Are these hooked up right?


Back story: I'm a non-audiophile. Essentially inherited a hifi (or maybe midfi) system that I'm trying to get hooked up. It was in an inlaw's basement for years and is pretty beat up but functional and consists of:

Rotel RSP-1066 Surround Sound Processor
Rotel RMB-1075 Five Channel Amplifier
Two Bowers and Wilkins CDM-9NT tower speakers
One B&W AW 650 powered subwoofer
One B&W CDM SNT speaker which I think was used for the center channel

I posted about this in the home theater forum to work on settings within the surround sound pre-amp and I've got those narrowed down. In one of the surround sound modes I can get it all sounding pretty good.

But without the sub-woofer and the center speaker I just can't get the two tower speakers to sound good in 2 channel mode. (I'm comparing the SQ to another much nicer system that is now in my home). And that is bothering me because I would prefer to have this set up just with the two towers.

These speakers (and the center speaker) have two sets of poles for hooking them up. So do my Aerial Acoustic towers but they came with bi-wire cables. These B&Ws do not have bi-wire cables so I have the speaker cables hooked up as shown below:

https://images.nikonians.org/galleries/data/500/IMG_10511.jpg

The gold colored bridges (?) can be removed.

Would bi-wire cables improve the sound? I made my own bi-wire(??) using two sets of cables to the speakers using the same two poles on the back of the amp but that did not make a difference.

Any help appreciated.
n80
Some of those straps were made of brass. Replacing them with good quality wire jumpers might improve things.
Changing the jumpers to a different metal will have NADA effect! It is a MYTH that different metals sound better or worse for audio! Let the rock throwing begin!
Insert your two B&W speakers into your other much nicer system. If they sound good then, then you know it's your second-system front end that is the culprit, not the speakers.

Tom
That makes sense, of course, and I thought of that but have been too lazy. The B&W towers are fairly heavy and awkward to carry but the Aerial Acoustic 7Bs that I would have to move to make room for them are very heavy and extremely awkward to lift....they are basically a perfect rectangle with a slick finish....very pretty but nothing to hold onto and they weigh 125# each and have spikes on the bases.

But now I'm curious again and may do it tonight. I'm not an audiophile yet but I think I do have the fiddling gene.