Sound color with different jumper materials,

jasonbourne521,734 posts

04-10-2022 at 04:49am 

@helmholtzsoul : connecting the jumpers diagonally will invert the HF driver phase with respect to the LF/woofer. Bad idea, contrary to the speaker designer's choice!

jason if I inferred swapping or inverting the wires, I certainly didn't mean to. I simply meant try the speaker cables in different positions but keep them phase correct.

top left and bottom right. THEN bottom left and top right for the speaker cable hook up..

Sounds funny but if you hook the wires up backwards to an XO with simple 6 or 12db slopes, it's not just the drivers that are moving the wrong direction, so is the AC signal. The signal hits a woofer backwards at full frequency, then exits to the inductor. The other way around it acts as a 6db first order LP filter.

Not all cable is equal. That little double UP OCC silver/copper/silicone jumper is a real eye opener. If you actually want to have some made they are about 30-100 dollars depending on the quality of the terminal ends and if you have a buddy with a conditioner. UP-OCC copper/silver ribbons are a good looking way to go also with super high detail.

Of all the people I hang with only ONE buys expensive cabling. We all have the best at a fraction of the cost. 

williewonka's helix don't even bother looking further. If you can't make that cable sound good, get your ears fixed, or just give your money away and keep the helix.

Tune the room and away you go.

My best to you all.

Oh my, I’ve been doing audio wrong for 50+ years 🙃

Wrong? which part?

I been learning for almost 50 years in my trade.  

I find thing I can do different and many time better than the first few times I tried.

Things do change..

helmholtzsoul, Now, I can hear the singer breathing, but before, it was as if inside the loudspeaker, the fluidity of the music was fighting, because of the bad connection of the loudspeaker and jumper wires. Now it's so much more alive, my moderately deaf ear is able to appreciate the music, there are so many details that stand out now. It really is another musical world.

@audiosens - I have tied a few different jumper recipes and also exchanged  emails with a fellow DIYer in Europe, who performed even more extensive tests. Here's what I settled on...

• the jumpers are 20" long - that was the optimum length he believed provided the best sound 
• the jumpers are made from 2 x 18 gauge solid UP-OCC copper wire - you can use UP-OCC silver, but it is NOT a night and day difference - at least on my system
  • each wire strand is in its own oversized Teflon tube
    • the internal diameter of the tube is 25% larger than the outside diemeter of the wire
    • this basically provides about 95% air gap around the wire, which minimizes the value of Dielectric Constant to a value very close to that of AIR
    • this improves greatly the clarity and details
  • the two wires are twisted together - one twist every 3"-4"
• they attach to the speakers using KLE Innovations Banana plugs
  • I have tried other connectors (banana and spade) and bare wire connections and these banana plugs outperformed each method by a considerable margin.

I get my UP-OCC hookup wire and other supplies from Parts Connexion

If interested - I also build my own DIY speaker cables - the construction details can be found here

• Helix Speaker Cables
• and here is what other member think of them
  • Helix DIY Cables

Hope that helps - Steve