I am doing some "basic research" at the moment, due to having new solder wires to evaluate, plus having a new soldering station that requires temperature calibration before it's put to use. This will end up in a new work station at a new facility, where all Lejonklou products will get their final tuning before shipment.

The research consists of soldering a lot of test cables, on which I try to vary only one parameter at a time. It's quite surprising how obvious the differences are between a few degrees of soldering temperature, different fluxes and alloys and the contact pressure of connectors.

Now to the point: For high mass soldering jobs, I am using speaker wire for these evaluations. And when trying them on my 109's, I have currently reached the conclusion that multi wiring performs worse than single wiring. Multi wiring is always more impressive, but musically worse.

Does anyone have any comments around this? The main problem with these kind of comparisons is that there are a lot of variables involved - and most of the time we are comparing not just single versus multi-wiring, but a lot of other things. These other things (soldering jobs, age, connecting pressure etc) often have a bigger influence on the performance than the multi wiring itself. I am trying to minimise these, but it's not easy. It's still obvious that no two cables end up sounding exactly alike. Therefore I am not entirely convinced of my conclusion that single wiring is better.

All comments appreciated!

Another detail when single wiring Linn speakers, using the links at the back of the speakers, is that Linn's current recommendation of connecting one banana (+) to the super tweeter and the other (-) to the bass (sometimes called "diagonal connection"), is not very good. So far it has always been best to connect both bananas to the tweeter. I've tried this on a number of speakers in the Majik and Akurate ranges.

Quin-wiring 242s is often promoted on the Linn forum but not heard it myself and there's no mention of checking via tune dem so far. Know someone who has tried tri-wiring 242s and prefers bi-wiring, but don't think it was as scientific a test as yours.

Well thank you Fredrik, you have restored my sanity. I have tried multi wiring in the past but have always preferred the single wired. Having read the plethora of rave reviews, I decided to make up leads all soldered at the same time.
Conclusions: with 242s single wired, normal Linn links very musical
Bi wired one set into two bass units, the other to array, hifi improvement without musicalty loss. Also prefer the array to be connected to mid as opposed to super tweeter.
Subsequent tri and quad wire each lead to a loss of musicality.
I, perhaps wrongly decided not to bother with quin wiring.
My conclusions were strong enough, despite amazing claims for quin to revert back to bi wire.
This coincidentally was done this week.
With your revelation I may try single one more time.

pt2
As regards temperatures and pressures, when using knekt 4mm plugs the k400 fits very snugly, a good mechnical connection, I then almost flow the solder in, I feel resonably confident they will have encountered a as close to the same treatment per plug.
Also it endorsed my feelings from previous trials with different plugs and solder.
I also prefer the connectors going directly to one drive unit as opposed to st+ and bass-
I really feel the quinwirers are experiencing the hifi benefit.
I actually find 3/4 way more tiring to listen to

Thanks for your comments! I knew there had to be someone more than myself fiddling with this. Even if it was a coincidence in my case - my aim was not to compare single to multi wiring, but rather to compare a bunch of differently soldered wires.

It was when going back to my normal cables that it struck me; the music was bigger but less involving than with the best single wire that I had sorted out earlier. Tried several variations and they all resulted in the single wiring option to be the most musical. The speakers do sound a bit smaller and less impressive, but they are more integrated and homogenous.

Another thing that I've wanted to find out for many years is how long a speaker cable should ideally be. This might vary with the type of cable, so let's say K400.
On second thoughts, I'll make a new post out of this.

anthony wrote:I also prefer the connectors going directly to one drive unit as opposed to st+ and bass-

Then we agree on this point. It seems the recommendation in Linn's recent manual is some kind of theoretical idea (each drive unit gets the same amount of link) rather than a practically verified idea.

anthony wrote:Also prefer the array to be connected to mid as opposed to super tweeter.

With single wired 242's, I've found connecting to the treble to be the best. Clearly better than the other options. With bi-wiring, I expected the cable going to the pod to go to the tweeter again. Might have to double check this.

Do you think it is for similar reasons, again despite great claims for multi amps, I prefer single amps, I know people who add another twin or solos, which to me has the same affect, less musicality.
Whether this is true in an underpowered amp where improvement is to be had the extra power?
I even prefer a 2200 over a 4200, and that eliminates power cables and p.s. variations......comments?
Look forwards to test on whether mid or st is best connection.

Yes, I have often found the same.

At first, I suspected passive multi amping to be worse due to the power amps sounding slightly different. Several times I've heard a passive bi-amped system, then compared the two power amps, chosen the best sounding one and found the system to perform the best when single amping with that best power amp.

Sometimes the difference between the power amps has been very small, however. But the result has still been a more divided-into-drive-units kind of sound. More sounds and less music.

Fredrik and Anthony, while I've not done any consistent comparison during these last years (my 242s have been driven only active or single wire passive, the latter being the simplest configuration to experiment with internal Chakra wirings), I sure feel near to you about multiwiring and passive multiamping.

