HOW CRITICAL ARE JUMPER CABLES


When using jumper cables instead of biwire speaker cables, do the jumpers need to be as good a quality or better than the actual quality of the  speaker wires? The jumpers need to be 6” to 9” long. Also is it better to hook the main speaker wires to the low end and then run the jumpers to the high end or visa versa?
 

128x128samgar2

There are so many old fogeys on this board, I swear…I can hear my dad sometimes. You boomers just have the best sense of humor.

My experience about jumpers is with Monitor Audio silver 6 and Magneplanar LRS.In both cases, the results were obvious. Much better clarity in the mid to high treble regions, more air, better attack and decays, less grain in the sound, I made a pair of jumper with Duelund gauge 12 wire and Mundorf Connector BFA Beryllium Copper Banana Plug, I also tried Neotech gauge 12 solid core wire with Mundorf Connector with similar results.  Very happy results globally and not expensive at all.

I compared silver wire jumpers to copper wire jumpers recently. They make a difference. The silver jumpers gave me beautiful detail but stole dynamics on drums. The difference was obvious. 

Let’s do a contest. We’ll buy eight sets of jumpers-- from good to crazy expensive. Whoever can rank them by their price wins, let’s say, $5,000 for the prize, 10 people, $1,000 buy in per participant. Here’s my bet; nobody wins because the price of jumpers has nothing to do with the sound of jumpers beyond a certain quality of build and materials-- and in this test we’ll start with well made quality jumpers in the $50 range and go up from there. Jumpers, are, for the most part, above maybe $100, a laughable rip-off. I have Genesis III’s with dual Genesis Servo subs BTW. The speakers use bi-wire posts and came with some pretty run of the mill jumpers. Changing them out with a $500 pair (can’t recall the brand) did nada. I never make snap decisions with respect to changes made to my system-- I live with the changes for a while to let whatever that change is "settle in", and for my ears to learn to hear what, if any, improvement the change seems to have made. Mega-bucks jumpers are just more bling IMO, and never underestimate the placebo effect-- it is always there.