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question about A/B speaker wiring


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A/B refer to two different sets of speakers. As in, you could have one set in one room, and then run some to the other, and you'd likely have an A/B switch to select which speakers.

It looks like your speaker is set up for bi-wiring. I don't know a ton about this, but my understanding is that it would allow for the tweeter to be fed by one cable, and the woofer to be fed by another so that the sounds can be sent in a clearer way. You'd likely need an amp set up for bi-wiring to use both of those, and it's definitely not necessary. So unplug one of the two speaker cables from the back of the speaker, and put the other ends into the A inputs. Do the same on the other speaker. Make sure your amp is set to A speakers. You should be good to go.

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A/B refer to two different sets of speakers. As in, you could have one set in one room, and then run some to the other, and you'd likely have an A/B switch to select which speakers.

It looks like your speaker is set up for bi-wiring. I don't know a ton about this, but my understanding is that it would allow for the tweeter to be fed by one cable, and the woofer to be fed by another so that the sounds can be sent in a clearer way. You'd likely need an amp set up for bi-wiring to use both of those, and it's definitely not necessary. So unplug one of the two speaker cables from the back of the speaker, and put the other ends into the A inputs. Do the same on the other speaker. Make sure your amp is set to A speakers. You should be good to go.

 

This is right but it describes bi wiring which as raindogtrombone says is pointless. Your amp though can do bi amping which is a totally different thing and not at all pointless.

 

The only proviso is that in bi amp mode your amp wants speakers that are 8ohm or higher so you need to check what your speakers are rated at.

 

If they are 8ohm then all you need to do is wire the left side top speaker terminals red and black to the amp left A speakers terminals red and black, then wire the left side bottom speaker terminals red and black to the amp left B speakers terminals red and black, then do exactly the same on the right side. You need to make sure red goes to red and black goes to black and then make sure that both A and B speakers are switched in on the amplifier and you will be bi amping.

 

You might get away with it if your speakers are 6ohm but the amp might run hot or cut out if you run at high volumes for a long time so I wouldn't recommend it and defiantly don't do it if your speakers are 4ohm.

 

If you get any of the pairs wrong like top red and bottom black together then it wont work and you could do damage so be careful and make sure it is wired right before you turn the power on. If you get the top and bottom pairs swapped or don't have both speaker sets turned on at the amp then it will just sound shit, all treble or all bass.

 

And lastly and most importantly do not put links between the speaker terminals if you are bi amping as this will definitely make smoke, the links are for if you are not bi amping which is the usual way to run things. And never put links in the amplifier terminals.

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Bi amping is what dual wired speaker crossovers are intended for and as you rightly say one set for bass and one set for treble with the intended gain being in clarity but its one amplifier for bass and one amplifier for treble.

Somewhere along the line some idiot and probably something to do with HiFi or cable making suggested bi wiring which is wiring one amplifier to the two sets of speaker connections which is completely pointless and if you bi wire rather than using the speaker links all you are doing as adding more cable and therefore mor resistance to the signal path which is only good if you make or sell speaker cable and plugs.

A lot of amplifiers with A\B speaker outs can be used to bi amp but as with the OP's his is actually a 2 channel amp that shares its outputs for A and B, the giveaway being the different speaker impedance requirements when running one or both sets of speaker outputs. The better units have four distinct speaker outputs to run the A and B sets and an amp of this type does not have different impedance requirements when running one or both.

Interestingly although I'm not a fan of surround sound receivers for hifi a lot of the 7.1 units when run in 5.1 or stereo mode are intended to or can easily be made to run in bi amp mode for the front main speakers which is how I run mine, my fronts are actually meant to be run in tri amp mode which is another game altogether.

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no just one, i thought i had to set it to A+B mode oops, A mode and B mode sound worst than A+B

It sounds like you still don't have things set up properly. Google "hooking up speakers to receiver" and look at pictures of how it should be wired. I don't mean to be rude but this should be extremely simple.

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so it looks like you have one speaker using all the ports on the A section and the other using all the ports on the B section, yeah? Go back to what Tardcore was saying and put a jumper wire between the posts on the speaker to complete the circuit; red to red and black to black and hooking one of each to your receiver. One black and one red for your left and same for your right speaker. All on Channel A on the receiver. And then you SHOULD be good

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so it looks like you have one speaker using all the ports on the A section and the other using all the ports on the B section, yeah? Go back to what Tardcore was saying and put a jumper wire between the posts on the speaker to complete the circuit; red to red and black to black and hooking one of each to your receiver. One black and one red for your left and same for your right speaker. All on Channel A on the receiver. And then you SHOULD be good

 

the top parts of each speaker in connected to the A section of the receiver while the bottom of each speaker's in the B

 

are you saying bi amping isn't gonna work?

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1) Get rid of that second set of cables (A only or B only)

2) Put the terminal bridges back in.

3) set your amp to A or B as appropriate.

Bi-amping requires 2 amps.

You only have one amp.

Having it wired the way it is now is just taking the long way around to make everything sound worse or possibly not work at all.

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Is bi-amping what you're trying to do? Did you actually state that anywhere? Does it sound fine if you hook up the speakers normally? Sorry i thought hooking them up the standard way is what you were trying to do.

it wasn't, someone mentioned it and i guess i misunderstood something

 

anyway, i did this now:

 

tumblr_no5uqw6jYt1uvnj60o1_540.jpg

tumblr_no5uqw6jYt1uvnj60o2_1280.jpg

 

and it still sounded bad

 

however, i unplugged the rca cable from phono to dock, and now it sounds very clear

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