Question about Bi-Wiring

Or at least the company emailed to say that all parts of the order from ~5 months ago arrived,

supply chain, supply chain, supply chain…………….

Sherlock:

Have you A/B’ed you cables against lamp cord? 

Glad you asked. I knew you would ask that question. You folks always ask that question. The answer is YES. I always do A/Bs, and always double blind, with my neighbors as third party. As a matter of fact, I just did an ABX yesterday. I nailed it ten out of ten. I was trying to determine whether I can really distinguish between Luciano Pavarotti and Michael Jackson, or weather brain was playing tricks to me 🙄

Well @thyname Michael Jackson was wearing masks before it became fashionable. So there is something there.

@pesky_wabbit yeah supply chain is probably it.

Luckily I was able to use the lamp cord as the fat 4’ AQ cables that connect to the monoblocks, would not stretch out to a stereo amp that replaced the blown monoblock(s).

The OP could also get some copper bar to replace the jumper on his speakers. Which should be easier to source with the supply chain dramas.

The speakers still sound great with lamp cords, but I did bi-wire them as they seemed a bit skinny. At least the picture is a true depiction of how it sits at the moment. Maybe it sound good because the speakers are good… but the bass end of the spectrum has been a bit thin.

@jay73 RE: 

So, you literally mean copper wire terminated to spade or banana plugs with the specs that you mentioned?

Exactly - here's the problem with those plates

• they are most probably made of brass or even some copper alloy like Copper Beryllium
• this will not conduct the signal as effectively as pure copper
• if you plug the cables into the HF terminals then the low frequencies are impacted
• if oyu plug the cables into the LF terminals then the high frequencies are impacted
• replacing the plated with pure copper (like Romex) or even better use UP-OCC copper, then you should hear no change regardless of which terminals you pluf the cables into

I had a pair of bi-wire speakers

• I tried bi-wire cables and they worked OK
• then I replaced the plate-jumpers with copper wire and went back to a single cable and it actually sounded better.
• Then a fellow DIYer told me about the 20" jumper - he had researched different lengths a lot and 20" was the optimum length
• I then made UP-OCC copper jumpers from 2 x 18 gauge wire from VH Audio and the speakers had never sounded so good

If you are into DIY tale a look at these cables - they provide excellent results

My Audio Alchemy (image99.net)

If you have any questions just ask

Hope that helps - Steve

Nice photos by the way too steve!...