Bi-wire speakers and bi-wire cables?


My speakers are bi-wired right now with some Audioquest rocket 33’s. So the jumpers are off the back of the speakers. 
I want to still use my current speaker cables but can I just connect the jumpers and still use all four of the Audioquest speaker ends in all four of the high/low binding posts of the speaker?
The reason I’m asking is I want to see if I hear a difference with bi-wiring and not bi-wiring without messing up the speakers?
todd1010

Showing 1 response by soix

Just use one pair of the cables in the lower level binding posts with the jumper for single wire and remove the jumper and reinsert second pair of cables to the upper binding posts for bi-wire.  Differences tend to be hit or miss depending on speaker design, cables used, etc.  I’ll say from my experience a shotgun bi-wire cable sounds a little better than a single run I assume because the additional gauge further lowers resistance.  But, the difference is small enough that I’d advocate putting those $$$ into upgrading other components or interconnects, power cords, etc. before spending more on bi-wiring.  Of course YMMV.  I think ditching stock jumpers and replacing with better quality wire there may make a big improvement for much less $.  

One other further thing you can try is to continue to bi-wire while also using better wire jumpers simultaneously.  My cables use spade connectors but I also use wire jumpers in the banana connections and surprisingly it makes a significant improvement over just bi-wiring alone. FWIW.