Anyone try this? I first read about here, from Nordost: https://nordost.com/dealer downloads/NorseJumperinstructions_Eng52016.pdf The basis idea is that the jumpers are installed as usual, positive LF (low frequency) to positive HF (high frequency) and negative LF to negative HF. Then, the speaker wires are attached by connecting the positive side to the LF positive terminal and the negative side of the speaker wire to the HF terminal. I've read many positive things about this online, but also that it is speaker dependent. I have Bowers and Wilkins speakers, 704 S2 and was particularly curious if anyone has tried this with B&W speakers.
Today I tried the diagonal wiring with some 14 AWG copper wire I had and also with the supplied metal jumpers. With the metal jumpers, it sounded "off," like something was wrong with the tonal balance and other things that I can't exactly explain. With the copper wire it sounded better, but I still preferred the sound when I connected both of the speaker wires to the LF terminals.
What the heck happened to this thread? There were about 15 posts and now they are almost all gone, including mine. I didn't see anything incendiary when I posted. Did a cable war break out while I was away?
No, someone pointed out that my title and part of my initial post mentioned the word biwiring and since that was going to cause confusion I started a new, edited thread.
Whooo. Competing with the Ghost of Threads Past. I hope I don't say something that was already determined to be a stupid comment. On the other hand, what else is new? This sounds like one of those "if it trips your trigger" kind of tweaks. Hot is still hot. Ground is still ground. The only thing is they have to travel through an extra few inches of wire or a very short metal bar, or not, to get to the appropriate drivers. It isn't going to hurt anything and if you hear a difference, well, "vive la difference."
I actually do wonder how well the jumper bars conduct compared with wire, so I would agree this is one of those things that maybe sounds better to you, with your speakers and system, but might not make a difference universally. Honestly, to me it makes more sense just to bi-wire, as long as the cost of doing so isn't too substantial, and get whatever benefit there is from the additional thickness of cable. Otherwise you are essentially just bridging the HF and LF with a different material (which, again, may or may not conduct more efficiently than the stock bars).
If you remove the jumper while doing so, there is no "benefit from the additional thickness of cable". Each speaker input still only sees one wire, and you are just bridging them back at the amp instead. PS, Nordost will also sell you jumpers for $160+.
Sure, but you're giving each input its own 13 AWG wire instead of making them share one. I know this benefit is hotly debated, and I'm not trying to start that here, I'm just saying bi-wiring seems more beneficial than just changing the jumper material, unless the stock jumper is crap (which could be the case). The diagonal-wiring aspect doesn't seem like it should matter at all. You're still just connecting + to + and - to -. Maybe some minuscule difference in the phase?
I removed my jumper bars earlier in the week and replaced it with generic 14 AWG stranded wire. I immediately noticed an upgrade in sound in my mids and highs. They were smoother and more detailed. Since Music Direct allows you to return within 60 days and they carry jumpers by the same company as my wires, I decided to give the Norse 2 jumpers a try. I installed them at 3pm today. So far, they sound great! My stock bars are nickel plated copper. I found out that this week when I called B&W. I also found out that nickel is a poor conductor. Again, generic wire sounded better than the bars. I was advised by some people whose opinions I trust to buy the best single wire I could afford, rather than bi-wire.
This is the point of this thread. I'd like to hear from as many people who have actually tried/compared diagonal wiring to standard wiring (to the LF or the HF terminals.) I imagine many people have ideas or theories about this topic, but that is not the topic of the thread. I'm hoping to hear from people who have actual experience with this.
I mostly have experience with speaker manufacturers who had the foresight to eliminate the jumper, by soldering both crossover leads to the the same single set of speaker terminals - a simple hack you can do to your own speakers to also bypass the evil jumper bar (when you are in there upgrading the internal speaker wiring to copper with audiophile lineage).
I do wonder (and the Nordost instructions you linked say as much) how many people who notice an improvement from bi-wiring are really just noticing improvement from removing poorly-conducting jumpers. As harby posted above, bi-wiring does essentially bridge the HF and LF at the amp rather than at the speaker terminals, so maybe that is most of what bi-wiring achieves for most people who implement it. As for using one very expensive wire instead of two less expensive wires, if we assume price necessarily indicates performance, it’s still less expensive to add an identical set of cables than to upgrade to one set of better cables. And, for a lot of people, adding a second pair of cables to bi-wire is going to cost less than the Nordost jumpers (maybe your initial trial of generic speaker wire is a decent compromise in that case). What this gets to regarding your original topic (I promise I’m not intending to make this a bi-wiring thread, but it is a related concept), is the diagonal wiring should make some difference even with stock jumpers, right? Because I may actually give this a shot just to experiment. Actually staying with the stock jumpers might act as sort of a control, isolating just the diagonal wiring variable.
