I have recently come into a wealth of speakers and have filled all available spots on the back of my receiver, but i have the alternative of bi-wiring the new set to an existing pair. Will bi-wiring additional speakers take away performance or loudness from the original speaker?
Make sure your receiver is off. To bi-wire, first take the metal bridges off. Then get a speaker cable that has one set of + and - connectors for the amp/receiver end, and the other end having two sets of + and - coonnectors. You will need two of these cables for a stereo pair to power the front L R channels. Now,plug the the single set of each speaker cable into the amp/receiver, and then take the dual set side of each cable and plug them into the speakers. (LEFT CHANNEL) AMP [-] [+] SPEAKER [-] [+] [-] [+] (RIGHT CHANNEL) AMP [-] [+] SPEAKER [-] [+] [-] [+] Happy listening!
You have to be careful when adding multiple speakers to the same input. Your receiver is rated in ohms (resistance) that it can handle. If your receiver is 8 ohms and your current speaker is 8 ohms, great, everything will be fine. When you add another speaker to the same input one of two things can happen depending on how you connect it. Two 8ohm speakers wired in parallel ( both pos. and both neg. together) will result in your receiver seeing a 4ohm load, which could overload your amp. Two 8ohm speakers wired in series will result in your amp seeing a 16ohm load which is OK for your amp, but at 16ohms it will only output half as much power, and now between two speakers.
There is no added benefit to bi-wiring at all, The only thing you are doing is just adding more wire to a speaker. almost all speakers (except those bought out of the back of a white van) have built in crossovers that will do what it was designed for and that is making sure the upper frequencies go to the tweeter and the lower frequencies go to the mid range or bass woofer (if speaker is a 3 way model). By bi-wiring you also run the risk of adding line interference or a ground loop. Just keep it simple and let the speakers crossover do what it was designed to do.
noah is right, adding another speaker would divide the power your amp supply to your original speaker. if your goal is add another speaker to suit your desired sound or loudness, it is better to another amp to house in your new speaker. that way you won't take away the performance of your original speaker.
