I'm adding Jupper cables and your opinion is ??

When you consider just inside of the binding post is whatever type of hookup wire the speaker designer chose to utilize, it is harder to imagine a 6 to 8 inch jumper wire making a huge difference as long as the gauge is adequate. Al is correct, there is a whole bunch of info available here on bi-wiring. Based on your statement regarding a double run, "a price tag of the cable that I'm looking at of about $16,000," I assume the cables you are considering are about $8K per pair. At that level, and considering the quality of your Avalon's, I would probably obtain a pair of the cable manufacturer's own jumpers to be sure you are achieving everything you should be sonically.

Dave -- I didn't say that perceivable differences would not ever occur, I said that "there is no well-established technical reason" why there should be a difference. A consequence of that being that any possible differences are unlikely to be predictable or consistent across different systems. I should have expressed that more fully in my previous post.

Regards,
-- Al

I strongly disagree with your point (1), remembering the difference between using the bar-type jumper that ProAc supplied with my Response 3s and the foil jumpers from Mapleshade when I was using their cables. I'm not one of those who speak of jaw-dropping differences, but this was something else. I went back and forth between the supplied jumpers and the foil, not believing what I was hearing.

JD and the others have made some excellent comments, but I would put it a bit differently:

1)There is no well-established technical reason why the wire type used for the short jumper between bi-wire terminals on a speaker will make any difference sonically, assuming the gauge is adequate and good contact is made.

2)Bi-wire vs. single-wire plus jumper can certainly make a difference in many systems, although subjectively the difference may not necessarily be for the better. See the following threads in which people reported an apparent loss in bass when bi-wiring, for which I provided what I believe to be the correct explanation near the end of each thread:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1247016622

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1247245568

And here is some general background on biwiring and its potential benefits:

http://www.brilliancehifi.co.uk/how-to-bi-wire-speakers.htm

Regards,
-- Al

Correct. That was my point.

As per those who recommend two separate runs, I completely agree, many manufacturers use a single run with two tails, meaning somehow they splice the second tail into the single run. This of course adds solder and potential disruption of the signal, or at best is not a pure design solution.

Therefor I build mine as single runs, one run for the treble/midrange and a separate cable for the bass. In my design the two are actualy different wire configurations inside the cable. The bass tries to lighten the individual gauges (greater overall) to speed up the leading edge and provide more dynamics over the full frequency design.

What this offers is the ability to maximize the use of two cables, as each set of posts have very different needs in supplying the signal.

In the case here, getting a jumper to match the original full range speaker cable (same design) is an excellent solution. I would run the main cable to the treble/midrange and jump to the bass.

Good Luck,

JD MacRae
Jade Audio, LLC

i believe that the desighn reason for 4 wire set up on speakers was for biamping. in which case you need 4 complete sets of wire and 4 seperate amp channels, preferably mono amps. to me "biwiring" was something created by wire companys to sell more wire. just my thoughts

Thank you for your responses and I agree that running seperate runs would be the ultimate best - that would come with a price tag of the cable that I'm looking at of abount $16,000.....out of the question. The Avalon Eclipse's need to be-wired, so if I am understanding everybody here - okay to use a single run and using the same wire as the jumpers would be okay without losing any sonic benefits.

The jumpers should work fine. So should thin (solid core) speaker wires, as opposed to the garden-hose variety I used for years. I used to believe that because bi-wired inputs were provided by my speakers (then ProAc Response 3), this is what I should use. I'm glad those days are over. Good luck, Dave

Agree with Dcruby.

I use Analysis plus Big Silver jumpers to bi-wire my Helicon 300s.

agree with jd above, the bass speakers are much less dependant on wire than the mid and treble for their sonic character.

i would just suggest to get a big gauge wire (8 or 10 gauge) so that none of the signal from the amp is constricted in its last few inches of journey. silver works good on bass signals.

I have sort of given up on buying bi-wire speaker cables. I believe there is a sonic benefit to bi-wiring with some speakers, but to maximize the benefit you need to run the bi-wire pair separated from each other. Therefore, I ultimately prefer two single runs of the same cable. Another advantage is that you can try a single run of the wire first, and then decide whether you really like it before adding another single run when you can afford it. Purist actually doubles their wire on their bi-wire cables, which is good, but the cables are in the same jacket. This was a long way of saying buy the single run, try the jumpers and then decide later whether you want to add another single run. BTW, you can easily make your own jumpers using hook-up wire (partsconnexion has everything 20% off through the month), or even short runs of a manufacturer's speaker cable if you can get it. Try twisting up four wires of 20awg PCOCC copper (don't go less than 6-8 inches), and terminate with spades, bananas or one of each.

No, In our experience it has little to no effect if you use jumpers made from the same wire configuration as the speaker cable. In our case wwe make short 8"-12" jumpers with spades or banana plugs. They work great!

JD MacRae
Jade Audio, LLC