Jumpers

bifwynne; if more people compared 10 or 12 gauge Romex for speaker cables they might be shocked at how good it sounds!

I have used a bi-wire set of Nordost speaker cable for years and recently upgraded my Valkyrie  (sp?) to Valhalla series 1 in a shot-gun configuration and had a set of Valhalla jumpers made to accomodate the 4 binding posts on the back of my speakers. Interesting when I started the process my local dealer indicated that Nordost had re thought the approach and believes the single run with jumper set up is better over a bi wire cable arrangement. I really like the improvements the new cable and set up make buts its difficult to separate what impact each is making.

My Nordost dealer stated that Nordost would no longer sell internal biwire cable because they belived a single cable plus jumper sounded better, but that a single cable plus jumper was not as good as a double run of cable.

Nordost has indicated that they have identified a negative phase shift using standard IBW. 

N
 

Well, here's yet another take.  I've been using AZ Satori shotgun biwire cables (spades) forever and slightly prefer them to a single run with my speakers.  Then Chris Sommovigo (then from Stereovox) recommended in addition to the shotgun cables I should try also using his jumpers with banana connectors at the same time.  I was pretty skeptical but agreed to try it, and I'll be damned but there was a noticeable improvement mostly in the form of tighter and quicker bass.  I pulled the jumpers out and sure enough, the bass sounded relatively looser and sloppier such that the jumpers haven't been removed since.  Now, I can't be sure if the improvement is due to the physical design/sound of the jumpers versus my cables or something like reduced resistance, but I suspect it could be a little of both.  I guess my bottom line point is that even if you're already using a shotgun biwire configuration there could still be meaningful benefits to using quality jumpers.  And it could be a relatively cheap tweak.  Sorry if I went off topic here.