I just bought a set of Nordost Bi-Wire jumpers from US Audio Mart. Haven't installed them yet to my Soliloquy 5.0's. I have am idea why the change with diagonal bi-wiring is perceived as positve. The way this new circuit appears, the signal from the positive leg of the cable connects directly to the positive post of the woofer's section of the crossover. While the same signal is delayed, ever so slightly, by seven inches of (a different) wire, to the positive post of the tweeter's section of the crossover. Conversely a similar delay occurs from the negative post of the woofer's crossover section in relation to the direct connection from the tweeter's section, back to the amp. Might not this delay be what causes the perceived difference reported by many? If all frequencies from the crossover's notch and up lag, even just a little, to the tweeter, wouldn't this be akin to tilting the speaker back to better align the drivers? Every comment from experimenters, except the usual naysayers, has been positive. If the effect seemed detrimental, there'd be comments like: "sounds like a poorly designed DSP algorithm." The previous owner said he was surprised at sonic difference they made for him with his Dali Epicon 6. He upgraded to Audio Physic Vergo 3's which can't be bi-wired.
I installed the Nordost Bi-Wire jumpers to my Soliloquy 5.0's last week and am impressed with the results. Whether or not the time delay I proposed or some other corrective phase change was in effect, there was a positive improvement to the sound of my system. Contrary to other reports, there was not an expansion of sound field, but rather a solidity and clearness of the stereo image between the speakers. I used primarily, before and after for the test, Kimber Lab's IsoMike Recordings 2005B SACD plus other SACD's from Keb Mo, Dolly Parton and the Kinks. The IsoMike tracks of choirs, wind and brass ensembles, string quartets and Jazz/Blues cuts all had an easy rightness of image I'd only experienced before when auditioning speakers in the past. The other discs all had a full bodied presence in the room. Call it tweeker's delusion, if you must. But my reviewer's profundity would be, that it was like when the Optometrist puts that last lens in the apparatus and the bottom line of type's contrast snaps into a focus that needs no stain to observe. Has anyone else gotten this result? Regardless to say, I'm leaving the jumpers in and the only change I plan to make now, is to try a little tube rolling.
Yesterday I replaced the metal bar jumpers that came with my PMC's with regular speaker cable. Cost = $0; I had some old Chord Rumor 2 speaker cable sitting around, and stripped the ends of four small pieces and connected them to the speaker terminals. The change is pretty amazing. I was imagining that it couldn't really sound much better, but now there is more definition and everything sounds slightly more vivid and real. More immediate. Definitely a tweak worth trying, and if you have good quality and unterminated speaker wire lying around, like I said, it'll only cost you 15 minutes or so of your time. I don't like how the ends are going to tarnish. I may buy a set of Tellurium pure silver jumper cables, thinking silver is a better conductor. But on the other hand I think the terminations won't be as good as bare wire. So not sure. I may just replace the bare wires every once in a while.
Glad to hear such a simple, free change worked out so well for you. And thanks for bumping this thread. When I bought my current jumpers I installed them and connected the speaker wires to the LF, thinking at some point I would switch to the diagonal method I referred to my OP. But then I forgot about it entirely. Until today. An hour ago, I changed my connections to the diagonal method I referred to in my OP.
I forgot to thank you for posting this earlier, so first, thanks! Glad to hear it worked out so well for you. You didn't outright say it, but I assume what you posted here is from installing the jumpers diagonally? How is it working out for you at this point? I swapped my Nordost jumpers about an hour and a half ago, but I already hear much of what you are describing. I swapped mine because I felt the sound wasn't quite "right," something seemed off. I didn't get the feeling my system was performing as well as it should be. have read elsewhere that there can even be more benefits to diagonal wiring with jumpers, including: 1. Lowered noise floor as evidenced by apparently louder sound. 2. More tactile sensation. 3. Louder and clearer ambient details. 4. More overtone detail. 5. More decay detail. 6. Enhanced sense of depth. 7. After the initial trials, more musical selections were auditioned. On vocal selections, more chest and throat details were evident. There were more details in the twists and turns of a singer's vocal stylings. 8. More bass slam. I am experiencing most of the above, along with a level of dynamics I have NEVER heard from my system. This is exciting!
As I think has been said I can only think that this diagonal wiring changing the sound can only be because of the differences between the jumpers (whether plates or cables) and the main speaker wire. I would be interested to know if someone uses jumper cables the same make as the speaker wire and notices a change with diagonal. If so then I suppose one has to question the connectors.
I have the Cardas CLJP copper jumpers and they haven't tarnished any in the few months I've used them, that I can tell -not sure how they do it.
I've tried a more than a few jumpers, commercial & DIY. Bars= Bad Any bare copper wire= Better Same cable as single speaker run= + Diagonal= + +
After about 80 hours with the diagonal jumpers, I decided it isn't for me. The mids and highs were much sharper and clearer, but the loss of bass and warmth made this a no-go. Too bad, because I'd love to get the benefits of the diagonal connection and keep the bass I have when jumping from the LF to HF. I emailed B&W to ask them if this has something to do with my crossovers (I have 3 way speakers, 704 S2.) For now, I have the speaker wires back on the LF posts and the jumpers connecting the LF up to the HF posts.
Can I ask which direction you went with the B&Ws? With my 803 Matrix I found the best results diagonally were the red directly wired to the HF terminal and the black directly wired to the LH terminal. I tried the other way with Red directly to LH and black directly to HF and experienced similar results to what you described.
Member Saelctric posted something similar to this over in the Audio Note thread. But it puts the speaker cables themselves on the diagonal as you see below, I am still using the silver pins AN supplies with their speakers.
