 1 db under (100hz) the speakers designed crossover point using a tube crossover configured as a 24db linkwitz- riley.

[Guest Bret]

>On the other hand, there is a serious difference biamping using an active crossover.<

Can you tell if you are "fixing" something and what that might be?

Bret

[rrcrain]

>>On the other hand, there is a serious difference biamping using an >>active crossover.<

>Can you tell if you are "fixing" something and what that might be?

A good article to read is at http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm

"Fixing" can, and often is in the ear of the beholder. Without being able to transmit the sound, let alone the sound difference via a typed page, I'm severely limited in what I can describe. Perhaps the best way to describe the change in the sound and sound quality would be to describe my wifes reaction to the change in the sonic signature.

Marilyn really has better ears than I do but doesn't focus in on small sonic details the way I do. Simply speaking, when it comes to audio, she's strictly a big picture person. The single major change that slapped both of us in the face was the massive improvement in clarity. For the first time in her life, she suddenly could understand lyrics in some of her favorite music, and her jaw about hit the floor.

Detail wise, the high end is clearer, sometime a bit brighter than I care for, sometimes the bass is over pronounced. What I've come to realize is these two problems are directly related to the quality of the recording. A very high quality recording that is well ballanced has none of these problems, on the other hand, Madonna comes across heavy on the bass (no real surprise there). And yet, Enya's "The Celts" bass rolls off very nicely. Extremely deep, well defined bass without being overbearing.

Overall, the only downside is the system is not as forgiving with poor quality recordings as it used to be.