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  3. 133060-154

Simple copper speaker terminal jumpers? Lost my originals.

Can anybody recommend simple, but good quality, copper jumpers that bridge the bi-wire terminals?  I mean just the little piece of copper with the openings on each end.  I see the Cardas ones, but I don't understand how you can adjust them for the distance between the terminals, as they seem to be a solid piece.  Can they be bent a bit to make them fit?  Any other suggestions? 

The reason I'm asking is that I seem to have misplaced the original jumpers for my speakers and I found a set lying around the house that seem to have been from different speakers and don't really fit completely onto the terminal posts.  Also, they look more like brass than copper.  So, I'd like to try a different jumper.

Also, I currently have the cables connected to the HF terminals, but I saw on some threads here that people were connecting the cables to the LF terminals and jumping to the HF.  Which do you think is better, audio-wise? 
mtrot
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,887 posts
 
@mtrot I'm going to be looking for jumpers as well with my next set of speakers as I'm going to ditch the metal jumpers on them ASAP. Since my speaker cables are a mix of large strands of copper and smaller strands of silver plated copper, I'm leaning towards the DH Labs jumpers. 

The combination of copper and silver in the cables with silver spades and the short distance should guarantee that nothing will be left behind. And since the speaker make recommends using the bass inputs when using jumpers, that's the way I'd go.

All the best,
Nonoise
mtrot OP
804 posts
 
@nonoise

Thanks, well, once I have the jumpers in place, it will be easy enough to try it both ways!  It just seems to me that it would be better to connect the speaker cables directly to the HF terminals with respect to the delicacy of HF signals. 
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,887 posts
 
I thought the same thing too but JBL knows more about this than I do.
😀
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
To add to the uncertainty about which terminals to connect the speaker cables to, there is a third possibility, which a number of members have indicated they prefer. That would be to connect one of the two wires in the cable to the low frequency terminals, and the other to the high frequency terminals. That is commonly referred to as a "diagonal" configuration.

Although some of the links Ghosthouse provided in his post above don’t work, I suspect the first one was intended to go to the following thread:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/speaker-jumpers-and-hook-up-choices-question

Regarding the diagonal connection possibility, I stated as follows in that thread:
The diagonal configuration ... results in low frequency currents and high frequency currents each having to go through one jumper during their round-trip from the amp to the speaker and back. While when connecting both conductors to either the bottom or the top ... one of those currents would be going through two jumpers, and the other through none.

However, assuming good contact integrity, good quality jumpers, jumpers that are minimal in length, and assuming the equipment is in an equal state of warmup when the different configurations are tried, I have no idea why or if the diagonal configuration would sound significantly different than the other two configurations in most cases.
Good luck. Regards,
-- Al

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,887 posts
 
Thanks Al!
I would never have thought of that. To go from 'either/or' to 'how about this' brings up the old "don't cross the lines" from Ghostbusters, but in this case, please do. 👍

All the best,
Nonoise
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