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Should I Bi-Wire or Use Jumpers?



I recently upgraded my 7 year old Kimber 4pr to Speltz Anti-Cable and this made a huuuge improvement... but I want to take it to the next level.

I'm currently using a pair of PSB Stratus Mini's, which can be bi wired but only have one single run of anti-cable along with the stock jumpers in place. My Denon PMA 2000ivr also has a and b speaker outputs for bi wiring.

My question is - will it make any difference if I use a double run on Anti-Cable to bi wire vs. a single run with the addition of anti cable jumpers? The price difference between the two is only about $50.00 so this isnt a concern but jumpers would be slightly easier to manage.

Oh yeah, If my current speaker wire has spades, can I also use jumpers with spades? For example having two sets of spade connections in ony binding post ( speaker wire and jumpers) or will this degrade the sound? Maybe a better option would be banana plugs for the jumpers.
dave123456
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nvanderstoep
18 posts
 
I guess I should add that I did like Paul Speltz's cables bi-wired, and at that cost it is not so difficult to do as some.
bleoberis
33 posts
 
I notice some speaker manuals actually recommend bi-wiring their speakers - surely it is inadvisable to ignore something given in the guidelines of a product (presumably written by an engineer who has measured the tonal differences)?
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dave_b
3,159 posts
 
Bleoberis, I thought my Maggies sounded better single wired until I found some bi-wire cables that delivered the goods....what a difference, especially in the mid bass and bass definition and weight. Experimenting really is the only way:O)
programmergeek
322 posts
 
Unless you find someone with your specific set up or you can borrow the cables you are going to buy with jumpers and bi wire and try them. I would guess more of the time bi wire will sound better, not all the time but most of the time. This is the problem with cables there is no all the time answer.
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dogmcd
115 posts
 
Whether or not bi-wiring is a benefit or not remains an open debate and I know some speaker manufacturers don't do it because they feel it's a detriment (ala Dynaudio). I've run both bi-wire systems and standard runs, and I'm not sure that I can reliably say that it's always a benefit.

However, the one thing that is important with bi-wiring is that you actually use TWO sets of cables per speaker. If you use a cable that's set up for "internal" bi-wiring, all you're doing is splitting a single run in two somewhere along the way to accomodate a speaker's bi-wire connection. To gain any benefit, you really need two separate runs.
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