Speaker jumpers and hook up choices Question


For many years now speakers come with 4 terminals for bi amp/bi wiring. research has shown few people do either but it continues. Whe I has in the audio biz it was one set regarless of the speaker and life was good. With 4 terminals it can be an endless choice of jumpers and hook up methods and they all make the speaker sound different. In my case I would use one of three hook ups regardless of jumpers used

1) Cables to the low side . Jumpers feed the high side This make the most sense to me
2) Cable to the high side Jumpers feedn the low side. Not sure why one would do this.
3)Pos cable to the low side and neg to the high side. This one sounds way different then the other two and in most cases better WHAT IS IT DOING?? What is happening when you use this hook up?

Thanks
128x128geph0007

Showing 5 responses by geph0007

I agree but this website is tiny % of people who buy speakers Many audio guys do not do it .In fact I read an article last summer were it was mentioned that some spekaer makers are going to go back to a pair of terminals. THANK YOU!! I like the Vandersteens better when I went in and tied the hi and low together It tried the lesser (Oval 12) bi wires on several speakers and my Oval 9s with any junmper sound better to me.
Thank you AL Can you expand on that at all? I have to draw that on paper to see it I had PSB Goldi and Mirage m7si were it was easy to take the back plate off and tie the high and low together and then put it back to riginal. I felt the speakers sounded closest to the croos hookup thast way.
I should just take off the back plate and tie the high and low together

From Nordost
Wiring Confi gurations
The correct wiring confi guration for a bi-wiring arrangement can be
readily established by experimentation, but in general, the best results
will be obtained as follows:
Connect the jumpers from the bass/mid terminals to the treble terminals,
following the guidance outlined above. Then connect the speaker wires
to the bass/mid terminals. This should be your default set up, generally
offering the greatest rhythmic integrity and mid-band clarity

Very occasionally the reverse arrangement, connecting to the treble
terminals can produce superior results. This is rare, but worth trying,
especially where exotic or hard to drive tweeters are employed

Often, the very best results are achieved using a diagonal connection.
This involves connecting the red cable to the bass/mid terminal and
the black to the treble, with the jumpers arranged accordingly, bass to
treble on the red (or +ve) side of the crossover, treble to bass on the
black (or -ve) side. This is slightly more confusing to wire, however, with
a little extra care and patience the results can be well worthwhile, and
once you are familiar with bi-wiring procedures this often becomes the
new default set up, offering greater air, transparency, dimensionality and subtlety
BINGO that is exactly what I found. I mean you could not have said it better Notice I did not say one was beter then the other.just different Not sure which I like
From Audioquest Note they say to put the pos to the high and neg to the low
When using a single set of full range cables with a BiWirable speaker, you
might as well do it properly … it costs nothing and makes a difference you
can hear. When using jumpers (factory supplied or replacements), be sure
to put both red and black connectors to the treble input of a 3-way or panelhybrid
. Bass is less sensitive to having the jumpers in the signal path.
For 2-way speakers, be sure to put the red connector to treble + and black
connector to bass -. This is the only way to preserve the tonal voice the
speaker designer intended.
If you do not BiWire, at the very least, connect a single set of speaker cables
as recommended above. Ideally, you should use a set of AQ PSC Jumpers
to make the BiWire jumper connections at the speaker. What about those
“free” shiny metal jumpers that came with the speaker? It’s entirely
accurate to describe these as “worth every penny you paid for them.”
Simply put, these are very poor sounding devices.