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Do not use stock jumpers

I've been using biwire Cardas Golden Ref with my Silverline Sonatina II's for some time now and very happy. Recently out of curiousity I've been trying Audience AU24, single wire, but I did not have the jumper so I was using the speaker's stock jumper. It sounded great, very refined and focused with great bass, but perhaps a bit weak in the lower mids.

Last night my banana-terminated AU24 jumpers arrived and I plugged them in after doing some testing with the stock jumpers. WOW. The sound is practically unrecognizable. Fully fleshed out lower mids and far bigger soundstage, more bounce (it had not been short of bounce), just awesome.

I had NOT been feeling that jumpers would make that big a difference. Heck, I did not feel that there was that big a difference to make.

Several years ago when I had Spendor FL9's I remember now experimenting with jumpers and feeling that it also made a big difference. (I had forgotton about this since I'd been biwiring so long.)

Anyway, Audience AU24 speaker cables with AU24 jumpers is stunning combination.

And, well, even that those stock jumper look so beautiful, I remain shocked at how much sound they were holding back. I still can't figure how a piece of metal or cable that short can make such a huge difference.

If you are thinking about experimenting with upgraded jumpers, I say, stop thinking and do it. (and no, I don't have any connection to anyone selling jumpers, or Audience cables! If there are people out there getting rich selling jumpers, I sure don't know them..).

This is just a heads-up from a fellow hobbiest. My experience leads me to believe that it is well worthwhile to experiment with replacing the stock jumpers, because the stock jumpers might be holding you back a lot more than you think.

Art
artmaltman

Showing 5 responses by infinity_audio

infinity_audio
186 posts
 
Most of the stock jumpers are gold plated.
You never know what's under the plating...
Brass? Stainless Steel? Steel alloy?
80% of the chance that the stock jumpers are not good conductors like copper & silver...
In this case, upgrading jumpers will improve the sound.
infinity_audio
186 posts
 
Good! Now you can play around by jumping either from bass to hi, or from hi to bass. I say from bass to hi is good because the Au24 will do a little bit anti-harsh / anti-edges... smotthing things out a little bit! Have fun!
infinity_audio
186 posts
 
Stehno: They are 915.1 and solid silver jumpers
infinity_audio
186 posts
 
That is the best way to bridge... for jumping INSIDE the crossover; BUT a lot of users doesn't want the mess around with the stuffs they don't know and since audio gears get upgraded all the times, I guess they don't want to ruin the resell value or maybe they don't want to void the warranty. Soldering technique is also very important when you are doing signal paths... No offense for what you said. Your method DO provide the best quality sound but this sometimes just don't pay off. For some other audiophile fellows out there it's just too much to consider... A set of quality jumpers shouldn't be too far from the best.
infinity_audio
186 posts
 
I do agree with the method and your theory stated. It's not a matter of how cheap and easy the modification can be done. Trust me, it will end up costing more then you think. The speakers will loose value because you pop the posts open without letting the manufacturer do the job. Good for all of you who has the technique doing the mod and again, no doubt the above suggest method is the ultimate to go (ultimate way to go is to take off the spades on your speaker cable and solder them DIRECTLY onto the crossover... C'on , there is always a better way...) but as most of the audiophiles who are not handy (about 85% of them) Getting a set of quality jumpers are the way to go and it certainly for 100% will provide a certain degree of improvement. This post is for discussing upgrading from stock jumpers to the user's newly bought Audience jumper, not anything beyond that. We are a little bit off the topic here. Why don't we start a new thread to discuss the con / pro of the above mod? Shall we?
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