Speaker Jumper Cables

[Alex_UK]

Hi Everyone,

Until I joined this forum a week ago, I had absolutely no concern about the little bits of metal that join the two sets of speaker terminals on my budget Acoustic Energy Aegis Evo 3 speakers, which I've had about 3 years, and think are great. However after spending many hours trawling this site and other information I am obviosuly now paranoid that I should be getting "jumper leads" to connect the two sets of terminals - something like these Speaker Jumper Leads - although I'm guessing something like this would be easy to make anyway.

The question is, is it worth doing this, or am I unlikely to notice any difference anyway, given that I am a bit of a cloth ears? I know the answer is try it and see, but another £25 after all the money I've spent this month, or even finding the right spades to fit to a few inches of existng cable would be a hassle if it won't make any difference in my modest system.

Has anyone done this and have a tale to tell?

(BTW, bi-wiring is out of the question with current QED Silver Anniversary cable because it wil just look a mess, I've managed to get the 2 single runs in the gap between carpet and skirting, but another 2 runs will be a mess...)

[hifi_dave]

If you're feeling a bit handy, you can open up your speakers and put the tweeter wires on with the bass unit terminals. You will then no longer need jumpers or bi-wire cable.

If you don't fancy this, then take a short length of speaker cable, long enough to go between the speaker terminals in place of the brass bars and strip the ends to form your very own jumpers at zero cost. Job done.

[Alex_UK]

Thanks Dave - hadn't thought about the "internal" option, that makes sense, and as I will be replacing a battered bass driver soon anyway (bless her... she is only 10 months old, I can't get angry!) not too worried about getting stuck in... Thanks again.

[Mike Reed]

Although tempted by something like the Chord Signature jumpers (not a lot of money at sub £40 used), I'm very sceptical about the overall sonic advantage, if any.

I made some up from the cores of 10mm twin & earth; also from a bit of NAC A5 (which I use as my speaker cable). The single cores were more practical and I couldn't detect any difference so I stuck with them.

The Michell binding posts on my ProAcs allow me to screw these jumpers down tightly, which other speakers may not be able to manage, but the length of jumper is only three inches or so between terminals, so I'm not bothered about potential losses or aberrations.

The supplied chrome pins, though, are substantial, if a bit short; I suspect they were made for the smaller Response speakers.

My reasoning is that if the manufacturer chooses pins to connect terminals as opposed to wire jumpers, then it's not a critical area at all.