2 runs of wires or 1 run w/ jumpers

Without prejudice to the effects that the absolute benefits are always system dependent, a large chunk of the high-end quality build brands are moving away from bi-wiring in favour of shotgunned runs and jumpers.

Biamping ... Different story.

E.g. NORDOST

http://www.nordost.com/downloads/NorseJ ... ctions.pdf

CHORD

http://www.chord.co.uk/help-and-informa ... ngle-wire/

".... Many hi-fi and home cinema loudspeakers have two pairs of binding posts. This allows the speaker to be either bi-wired using two sets of loudspeaker cable or bi-amped using two amplifiers.

As a general rule (and there will always be exceptions) we tend to find that bi-wiring will open out the sound stage and increase perceived levels of detail. However, single wiring will often sound the most musically coherent. There is also an issue with single and bi-wire speaker cables. In all the research we have carried out, a single wire speaker cable out-performs a bi-wire cable of equivalent cost. This makes a lot of sense; the single wire speaker cable has two high quality conductors and the bi-wire cable requires four. So for a given budget, we believe that a single wire cable will always out-perform the equivalent bi-wire cable, so much so that we no longer produce dedicated bi-wire cables..."

For me, shotgunned NORDOST Freys with matched FREY jumpers bested all comers , single, biwire or bi-amped . - full stop. The differences were not subtle.------

On a related topic - has anyone found any benefits, i.e. when using a single cable + wire jumper links, of "diagonal wiring"?

i.e.
- the neutral of speaker cable is attached to the bass set of terminals
- the signal (or +ve)is connected to the mid/treble terminals
- or the other way around.

Thanks

Definitely 2 runs. Complex passages are no longer compressed and lyrics are easier to decipher. The improvements are immediately obvious and not a struggle to hear the differences.

2 runs are more EXPENSIVE but excellent ROI in my system.

I guess it really depends on the speaker; two runs of speaker cables on my single post Avalon Ascendants was spectacular but two runs of cables on my Acoustic Zen Crescendos didn't yield the same results, jumpers worked better...

"I'm curious Zd542 if you are comparing apples with apples. By this I mean are you comparing (2) $1000 cables to (1) $2000 cables?"

Sorry. I didn't see your question.

I used my Tara The 2 as the expensive cables. If I remember correctly, they were priced at about $3500 for a single 8 foot run.

I was going to use 2 runs of AQ CV-8, as the inexpensive cables, so I ordered 2 separate runs. Cost on those were about $1300. As luck would have it, AQ messed up and sent me 2 pairs of Type 6 instead ($400 both runs). They let me keep the type 6 until my CV-8's came. The $400 Type 6's easily beat the $3500 Tara. If I didn't hear it for myself, I would have never believed there was such a big difference.