Tweaking

Most high-end loudspeakers come with two sets of binding posts connected by a metal jumper or a short wire link. As most of us know, the idea is that you can run separate cables from your amplifier to the woofer section and the tweeter section, a practice called bi-wiring. The question I get asked constantly is whether bi-wiring makes a real difference, and if someone is not going to bi-wire, does the jumper quality matter. 

The idea behind bi-wiring is that separating the bass and treble signal paths reduces the interaction between the large current demands of the woofer and the delicate signal feeding the tweeter. In practice, both cables still connect to the same amplifier output terminals, so they share the same source impedance. The electrical benefit of bi-wiring is real but small. Measurements show a slight reduction in intermodulation distortion at the speaker end of the cable. 

Sound wise? A decent improvement. Huge? No, but noticeable and for those as obsessed as we are, certainly worth the effort.

Then there is also the question of which binding posts to connect your main cables to if you are not bi-wiring. Here, opinions are all over the map with convention suggesting the tweeter posts—however, I beg to differ (wait...this is my space for opinion so I don't have to beg... :) My preference is, and always has been, the woofer posts. That's where the energy should first come in and then jumper over to the tweeter.

That said, if you do it that way then the jumper matters.

This is tweakie stuff but then, hey, if you're reading this you're more than likely a member in fine standing with the rest of us tweaks.