Bi-wire options with a single cable

the professor

the professor

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It's been to long since I've had a speaker that could be bi-wired (1999) that I was wondering what the preference is with people these days. If there is any.

What are people's thoughts on the best way to use jumpers to wire up a single run of speaker cable to a bi-wirable speaker?

Cables to tweeter the jumpers to the bass

Cables to bass and then jumpers to the tweeters

or Diagonal. Plus to tweeter and minus to bass using jumpers for the rest.

Nordost has a guide to sell their jumpers. But it's hard to trust a cable company brochure, other than they say try it and see.

http://www.nordost.com/downloads/NorseJumperinstructions.pdf
 
I have heard wire to the top section and jumper to the bottom. That is how I have my Clearfields wired but cannot say I played around with changing them.
 
After some experimentation I prefer Nordost's recommendation for a diagonal connection, as described in their jumper instructions that Jock linked to above. Of course I would expect that there could be different results in different systems, YMMV definitely applies!
 
I had heard about the diagonal method a long time ago but it was one of those "huh" why would you do that? But I didn't have bi-wireable speakers so couldn't try it.

In the past, I always put it on the highs and jumped to the bass. But don't ever remember trying it other ways. I'll experiment over the next couple nights. I was just goofing off here at work and was wondering.
 
i was just messing with this. i never tried diagonal. but i been using the cables on the tweeters and jumping to the bottom. now i wire to the bottom and jump to the top. it is much better on my speakers. i also just started doing spades on the cables and bananas on the jumpers and like that much better too. Mikech just made me a great set of banana jumpers, way better than the stock ones.
 
I tried various combos last night. And I can see that depending on your system, any of these might sound better. In my system, I ended up with the diagonal method. It just seems to have a bit more PRAT along with a deeper sound stage. It will be fun tonight to try the scenarios again and see if I come to the same conclusion. I'm using bananas so it's amazingly easy to switch.
 
Late last night I setup the diagonal configuration on my Clearfields. The jumpers came with the speakers and are of decent quality and use spades on both ends. Red to lower taps (Blue for my old Synergistics) and black to the highs. The Mrs had already gone to bed so I was listening for an hour at a pretty low level using the buffered-passive mode on my pre.

I got similar results as Jock just from preliminary listening. Fuller bass, more coherent stereo and imaging. Better soundstage and overall clarity. Tonight I will play some tunes in normal gain with a bit of volume and see what I get. I am assuming it will be better than what I heard last night at low level listening.

Great thread for tweakers! I would never have thought to cris-cross the cables or think it would have such an effect.
 
Shadowfax said:
Late last night I setup the diagonal configuration on my Clearfields. The jumpers came with the speakers and are of decent quality and use spades on both ends. Red to lower taps (Blue for my old Synergistics) and black to the highs. The Mrs had already gone to bed so I was listening for an hour at a pretty low level using the buffered-passive mode on my pre.

I got similar results as Jock just from preliminary listening. Fuller bass, more coherent stereo and imaging. Better soundstage and overall clarity. Tonight I will play some tunes in normal gain with a bit of volume and see what I get. I am assuming it will be better than what I heard last night at low level listening.

Great thread for tweakers! I would never have thought to cris-cross the cables or think it would have such an effect.
Click to expand...
sounds good, but just out of curiosity did you try them both on the bottom at all? i havent crisscrossed yet but since i moved them to the bottom bass is better and the tweeter has mellowed a bit.
 
I have not tried that yet but have felt that the speakers should actually have more bass than they do but thought it was more my Amp than the speakers. On the flip side, I have never had as good of midrange than I get from these old von Shweikert designed speakers.

I'm going to listen a bit in diagonal and then do all lower taps to compare. I don't always have the time to set aside and then if the wife goes to bed, I can't play at my volume levels.
 
Last night I moved the diagonal wiring to both + and - on the lower binding posts. The sound again changed and I seem to have the Bass I had been missing all along with my Clearfields. I am pretty sure it is in the Speaker manual where they said to wire to the top and jumper down so that was why I originally had it that way.

Now with the improved bass came what seems to be the loss of the larger soundstage. I need to listen to same music for a week again and see what I think but for now, I am pretty happy with what I have. I never had an issue with bass when driving my Dynaudios, they are not bi-wire-able and Dyns never lack bass.
 
Shadowfax said:
Last night I moved the diagonal wiring to both + and - on the lower binding posts. The sound again changed and I seem to have the Bass I had been missing all along with my Clearfields. I am pretty sure it is in the Speaker manual where they said to wire to the top and jumper down so that was why I originally had it that way.

Now with the improved bass came what seems to be the loss of the larger soundstage. I need to listen to same music for a week again and see what I think but for now, I am pretty happy with what I have. I never had an issue with bass when driving my Dynaudios, they are not bi-wire-able and Dyns never lack bass.
Click to expand...
nice!!! im my case the wiring to the top made my tweeter seem a little hot. wiring to the bottom mellowed that out but at a small loss to the imaging, overall the bottoms are better for me cause the added bass is sweet. and i cant try diagonal because my amps were just packed up and sold, so i got a few weeks until i have any more music. :sigh:
tests are always fun to do.
 
I've been playing a little. I replaced my jumpers with some reference nordost numbers last night and dammit -- it was a much bigger improvement than i ever thought there would be.

It's just amazing to me how much the sound changes by trying the different ways to connect the speaker wires to the speaker.
 
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