Cables, Cables

I can easily believe that inexpensive cable can outperform expensive cable. For example, I bought some expensive well known flat cable with spaced wires and put it work replacing some much less expensive, much more ordinary twisted 14 guage audiophile cable. This flat cable produced a balance tilted towards the highs at the expense of the bottom end of the spectrum. Crystal clear, but just, for me at least, tonally unbalanced. In another set up I relocated some equipment and went from 10ft of 12 guage cable to 40 feet of the same cable. Rolled off the highs and the bass became mushy (probably the same thing because often its the high frequency overtones that make bass seem fast or slow). Its a crap shoot re proper cables unless you understand the specific needs of your system, electrically speaking. Sounds like you made a good connection with the HD cables, lots of other folks have.

Moganes, did you connect the speaker cables to the top terminals? Or whatever the mid-high terminals are on your speakers, that's where the speaker cables should be connected to. In case you hooked up the speaker cables to a woofer terminal, your lifeless sound may be a product of the jumpers providing signal to mid-highs and not the speaker cable. Take a look.

Do try Audphile1's suggestion and also be sure the jumper is decent -- not the stuff that typically comes with the speaker. A short length of the Home Depot wire should do the trick since you had good experience with it.

If it still sounds worse, even after some burn-in, enjoy the Home Depot wire, sell the Audioquest and think of all the money you're saving!

Ozfly, good point. Something I forgot to mention is the jumpers quality.

Another thing Moganes, let the cables play for a while before you make up your mind. You may get used to this sound and not be able to go back to the HD wire.

Also, when you get better, more revealing cables, the flaws of your components show much easier.

P.S.
AQ cables in general have a bit of a dark character to their sound.

A few years back I was using black 18 gauge zip cord for my tweeters. It was quite good and bettered LAT, Kimber, and JPS mid-line cables.