re: Nordost Jumpers
Sorry to jump in a little late on the topic as I've been traveling. I have had extensive experience with Jumpers using a couple of different Nordost speaker cables and even more when working with another "participant" on this thread who has even higher end Nordost than myself.
With Nordost, it is absolutely critical that the jumpers are at same or better level than the speaker cables themselves. I have theories as to why this is, but I could not technically argue them against people on this site that know much more about this than myself.
What I can say is that I had basic Nordost jumpers and Frey 1 speaker cables (Heimdahl IC) with excellent results. Which posts were jumped allowed me to slightly adjust tone and "impact" of the system but all ways sounded musical. When I upgraded my system to all Valhalla 1 the overall sound of the system deteriorated dramatically, even though I preferred some aspects of presentation. The harshness, or thinness that some people attribute to Nordost was very present. I tried jumping highs, lows and cross jumping the way that Nordost recommends. Nothing seemed to help.
I was about to just resell the V1 s but in a last ditch effort, I bought a pair of Reference jumpers. Instantly, the issues went away. The overall sound and musicality leapt past the Frey level. Now all of the detail and clarity that Nordost is known for was matched with bass response, depth and coherence that makes for fantastic, uncolored and unfatiguing listening experience. Some months later, I had the opportunity to land a pair of Valhalla 1 jumpers so that mains and jumpers were identical. Although I did not expect that it would or could get better, there was a significant improvement to all aspects of the sound. Not bad vs. good, but more very good vs better. Additionally, which posts were jumped became more or less inconsequential. I have heard from close friends that have Odin 1 and Valhalla 2 speaker cabling and they have had similar results.
WC, my dealer is a Wilson and a Nordost rep. They have the same experiences. Because of the incredible attention placed on time coherence with Wilson, I expect that the sensitivity to the jumpers to be heightened even over my own (ProAc Response 5). Our friend, who listens to incredibly fast YG speakers has heard a significant improvement from going from Reference to Valhalla 2 jumpers.
As you know, my system is not nearly at the overall level of what yours is, but my experience is that the better the system, the more important these seemingly unimportant details become. Again, I can't explain why it is the case, but only that I have found it to be the case in several situations. I think it is particularly true once you start playing at the V2 and Odin levels.
Sorry to jump in a little late on the topic as I've been traveling. I have had extensive experience with Jumpers using a couple of different Nordost speaker cables and even more when working with another "participant" on this thread who has even higher end Nordost than myself.
With Nordost, it is absolutely critical that the jumpers are at same or better level than the speaker cables themselves. I have theories as to why this is, but I could not technically argue them against people on this site that know much more about this than myself.
What I can say is that I had basic Nordost jumpers and Frey 1 speaker cables (Heimdahl IC) with excellent results. Which posts were jumped allowed me to slightly adjust tone and "impact" of the system but all ways sounded musical. When I upgraded my system to all Valhalla 1 the overall sound of the system deteriorated dramatically, even though I preferred some aspects of presentation. The harshness, or thinness that some people attribute to Nordost was very present. I tried jumping highs, lows and cross jumping the way that Nordost recommends. Nothing seemed to help.
I was about to just resell the V1 s but in a last ditch effort, I bought a pair of Reference jumpers. Instantly, the issues went away. The overall sound and musicality leapt past the Frey level. Now all of the detail and clarity that Nordost is known for was matched with bass response, depth and coherence that makes for fantastic, uncolored and unfatiguing listening experience. Some months later, I had the opportunity to land a pair of Valhalla 1 jumpers so that mains and jumpers were identical. Although I did not expect that it would or could get better, there was a significant improvement to all aspects of the sound. Not bad vs. good, but more very good vs better. Additionally, which posts were jumped became more or less inconsequential. I have heard from close friends that have Odin 1 and Valhalla 2 speaker cabling and they have had similar results.
WC, my dealer is a Wilson and a Nordost rep. They have the same experiences. Because of the incredible attention placed on time coherence with Wilson, I expect that the sensitivity to the jumpers to be heightened even over my own (ProAc Response 5). Our friend, who listens to incredibly fast YG speakers has heard a significant improvement from going from Reference to Valhalla 2 jumpers.
As you know, my system is not nearly at the overall level of what yours is, but my experience is that the better the system, the more important these seemingly unimportant details become. Again, I can't explain why it is the case, but only that I have found it to be the case in several situations. I think it is particularly true once you start playing at the V2 and Odin levels.