So, am I to understand that a speaker designer/manufacturer who makes their living from actually specifying the drivers used, and designing the cabinets, driver layout, bracing, crossovers, frequency range for each driver, and how to make it all work together and sound good, actually knows less about what hook up wire to use than a bunch of folks on the internet? Amazing.
Free Tip for Jumpers
If you have already replaced the stock jumpers on your bi wire speakers I found this to be a nice boost in sound quality. It was a Nordost section of Music Direct, FYI.
Enjoy!
Diagonal Bi-Wire
For those looking for maximum performance from their bi-wire speakers, Nordost has a recommendation. Connect your speaker wire to the speaker as follows: Red lead to the Red midrange/bass post, Black lead to the Black tweeter post. Then insert the Norse Jumpers as you normally would, sit back and hold on to your socks. The effect is astounding, with greater focus, detail and less haze and grain. We don't really understand how it works, but it does so try it for yourself!
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Most loudspeakers contain not only junk hookup wire, but junk crossover parts. Take a look inside any given speaker and see what you find. Danny Richie is not just some guy on the internet. He is a professional designer with many loudspeakers to his credit. He offers upgrade packages that not only replace the junk parts commonly found in loudspeakers built to a price point (almost all are) with high quality capacitors, resistors, coils, and-yes-wire, but also "fixes" the flaws he finds in the design of most speakers sent to him. That includes frequency response aberrations (often the result of sub-optimum crossover design), stored energy resonances (revealed in spectral decay---i.e. waterfall---plots) in both drivers and enclosures, any many other flaws (watch a GR Research video or two---see below). He also sells loudspeaker kits for DIYers, which contain those same parts (as well as drivers built to his specs). And then there is the GR Research/Rythmik Audio subwoofers, designed in a collaboration between Danny and Brian Ding of Rythmik. A sealed 12" model, and a remarkable OB/Dipole sub, THE sub for use with dipole loudspeakers (whether employing electrostatic, planar-magnetic, ribbon, or dynamic drivers).
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@bdp24 - I get that many/most manufacturers do not use boutique wire and crossover parts, but some use better parts (mostly caps) where they believe it will make a sonic difference. Standard OFC hook up wire is still 101% conductivity on the IACS scale, and certainly not “junk.” Therefore, perhaps the designer, who has presumably listened critically to their product, determined nothing more or different was needed. Same with jumper plates, which, assuming they are gold-plated copper, would probably not affect the sound any more than the binding post themselves. The results of listening tests on cross-connected binding post jumpers would be interesting to me. The longer I do this, the more I question obsession vs. progression in this hobby. |
Where the line is separating high SQ standards from obsessiveness is an interesting (and personal) question. Nelson Pass used Mills resistors in his First Watt B4 crossover I own, because the cost of doing so (not cheap) was justified by the SQ that resistor affords. He made the B4 fully-discrete (no opamps or integrated circuits) for the same reason.
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