bi wiring

Glad it helped Bob.

If the speaker is designed to properly take advantage of biwiring, it does make a discernable difference.

There is no voodoo in biwiring. Low frequencies actually do carry with them a large magnetic field that will modulate delicate high frequencies traveling within the same cable. Biwiring simply isolates the high frequencies from this strong magnetic field by providing a dedicated path for each.

Those who are single wiring will be surprised if they compare the sound of their speakers with the single cable going to the treble connections and jumpering down to the bass vs. the opposite. Whichever driver(s) are getting the direct connection sound noticably clearer and more articulate than the driver(s) connected via the jumper. In my experience, no matter how good the quality of the jumper, this is the case.

The best way to single wire is to cross wire. Run your positive to the treble positive and your negative to the bass negative and jumper positves to each other and negatives to each other. This averages the loss in sonic performance evenly across the whole speaker. Try it.

Frank,

With very few exceptions, you really don't want to use two completely different models or brands of cables for biwiring. You want the two cables to be identical or at least very similar in character. I believe that the reason you like the sound better with the otherwise unnecessary jumpers back in is because what you are doing is blending the two cable's sounds together. By defeating the split crossovers for biwiring and running two speaker cables you are really just shotgun wiring your speakers with two different cables and averaging their sound across the whole speaker.

The advantages of true biwiring are not as important as having consistent and coherent sound from the top to bottom of your speakers.

I would wager that if you had two identical sets of whichever is your favorite cable, say the Stage III Vacuum Ref., you would like the sound much better with them biwired properly (with the jumpers removed).