How to Bi-Wire and Bi-Amp Home Theater Speakers: What does it mean and is it worth it?

What does it mean when you have two sets of binding posts on your speaker? It means that your speaker can be bi-wired or bi-amped. What is bi-amping and bi-wiring, and how do you do it? We'll cover the steps in this video.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:12 What is bi-wiring and bi-amping?
1:23 How to bi-wire a speaker
2:13 How to bi-amp a speaker

In this video:

Fluance Signature 3-Way Floorstanding Speakers (HFF)

Fluance Reference 3-Way Floorstanding Loudspeakers (XL8F)

Fluance Elite Surround Sound Home Theater 5.0 Channel Speaker System (SX)

Follow us:

TRANSCRIPT:

Today, we're going to cover what both bi-wiring and bi-amping are, and how to do it. If your speaker has two sets of binding posts, it can be either bi-wired or bi-amped. What is the purpose of the two binding posts? One set of binding posts covered one driver, or drivers, and the other set of binding posts covers the other driver, or drivers. Allowing the drivers to be powered separately, resulting in a cleaner sound.

When the speaker arrives at your doorstep, there will be a bridge connecting the two terminals. When this bridge is connecting the two terminals, you can use one set of speaker wire to power all drivers in the speaker. When you remove the bridge, you can then power them separately by bi-amping.

When you bi-wire a speaker, you run two sets of wire from one set of outputs on your receiver. One set of wires goes to one set of binding posts on the speaker, and one goes to the other binding posts.

To bi-amp a speaker, you are using two sets of outputs on your receiver to power one speaker. One set of speaker wire connects to one set of binding posts, and one set of speaker wire connects to the other set of binding posts. When it comes to bi-amping, you can also use two separate amplifiers, to power one speaker.

To bi-wire a speaker...
- Make sure that the entire system is powered off.
- Remove the bridges from the speaker's binding posts.
- Get two sets of speaker wires.
- On the receiver, connect two sets of wires to the left channel out outputs.
- Connect one set of these wires to a set of binding posts on the left channel speaker, and the other set of speaker wire to the other set of binding posts on the left channel speaker, making sure that polarity is correct.
- Repeat these steps on the other channels.

To bi-amp a speaker, you will need to 'borrow' an unused channel.

For example, if you want to bi-amp your front left and front right, you will use both the front left and front right channel on your receiver, as well as another set of unused channels, such as the surround left or surround right.

This is why it's important to consider the number of channels when buying a receiver. If you have a 5.1 setup, for example, and are using all 5 channels, you will not be able to bi-amp. If you have a 7.1 receiver, and a 5.1 setup, you will be able to bi-amp, because you will have those two unused channels that you can use.

And, again, you can also use two separate amplifiers to do this. But, to bi-amp using your receiver

- Make sure the system is off.
- Remove the bridges on the speaker's binding posts
connect one output on the receiver, such as the front left channel, to one set of binding posts on the front left channel speaker.
- Connect the other output on the receiver, such as your back left channel, to the other set of binding posts on your front left channel speaker.
- Configure your receiver to bi-amp. Every receiver is different, so we can't give you the exact steps. Check your receiver's manual to learn the best way to do this.

If you found this video helpful, click one of the videos that are popping up on your screen right now. And as always, thank you very much for watching.

[mitchflorida]

When do you discuss whether it's worth it? I must have missed that part.

[EsotericArctos]

Not alll receivers allow you to reassign outputs, so not all can bi-amp regardless of having spare channels

[ofcourseimfullofit]

I first tried Bi Amping with my Marantz but it was only 110 watts in stereo. I tried it again with my Denon that has a true 110 watts for all 7 channels and it was very noticeable. Way more clean and crisp.

[leduke]

Could you possibly instruct me how to do the same with my Yamaha RX-A1070 ? Thanks in advance!

[arlaort]

@Fluance Audio using the bridge avoids having to use 2 cable pairs for bi-wiring? I say this because finally, the two pairs of cable from the speaker are connected to a single input on the receiver, is that correct? so what is the idea of ​​removing the bridge?

[hyikoyo]

What's the difference between having The cable come together on the amp rather that just using the Stock high and low bridge on the speakers directly?

[officiallistengreatmuzik]

I have a 7.2 channel receiver
(Sony Dh790)

And 5.1.4 speakers dolby atoms (klipsch)

I have everything hooked up except the height speakers from for of the speakers. Could I Bi - Wire them all?

[justaguyreal]

I have Yamaha HTR5660 with tower Yamaha NS555 running speakers A to highs and speakers B to lows. What if i just split speakers A highs n lows to 1 tower and speakers B highs n lows to other tower?
I'm using heavy gauge 6ft wires to each which seem to sound better with more power or volume than when I tried connecting banana plugs, which I removed to use only bare wire again.
And i wonder what if i left the bridge on and ran same way using speakers A&B, would that be like using double power?

[jimmycake]

But using a surround system sends different signals to speakers for surround effects so looks like this is mixed up. I think it works really for a 2.0 stereo.

[redcapote]

Doesn't bi-amping on the same receiver somehow mess with the sounds that are supposed to come from the (nonexistent) rear speakers whose posts we're using for more juice that are now wired to our fronts? That's my curiosity.

[zoranjovanovic]

With all due respect, I do not think your description is correct.

Your bi-wiring scheme is nothing but a single-wiring as it uses only ONE receiver (amplifier) output and an extra pair of speaker wires in place of the pair of the bridging plates you removed. In fact, what you describe as bi-amping is the real bi-wiring, as TWO separate outputs from a SINGLE power-amp are used to drive each speaker section separately. However, in this case the amps are conserved.

For the real bi-amping, one needs TWO SEPARATE amplifiers that drive speaker sections separately. The power amps are then either (i) each connected to one pair of outputs of a two-output control amplifier or (ii) they are daisy-chained and the last in the series is connected to the output of a single-output control amplifier. Bi-amping allows also the use of amplifiers of a different power (weaker for the tweeter and stronger for the bas/midrange section) as long as their gains are the same.

[justaguyreal]

How is biwiring supposed to be better?

[Dave-htdx]

Information useful; noisy background sound (music?) most annoying.

[schemkesa]

simply not true, sorry.... allowing driver to be powered separately, resulting in a cleaner sound, will ony be true if it's active bi-amping. So filtering is done before amplifying. In passive b-amping and bi-wiring, no filtering is done and both drivers are still connected to one and another and signal passes the internal crossovers

[informedchoice]

Still really confused. I must be a bit thick.

[bindaredundat-uvwz]

HOW DO YOU SET THE LIMIT ON THE HIGHS AND LOWS FOR EACH DRIVER? IF THE POWER IS COMING FROM A SINGLE POLE? TO POWER BOTH DRIVERS? MAKES NO SENSE !! THE REASON FOR BIWIRE IS TO CONTROL EACH DRIVER WITH THE PROPER FREQUENCY!

[michaelsenkowsky]

This video is terrible and honestly a bad lesson and misleading. It really didn't explain what the real purpose or if it's worth it at all. Also it only briefly mentions changing the receivers amp repurpossing which is extremely important as you will get weird signals to you speakers if you don't (the woofer playing main speaker sound and tweeter playing sounds meant for surround speakers as an example) I'm not saying everything is wrong with this video, but if you're going to put information like this out, do better!

[lipete]

Why are you use crap cable on a decent system?