Anyone care to share any tips or tricks as to setting up and improving our home theatre experiences?

 

valeem
I'm relatively new to this game so dont have much to share. But here is one I read recently:

Place blu-tac under speakers in order to isolate them and therefore improve their sound quality. I presume this could be used as an alternative to spikes as some feel they are unsafe if young children are around. It could also be used on bookshelf speakers or to isolate speakers on wall brackets. I've tried this and have noticed a small improvement over just placing them directly on a surface.

Right...who's gonna put their rep on the line next?
 

G-Man
Blu-Tac is like sticky and gummy clay. It is wise to put this material or something like it on the bottom of the bookshelf speaker to make it stable on the speaker stand. It keeps the speaker stable and stuck to the stand in the exact position you want. It also keeps you, your kid, and others from knocking it off the stand.

Unless the speaker is very light and is apt to bounce around by just playing it, I doubt you would ever be able to hear a difference whether it has Blu-Tac or not. But it is safer for you and yours and it is safer for the speaker---afterall the speaker is far less likely to fall off and chip the cabinet if it is stuck to the stand.
 

valeem
G-Man:

Thanks for your reply.

Also I have been considering bi-wiring my front two loudspeakers on my AV setup in order to improve the stereo performance but am not sure if it is safe to do so. I have a Marantz SR4300 reciever connected to Mission M71i's (bi-wirable) using QED's original Mk11 speaker wire. Apparently bi-wirable speakers have seperate sets of inputs for treble and mid/bass, and a split crossover (or filter) to prevent the bass swamping the delicate treble signals (qouted from our 'bible' What Hi-Fi?). The problem I'm having is with the reciever.

The recievers manual states the following: Do not connect more than one speaker cable to one speaker terminal. Doing so may damage this unit.

I've noticed that on the back of the latest Yamaha range that they have two pairs of terminals for the front loudspeakers whereas mine has one pair for each loudspeaker. How can running two wires from one terminal to the same speaker cause any harm? Would bi-wiring really improve the sound? Thanks.
 

G-Man
DON'T BI-WIRE!!! It is a basic electrical law of physics that there is no watt change. There have been numerous papers on this in Electrical Engineering periodicals. Even the noted receiver company McIntosh wrote many years ago that this was pointless. Overpriced wire companies, audiophiles that rely on superstition, wanting to hear a difference where none exists, and junk science are to be blamed.

Many speaker companies that know better (they all know better) decided since audiophiles buy their speakers they better allow for bi-wiring even though it is BS.

The only thing that bi-wiring can do is enrich the people selling it and making it. It will never do anything to the sound of your speakers, unless your speaker wire thickness is totally inadequate for the distance the wire is running. In which case you should buy thicker gauge inexpensive shielded wire.

Bi-AMPING can make a difference. That is using one amp to drive the tweeter and maybe the midrange of a speaker and another amp to drive the woofer. But this only makes sense if your current amplification is under-powered for your speakers. If a single amp never clips when playing the speakers there will be zero improvement in bi-amping.
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