Bi-wiring

Hi
Can anyone please tell me, how much can be gained from bi-wiring?  I've heard some people say it's just a gimmick to sell expensive wire, is this so or are there truly benefits?
And talking about expensive wires, how much does a £1 a foot speaker cable really differ from a £5 or £10 one? Generally speaking that is.
My wires are of the first kind and made by Jenving. I think mine sound very fine indeed but then I haven't compared them to anything really. And believe it or not, but the salesman at my local hifi store actually told me they would more than suffice. Now I don't have the best gear in town, not when it comes to speakers and line amps at least , but it's not crap either and if there were apparent gains to be made you would think he'd try to flog me something more expensive?

Edit:
When I think about it I did have my old vintage non-ideal speakers when I bought the wires so the salesman was probably right about that.

Cheers
Johan


Edited by suede - 26 Dec 2011 at 1:23pm

LScable can make a big difference in sound (matter of synergy as is with everything else)

I don't know if this would be of any use? I found this on the What HiFi forum in a thread about EB Acoustics loudspeakers. http://www.ebacoustics.com/index.html

"The above was my original review. WOW did I get it wrong. I phoned up 
the company to return these speakers and the guy was great, but wanted 
me to try a slightly different wiring arrangement – he called diamond 
wiring. He said he would absolutely honour the return deal, but he just 
wanted to understand the issue. He told me to forget bi-wiring and to 
put the terminal connectors back on and wire in the plus to the tweeter 
and the minus to the bass. He said he would extend my trial period so I 
could try this. While doing this I discovered a very embarrassing 
problem (I had checked this three times but missed it). One of the 
speakers was bi-wired with the bass unit polarity reversed. Well I 
decided to do what he told me (diamond wiring). WOW. I love these 
speakers and would really like to withdraw the review above. I am 
working through my collection with the biggest smile on face. There is 
no way I would return these little gems. I am so surprised – seriously 
these are great speakers. Great detail, superb integration, perfect 
bass, supremely musical, they don’t get caught out with difficult music 
and they work at sensible listen levels."

This is Naim's opinion and one of the reasons why I don't bi-wire, plus I've never noticed any difference when previously trying bi-wiring. - 

"Why does Naim not agree with bi-wiring and tri-wiring passive loudspeakers?

It's true that we are not great fans of multi-wiring passive loudspeakers in accordance with current vogue. Our belief is that if the crossover has been correctly designed, a single run of cable between amplifier and loudspeaker offers the best sound, as well as making it easier for the amplifier to drive safely. Obviously, if the speaker crossover has been deliberately designed to sound better when bi- or tri-wired, then it quite possibly will; but that's not to say that it wouldn't sound better overall if it were designed for single wiring in the first place, as our speakers are."

Yes. And it is not a problem with your hi-fi equipment.

Edited by Fatmangolf - 31 Dec 2011 at 9:38pm