Replacing Jumpers = Bi-wiring??

I have a pair of Sonus Faber Extremas. Not only did they sound better biwired but the biwire was one level lower then the single run with quality jumper.

The biwire was Mit MH 750 and the single run was Mit NH 750 Plus' yet the biwire sounded better.

It really depends. I recently upgraded speakers, the old pair sounded much better biwired. Upon setting up my new speakers with the same cables they sounded terrible. I was obviously dissapointed when my old speakers sounded a lot better in back to back comparisons. Then I set them up using a single wire and they now sound an order of magnitude better than my old speakers. I also upgraded the cable to Harmonic Tech from Kimber 8tc and the improvement is dramatic. The true test is through back to back comparison.

A question was asked previously why aren't there more high-end speakers designs out there that are single-wired as opposed to bi-wirable. I think that most manufacturers offer two sets of posts on their speakers with the intention of bi-amping and not bi-wiring. Bi-wiring is usually a bad idea as it introduces undesirable effects like electomagnetic and RF interferences due to the two sets of wiring running in proximity, plus the benefits are questionable on a three-way design and non-existant in a two way design. 99% of the time you will be much better off investing the extra money in a better set of wires than bi-wiring. Happy listening.

As has been stated, the benefits of bi-wiring are system dependent and dependent on how you do it (internal or shotgun). With many speakers bi-wiring is beneficial. But I think the worst idea of all is shotgunning. I reckon getting a better cable is almost always better than doubling the runs. In many cases doubling the runs is worse even if you are not bi-wiring. I just want to also add that spending a lot on jumpers makes little sense to me because with many speakers you can open them up and reconnect the internal wires all to the one set of binding posts and do without the jumpers altogether, and get a better result.

Hi Leafs: Long time no talk about bi-wire. I tried it with a pair of Castle Isis speakers and it did sound different than single wire, I didn't care for the sound though and preferred that of just using an additional piece of my Kimber Kable to jump the highs and lows. I ended up bi-amping the speakers for a short time (approx. one hour as my second new amp was not functioning properly and developed a very loud hum in both channels). The bi-amping even when using the internal passive crossovers made a very impressive improvement in the sound. I would suggest that people try bi-wiring in their setup to see if it not only makes a difference, but an improvement as well. It was easy for me to try though as I had purchased an additional run of cable with the intention of bi-amping. What I did not like about the sound of bi-wiring my setup was that the presentaion was less seamless. I can't imagine why this would be, but this is what I heard along with the increased detail. The speakers had their crossover at 3500 hz with 12db steps. This seems higher than the norm to me and may have been the cause of my displeasure, I don't know though.

megasam Biwire set up is for people who want to BIamp a speaker.Bi amping offers great sonic benifit.Bi wire does not.
The other thing is many speaker MFG have put this on just to say they can biwire.They know it has no sonic benifit but its one of those things that mfg a has it so mfg b better have it or there could be a perception that he is not as current.
Martin DeWoulf of Bound For Sound magazine amongst others have recently written about this subject.

Leafs why do the many high end speakers provide bi-wire design? Single wire designs with elaborate internal crossover designs can be excellent sounding speakers, the speaker manf has decided for you that $500 single cable is better than two $250 cables, just a different design philosophy. Both approaches can produce great speakers, no need to say one is absolutely better than another.

I accept both as valid solutions, with bi-wire designs you have a choice, let the customer do it his way.

Yo Leafs, I'm a disappointed Leafs fan. Or should I say "the pretenders". Each year dawns and we pretend the leafs are going to do it. The leafs make all the right noises and they pretend they're going to do it. But they never do. And the dance goes on but there is no stanley cup contender in Toronto and they'll have to start the rebuild. And we pretend to believe them. Cheers, bluenose

Hi! I am using XLO Reference Type 5 bi-wire on my Apogees. I am comtemplating upgrading my XLO Reference bi-wire to a single pair of XLO Signature or even perhaps Electraglide silver speaker cables. The problem is that bi-wiring is not exactly cheap. So my personal view is buy that speaker cables and that if you can afford it later, buy another pair and go bi-wire. Maybe you will be so happy with the sound that you might not want to bi-wire.

