Free Tip for Jumpers

I just tried the diagonal bi wire method tonight.  Took out my factory jumpers, installed some 8 gage jumpers and did the diagonal connection off of the amp.  I was a skeptic but figured that replacing the factory jumpers couldn't hurt.  I bought cheap jumpers off of Amazon from Worlds Best Cables. Quality looks good.  I wasn't going to spend hundreds on inches of wire. As an electrician I was very skeptical because as stated previously,  electricaly top post is same as bottom with jumpers installed. 

But damn.....a difference it did make. I wasn't happy with it, but it did make an obvious difference. It made my speakers brighter which im not a fan of. Probably because moving the - to the top post and getting rid of the crap factory jumpers allows more current to flow to the tweeters. I didn't care for it. I left jumpers in and moved speaker cable back down.  Took the brightness out and sound became smooth again. Moral of the story is that I'm now a believer in replacing factory jumpers, but for my set up and taste the diagonal method wasn't pleasing. Im may try it again and run ARC to see what happens.  Either way I'm running room correction again because it definitely changed things.  

I have some leftover #6 bare copper from a lighting ground project on a TV antenna to jump my old AE 1's. Works like a charm on the old metal drivers. 

@sandrodg73 

Thanks for recounting your experiment. A couple thoughts. You did two things at once. It would be interesting to leave the original factory jumpers and only wire diagonally. See what that does.

It sounds like the aftermarket jumpers were not broken in. Unbroken in wires tend to be trebly and harsh… which, typically is also a common attribute of inexpensive audio wires. But hard to tell what is going on here.

Thanks for the input.  I'll try what you suggest. East swap.

My experience with three different models of Wharfedale monitors is that:

1) replacing the metal bars from the factory with jumpers improves the overall sound of the speakers 

2) the metal in the jumper cables matters with silver tipping the sound up towards treble emphasis compared with copper

3) connecting both red and black speaker cable leads on the HF terminals has a similar overall effect as connecting silver jumpers, emphasizing treble frequencies, while connecting both speaker cable ends to the LF terminals will emphasize bass and midrange and slightly roll off treble

4) cross wiring the + and - leads to the HF and LF terminals affects soundstaging, adding more detail to and widening the stereo image, with the positive lead attached to the HF terminal of the speaker slightly emphasizing treble, (opposite of what is described above?) but not to the same degree as attaching both cable ends to the HF posts.

I found these results on all three types of Wharfedale speakers of different vintages and costs.  Newer Wharfedales come with instructions on these various wiring configurations when using single wire cables.  

I have tried all kinds of homemade jumpers and some cheaper commercially available versions.  I am currently using some jumpers from AliExpress that are supposedly silver plated OCC copper with rhodium plated copper spades that cost between $11 and $45.  These seem super well made and sound fantastic to my ears.  The Worlds Best Cable jumpers mentioned in this thread from Amazon are supposed to be Canare wire, look well-made and are probably leaps ahead of the metal plates that come stock with many speakers.

YMMV

kn