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Do not use stock jumpers

I've been using biwire Cardas Golden Ref with my Silverline Sonatina II's for some time now and very happy. Recently out of curiousity I've been trying Audience AU24, single wire, but I did not have the jumper so I was using the speaker's stock jumper. It sounded great, very refined and focused with great bass, but perhaps a bit weak in the lower mids.

Last night my banana-terminated AU24 jumpers arrived and I plugged them in after doing some testing with the stock jumpers. WOW. The sound is practically unrecognizable. Fully fleshed out lower mids and far bigger soundstage, more bounce (it had not been short of bounce), just awesome.

I had NOT been feeling that jumpers would make that big a difference. Heck, I did not feel that there was that big a difference to make.

Several years ago when I had Spendor FL9's I remember now experimenting with jumpers and feeling that it also made a big difference. (I had forgotton about this since I'd been biwiring so long.)

Anyway, Audience AU24 speaker cables with AU24 jumpers is stunning combination.

And, well, even that those stock jumper look so beautiful, I remain shocked at how much sound they were holding back. I still can't figure how a piece of metal or cable that short can make such a huge difference.

If you are thinking about experimenting with upgraded jumpers, I say, stop thinking and do it. (and no, I don't have any connection to anyone selling jumpers, or Audience cables! If there are people out there getting rich selling jumpers, I sure don't know them..).

This is just a heads-up from a fellow hobbiest. My experience leads me to believe that it is well worthwhile to experiment with replacing the stock jumpers, because the stock jumpers might be holding you back a lot more than you think.

Art
artmaltman
infinity_audio
183 posts
 
Most of the stock jumpers are gold plated.
You never know what's under the plating...
Brass? Stainless Steel? Steel alloy?
80% of the chance that the stock jumpers are not good conductors like copper & silver...
In this case, upgrading jumpers will improve the sound.
richt19
2 posts
 
Has anyone ever tried the WBT (0725Cu INSULATED POWER BRIDGE) JUMPER? They sell for $16 each x 4 = $64 at PartsExpress.
4yanx
1,576 posts
 
Although it seems not to be a very popular idea, I continue to think that, if you don't mind popping the terminal cover on your speakers, it is far better to wire the top and bottom directly to the same pair of terminals, as opposed to using a jumper. I think that if you are deciding to go single wire with a set of speakers that are set up for biwiring, you should at least give it a try.
infinity_audio
183 posts
 
That is the best way to bridge... for jumping INSIDE the crossover; BUT a lot of users doesn't want the mess around with the stuffs they don't know and since audio gears get upgraded all the times, I guess they don't want to ruin the resell value or maybe they don't want to void the warranty. Soldering technique is also very important when you are doing signal paths... No offense for what you said. Your method DO provide the best quality sound but this sometimes just don't pay off. For some other audiophile fellows out there it's just too much to consider... A set of quality jumpers shouldn't be too far from the best.
redkiwi
1,092 posts
 
Unfortunately they are far from the best Infinity. I agree that internally joining the connections is vastly better, and argue that there is no reason why this cannot be done by a professional technician at lower cost than jumpers. For those of you using jumpers, try this for me... - try connecting your speaker cables to the woofers and listen, then connect them to the tweeters and reverse the direction of your jumpers and listen. If they sound the same to you, then relax. If they sound different, you are hearing an indication of the damage extra connections are causing. Unfortunately the damage is significant to my ears, regardless of how good the jumpers are, and I suspect that you really have to avoid the extra connections to get the best out of single-wiring a bi-wire speaker.
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