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To biwire or not to biwire...?

I know there have been a few threads on this subject and it is a fairly controversial subject, but I have a few specific questions on both ways. First, there are dealers who advertise their jumpers by saying," get rid of those junky bars that come with your speakers and hear what your speakers are really capable of..." For that distance of an inch or two, does it really make a difference ? Secondly,some dealers and /or manufacturers who push the biwire method, recommend putting copper cables on the bass and silver on the tweeter. How does this make things better ? Thirdly, for those with biwireable speakers,who want to run a single cable and put in a jumper,what kinds of experiences have you had with different types of jumpers ? I have a single pair of speaker cables ( AZ Satori) and another brand of cables that tend to lean toward the "warm" side of neutral.If I put in some good silver jumpers, would that give a more neutral tonal balance or would it only emphasize the upper registers ? I have yet to find any all- silver cables that I found natural-sounding anyway.Or would it be better to use a jumper from the same manufacturer as the single run you are using ? I know these are a lot of questions, but surely others without the technical know-how like myself have wondered about these things as well. Thanks for your input.
sherod

Showing 1 response by audio_buff

audio_buff
38 posts
 
All the above pros and cons are valid, but it still comes down to trying it in your system. There are alot of variables to consider.

But some considerations both ways.

The jumper camp:
Consider this. When you connect your spade to a terminator that has a jumper, the signal will have to additionally travel through the jumper to get to the terminating post. You now have multiple paths to the terminating post and an inferior connection. In a high resolution system you can hear this. If you have a binding post that has a metal nut, you may have 3 paths for the signal.

The YES biwire camp:
For best results, run 4 lengths of identical cable and keep them all separated. Real air is the best dielectric. I've always thought that physically separate plus & minus have an advantage over plus & minus in the same jacket. If this is true then having 4 wires in the same jacket must be worse. My listening tests seem to prove this out.
Also if you bi-wire with two sets of wires rather than a biwire set. On the amp side you have the same multiple signal paths to the binding post issue I mentioned in the jumper considerations.
Try separating the spades of each wire with a rubber washer or vinyl gromlet. I've tried plastic, ceramic and paper, they didn't sound as good.
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