Jim,

I’m glad to see you’re going to give bi-wiring a try. Personally, I would double wire the right and left Front A connectors to bi-wire my speakers. To make those cramped back-panel receiver connections a bit easier I use banana plugs on one pair of the wires. Those are plugged straight into the receiver’s Speaker A binding post terminals. The other pair has bare ends. Those are connected to the same terminals and fastened down using the threaded nuts on the binding posts (just as you would if you were making a standard bare wire connection to any binding post terminal).

As to the first connection method you describe -- using the receiver’s A and B speaker terminals -- I see no reason that couldn’t be used. I believe your Denon receiver’s A and B speaker outputs are internally wired together in parallel, so the net effect would be the same as connecting both sets of wires to Speaker A alone. Of course, this would mean losing the functionality of having B speakers hooked up to your system. (And I know that having the speaker selector switched to the Front A + Front B position can affect the available surround sound options with some receivers, although I’m not certain that would be the case with your specific model.)

I know it goes without saying, but don’t forget to remove the jumpers on your Klipsch speakers!

Thanks again for your interest.

Dave

You’re absolutely right, Skellum. Bi-amping is an excellent option for boosting performance with compatible speakers and audio components. In fact, there are probably quite a few folks out there right now with newer home theater receivers that may not even realize they could configure a bi-amp setup with their system. I plan on addressing that very issue shortly in a separate post. Please stay tuned.

That's cool, Rao! Did you try setting up your '1909 and Monitor 50s for bi-amping? As you may or may not realize, the Denon AVR-1909 receiver lets you reassign the back-surround amplifier channels to drive the front speakers -- effectively doubling the power going to them. The catch is that you can only do 5.1 surround instead of 7.1 (no big whoop if you have no back surround speakers anyway), and you can't power speakers in another zone with the receiver (although the '1909 still gives you preamp outputs for zone 2 if you really have your heart set on the multi-room audio thing).

Dave

Hi Ben,

connecting your speaker cables to the RC-3 should be pretty straightforward. You simply need to remove the metal jumpers that connect the high- and low-frequency input terminals on your Klipsch, then connect the posiitive and negative conductors of each of your two speaker wires to the positive and negative posts of the speaker. (Think of it as though your hooking up two speakers instead of one.)

Hooking up the receiver end is a little trickier, but that's only because you have to connect two sets of speaker wires on to the receiver's single center channel speaker output (which was really only designed for one set).

At the receiver end of my bi-wire setup, I chose to use one pair of wires terminated with banana plugs. I simply plugged those directly into the ends of the negative and positive speaker bindings posts (your Onkyo has the same type of hollow threaded posts that accept banana plugs as mine). The other set of wires I left unterminated. I just slid  these in from the side, tightening down the speaker nuts afterwards to lock the wire into place.

I think that should work well for you. Let me know how it turns out, and if you have any other questions.

Dave

Hi Ben,

you're right, these are a lot of questions. They're interrelated in some ways, but I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability. The Klipsch RP-3s pre-date Crutchfield's  experience with this brand, so I'm going strictly by what the online owner's manual on Klipsch's website says.

It looks like the amplified speaker outputs from the Onkyo '706 would work just fine with the RP-3s, there is no need to use preamp connections in your situation. And it is just the subwoofer portion of these speakers that is self-powered, the higher frequency drivers still depend on the receiver's wattage.

Unfortunately, the Klipsch owner's manual doesn't provide an illustration of the available connections on the speaker, so I'm going strictly by the (somewhat cryptic) written description of inputs/outputs. From what I can gather, the LFE (Low Frequency Effects) input on one speaker is designed to accept the LFE signal from the receiver's subwoofer output, then feed that LFE signal to the other speaker (which could then, I suppose, in turn send it to a powered sub). That sounds a little convoluted for my taste.

Based on what I see from the manual, here's what I would do:

Remove the metal jumpers, and bi-amp the High and Low speaker inputs on the RP-3's with the '706's front and re-assigned back surround amplifier channels.

Run the subwoofer (LFE) output from the Onkyo straight to your powered sub. In my opinion, this would be the cleanest connection.

Given the number of potential connection options, you may want to contact Klipsch to see if there's a better way to do this. But from where I sit, the method above makes the most sense to me with your Onkyo receiver running the show.

Best of luck to you. Let me know how it turns out.

Dave

Scott,

I don't believe it would be possible to bi-amp your speakers with the '463. It offers 5 channels of power (instead of 7), with no provision for redirecting the power from the surround channels to the front speakers.

I see that it does have a Speaker A and Speaker B output, which would make it pretty easy to bi-wire your Klipschs. Just pop off the jumpers that connect the upper and lower binding posts, and run two pair of wires -- one each to the '463's Speaker A and Speaker B outputs.

This might not result in quite the same performance boost as true bi-amping, but it should give you enough improvement to justify the effort.

Dave

Hi Ryan,

I can't guarantee you'll hear a difference, but I'm betting you will. On a related note, I believe the receiver you have allows for bi-amping. I might suggest doing that with your RF3ii towers, then bi-wire your RC3ii center channel. Good luck and good listening.

Dave

Hi Mike,

I totally agree with you when you point out that bi-wiring and bi-amping aren't the same. (See my post on bi-amping here  http://bit.ly/bi-amping.) But I guess where you lose me is your description of how bi-wiring is achieved. Everything I have ever read or seen concerning bi-wiring, ranging from speaker and amplifier manufacturers owner's manuals to on-line how-to guides, recommends removing the connecting jumpers between the upper and lower speaker binding posts. But I could be wrong.

Of course, the bottom line of bi-wiring is simply that one uses a single stereo amp and two pair of speaker wires to drive a pair of stereo speakers. Bi-amping, on the other hand, uses two stereo amps (or four channels of a compatible surround sound receiver) to drive a pair of stereo speakers (two channels of power for the upper frequencies and two for the lower frequencies). In pro and tweaky high-end home applications there are electronic crossovers involved as well, but that's another story for another time.

I also agree with you, Mike, that if one were to bi-amp without removing the jumpers on the speakers, damage would occur. Although in this case, I fear that it would be the amplifiers that would suffer harm (maybe the speakers, too, I'm not sure). Also, I'm not certain how bi-wiring with jumpers removed would result in elimination of the low end. I presently bi-wire my speakers this way, and enjoy plenty of bass response.

Anyway, thanks for reading my post. If anyone else would like to weigh in on this fascinating and controversial topic, please feel free to speak up. I promise to keep an open mind.

Dave