Leafs, thats kind of a blanket statement don't you think? There are plenty of great sounding bi-wired designs out there also. It just depends on the design

My Meadowlark Kestrals came with wire jumpers(something all spkr companys should do). I have tried biwiring but somehow the wire jumpers sound better. I'm assuming the jumpers are the same as the internal wire and sonically are a match. I think biamping would be the way to go if you really want to hear a diffence. Best of luck.

Bluenose which team do yo chher for.

Megasam,Why are some of the best highend speakers in the market place single wire.If bi wire was what you claim why would these great sounding speakers be single wired.
BIWIRE IS THE POOR MANS ATTEMPT AT THE SONIC BENIFIT OF BI AMPING.

Trent do yourself a favor and follow the instructions in your speaker owners manual. REMOVE jumpers when bi-wiring,
that is the way your bi-wire speaker was designed with seperate treble and bass crossover circuits. Jumpers are used for single wire use only, and connect the crossovers together.

As some have stated, stock jumpers used when single wired can be replaced with short higher quality cable jumpers that may slightly improve sound, but this is not the same as bi-wiring. Bi-wiring will improve sound more than upgrading jumpers, but it is a much more expensive proceedure.

Although there is an improvement in sound with bi-wire in speakers properly designed for bi-wire, it may not be worth the extra cost to some people. Also two pairs of $250 speaker cables for bi-wire may not sound as good as a single $500 pair to you, try some from Cable Co library and see for yourself in your own system.....as I have done many times.

For simplified explanation/diagrams of bi-wiring here is one link, there are many on the internet if you search:

www.home-cinema-guide.co.uk/BiWiring%20Guide/biwire.htm

Thanks, everyone for the input. For what it's worth, the speakers under consideration would be Mission 780's.
Elizabeth, could you give me more info on your scheme? I've never heard of this before, and I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting.
Thanks Again!

I bi-wired my Mission 753 speakers and it was an improvement over their jumper posts...I don't know if wire jumpers would be an improvement, or not. It probably depends on your speaker. Checking with your manufacturer is probably a good idea.

Hello Leafs. So you noticed the same thing I did when you went single wired. I think everyone should try both ways and decide which they like best. Pierre at Mapleshade believes in single wires if they are quality wires should as his double helix. Too bad about the Leafs. They will be knocked out first round. The question is, will they win a game? Cheers, Leafs and thanks for your input.

Bi wire is not better as bluenose stated i went from double run of Audioquest midnight to single run with jumpers and then to single wire.The sound is best with single wire.Speak to a speaker MFG he will tell you where its at.There are many high end speakers that come single wire and the designers will tell you they sound best this way.
If you must jumper,use a piece of the same cable as your main speaker cable.

Most supplied jumpers are crap, it cant hurt to replace them with a piece of decent cable,but bi-wiring is still better

My speakers, newform research r8-2's were always bi-wired until lasst year when I changed things and in the process found something interesting IM OWN setup. The speakers were more coherent when run with a single Good wire. I talked with Pierre at Mapleshade and bought the mapleshade ribbon jumpers. This was a huge jump. I mentioned it to John Meyer, designer of the newform ribbon and he was surprised. I also changed the red dawn for acoustic zen satori, a wire this speaker loves...it's all synergy and your results may differ. I will say the copper jumpers supplied with most speakers hinder the performance of the speaker as I have found out....cheers, Lloyd

Upgrading the stock jumpers will make an improvement, but not as much as bi-wiring in most cases. It is speaker and amplifier dependent, but the theory behind biwire is that the speaker cable resistance reduces interaction between the high and low frequencies. There are some bi-wires that use different wire for the high and low frequencies to optimize the performance to the high and low drivers.

Hi! I have replaced my stock copper jumpers that came with my Mission speakers with 6 inch strands of speakers cables. I was using symo speaker cables and have some short lenghts left over. What I did was solder the lengths to some bananas and used it to bridge the hi/lo of the speakers. Sounded better. However, I am currently using Pure Silver Sound Pure Silver Bridge for bi-wire speakers from Mr. Frank Steele. It's made of pure silver and it sounded clearer than my D.I.Y effort.

I've only tried this on one pair of speakers which are B&W 802's. Biwiring definitely sounds better on these than changing the jumpers. Why, I don't know.