User Manual

CABLE THEORY

Page 11

Biwiring: Many of today’s speakers can be biwired. This type of speaker has one input for the woofer

and a separate input for the upper frequency ranges. This often leads to the question “is biwiring so

important that I should spend twice as much on cable?” Maybe it is worth spending twice as much on

cable in general, but that’s a separate question. Biwiring is a way to save money, to get higher perfor-

mance for the same price. The biwiring question is not about how much money to spend, but about

how to get the most performance for one’s money. Biwiring is done in order to substantially reduce the

distortion caused by speaker cable. In a biwire set-up the cable feeding the higher ranges no longer

has to handle the large magnetic elds caused by the high current needed to produce bass. The bass

fundamentals are not affected by biwiring, but the treble signal now travels a less distorted path. A

little like the difference between swimming through waves versus through smooth water. The bass will

sound better because bass dinition is in the midrange and higher. It is worthwhile to take advantage

of the benets of biwiring when the speaker manufacturer has gone to the extra expense of including

this capability. At the very least, please connect a single set of speaker cables to the treble input, and

then use even a modest cable like AQ F-14 to jump down to the woofer. Please replace the jumpers

supplied by the speaker manufacturer. These are self sabotage, by the speaker manufacturer and by

any listener who uses them. Just like better electronics do not come with poor interconnect cables, it is

best to pretend your ne speakers did not come with stamped metal jumpers. When biwiring, the two

cables used must either be identical, or have essentially identical designs. If the cables have different

inductance or capacitance, they will cause different amounts of phase shift. The integrity and coher-

ence of the speaker will be compromised.

Connections: The highest quality connections are rst made mechanically. Solder is never a good

conductor, not even “silver solder.” A good solder connection is one that uses as little solder as pos-

sible, and prioritizes the connection interface between wire, solder and plug. Welding makes the best

connections: either resistance welding (which can be done with small cables), or cold welding (usually

called crimping). When a connection is crimped hard enough to cause the metals to deform, to change

shape, the area of contact becomes a “gas-tight” connection or a “cold weld.” Any solder applied to

such a quality connection is purely cosmetic. When connecting a speaker cable, much greater attention

should be made to contact pressure than to contact area. A 14 awg (2 sq.mm) connection is more than

enough current path. It is much better to have a small area tightly secured than any larger area under

less pressure. Speaker cables are sometimes quite large as way to dilute distortion mechanisms, not

to carry more current. Please do not confuse this size advantage with the priorities at the connection

point.

The AudioQuest Objective

AudioQuest cables have a mandate: to transmit a signal without changing it. Since 1978 we have been

actively researching the mechanisms responsible for altering an audio or video signal as it travels

through a cable. The better we understand these mechanisms, the more effectively we can minimize

their harmful effects. We take the only reasonable approach: instead of trying to x something after it is

“broken”, we try to prevent it from breaking.

Every AudioQuest cable, from the least to the most expensive, is designed to minimize change. The

problems we seek to conquer are the same for all cables. We make so many models of AudioQuest

cables in order to ensure nancial compatibility. We are certain to have several models which are ex-

tremely cost-effective in your system, whether it’s a mini-rack system or state-of-the-art. The best cable

is always the best cable, a difference you can hear on a boombox, but that does not mean that it’s cost

effective to make such a match.