I've never really liked passive multi-amp, while I remember mixed feelings abou multiwiring. I confess I did blindly trusted Linn when I used to have passive Tukans (many years ago) using them biwired, but any time subsequently I tried single wiring I found it less impressive and open, but more exact and accurate both on pitch and timing. Faster, more integrated and more fun. But also, a bit more "distorted" and congested, maybe less easy-flowing. So I'm not 100% sure one wins over the other in all circumstances.
Also I agree that "parallel multi driving" seem to have in several different incarnations a similar behaviour: speaker multi-wiring, multi-amping, parallel-multi-interconnects between pre and amps, mains-multi-spurs. You always get bigger, more open and easy going sound at the expense of overall togetherness.

Paolo

paolo wrote:any time subsequently I tried single wiring I found it less impressive and open, but more exact and accurate both on pitch and timing. Faster, more integrated and more fun. But also, a bit more "distorted" and congested, maybe less easy-flowing.
Paolo

I guess the same multi-wiring drawbacks are at work in an aktiv setup, only masked by the overall better performance to be had from bypassing the passive crossover? Not sure how you could ever prove that though.

Sorry to disturb, but recently I tri-wired a M109, and quin-wired
a A242, both with most beautiful results. With respect to the music.
Can't give a full report now because of time shortage, so this
has to follow later. But I definitely do not want to go back.
K.

I guess the same multi-wiring drawbacks are at work in an aktiv setup, only masked by the overall better performance to be had from bypassing the passive crossover? Not sure how you could ever prove that though.

An aktiv system is totally different, in a passive system up to 5 spk cables are connected to each channel, there is still the potential of reactions between each drive unit.
Whereas aktiv has effectively only one spk cable to each channel, so is seen as single wired, and 100% isolated from each other.

anthony wrote:

I guess the same multi-wiring drawbacks are at work in an aktiv setup, only masked by the overall better performance to be had from bypassing the passive crossover? Not sure how you could ever prove that though.

An aktiv system is totally different, in a passive system up to 5 spk cables are connected to each channel, there is still the potential of reactions between each drive unit.
Whereas aktiv has effectively only one spk cable to each channel, so is seen as single wired, and 100% isolated from each other.

Now you explain it, it seems obvious. Thanks Anthony.

k_numigl wrote:Sorry to disturb, but recently I tri-wired a M109, and quin-wired a A242, both with most beautiful results.

Two questions:
1) Could you go back and forth between the single and multi wired options? The reason I ask this is that it's not an easy comparison - they sound quite different and have different strengths. I've gone back and forth many times trying to understand what happens with the music versus the sound.
2) Unless the cables were all made with virtually identical parts and assembled at the same time, it's VERY easy to draw false conclusions. For example, I find that different solder wires have a greater impact on sound quality than going from single to bi wiring.

The answer is yes and no. I did not go back with the M109, but back and forth between single- and bi-wiring with the A242.

Firstly, the M109 was changed from single K20 wire to three-K20-wire (Majik I LK-style amp, using 1 socket for one K20, second socket for 2in1). Freshly soldered using Knekt bananas. I would not say it sounds ‘bigger’, or ‘more impressive’. It is rather like having ‘more music’ by displaying more details and fine structure within each single note while at least remaining the musical flow (no, it’s better) and making it easier to follow multiple lines e.g. in a fugue of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier or in an orchestra. (I must admit that this is tried with LP12 only, and I have no clue how it performs in the world of CD formats where such an inspiring fine structure is lacking.) I felt no loss whatsoever, so I never switched back.

Different with the A242. I went from initial bi-wiring (K400, 2 basses combined, 3K combined, with the diagonal connecting scheme) to single wiring to quin-wiring. I was not content with the musical flow of the bi-wired setup I started with. Out of the wish to simplify everything as much as possible I went to single wiring (K400 in single wire setup with one strand unused, and not connected at either end). This being more coherent but less detailed. Difficult to say what I liked better. Essentially, after having seen the potential to play out minute details of a great performance, it is difficult to dispense with that virtue. And vice versa with respect to the musical flow. Changed a few times between single and bi-wiring, but felt not content with either. To be honest, I felt not excited about my system and felt that much of the effort which went into the source was wasted. The situation remainded me of a note of Ian Wilson, stating that in the beginning of the development the Urika was very precise, but not musical enough. By accident I realised a post of Ian about the advantage of giving each speaker a wire of its own, and looked out for some K600 subsequently. Putting this in was like cutting the Gordian knot. Substantially better flow than with the single wiring, and a wealth of artist’s finesse and multi strand orchestral voices at the same time. I did not go back from that.

In comparison to the complete system the effort to put the full 5 wires into the system was not big. The only displeasing thing was having to struggle with the K600 for a few hours until I had it finished.

All this is, of course, to be taken with every precaution to imperfect handling. All I had at hand was a Weller 80W solder station, Lejonklou solder wire which said 360°C but has been used (with an uncalibrated station) at 362°C, and the K400 and K600 being a couple of years old, but 5-10 cm cut freshly off from both ends.