Replace brass terminal bridge on speakers

[Del monaco]

I am aware that cable companies sell jumpers for this purpose but is it worth replacing the brass plate bridges with speaker wire or would it be a waste of time? Has anyone done this and thought it worthwhile?

 

[JemHayward]

I bought my speakers as ex-demo and the one thing they couldn't find were the metal jumpers, so I managed to add two sets of spades to my speaker cables, without cutting the cable, the first spade has a loop of cable in it, the second had the end (if that makes sense) - thankfully my speaker cables were by some standards, quite thin.

 

[Joco]

Have tried (long ago) both different Links and tiny purpose made Jumper cables and the only difference I found was I had less money. If you have an itch that needs to be scratched then it’s a comparatively small amount.

 

[ex brickie]

I always replace brass plates but I make my own offcuts of speaker cable - cheap and easy to do

 

[Del monaco]

I always replace brass plates but I make my own offcuts of speaker cable - cheap and easy to do

But did it make a difference to the sound?

 

[Curtis]

I use a bit of my current speaker cable rather than the links supplied.
Don’t think i could confirm if its better in a blind test though and can’t be arsed to find out.

 

[Beobloke]

I am aware that cable companies sell jumpers for this purpose but is it worth replacing the brass plate bridges with speaker wire or would it be a waste of time?

Waste of time.

 

[Del monaco]

Waste of time.

Looks like it.I’ll leave them be.

 

[Del monaco]

Just cable dressing left then. Phew.

 

[ex brickie]

But did it make a difference to the sound?

Definitely marginal - the main speaker cable makes more difference

If you can't be a*sed to improve your speaker cable don't bother with the jumper cables. If however you have improved your main speaker cable why wouldn't you cheaply improve your jumper cables? You can do it bare wire as the cheapest option with a tiny piece of the same cable as the main cables.

In the time it is taking to respond to these messages you could knock some up quickly and try it . What speaker cables are you using and others may help on whether it is likely to be worth it

I wouldn't spend £40+ on jumper cables if you have cheap speaker cable

 

[fegs]

I lost the jumpers to a pair of my speakers once and to get round this I stripped enough of the insulation back to thread the conductor through both terminals, no good if you've got terminated cables but worked for me

 

[hifinutt]

I am aware that cable companies sell jumpers for this purpose but is it worth replacing the brass plate bridges with speaker wire or would it be a waste of time? Has anyone done this and thought it worthwhile?

some years ago i tried about 6 lots of jumpers on a set of speakers [ think it was focal 1028be maybe]
ranging from chord signature , vertex , analysis plus and a few others . they all sounded different and i ended up with chord signature which are still in use in a pair of speakers . cheap tweak , if it works then good , if not then they sell fast

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I am aware that cable companies sell jumpers for this purpose but is it worth replacing the brass plate bridges with speaker wire or would it be a waste of time? Has anyone done this and thought it worthwhile?

The only issue with the brass plates is that they are so rigid that any slack in the nuts could cause a bad connection. Other than that nothing will make any difference. It's a piece of wire or solid plate only a few inches long. Resistance, capacitance and inductance are completely negligible.

 

[awkwardbydesign]

Never had bi-wire terminals, as I have made all my speakers until this year, but I would expect flat brass links to have a worse contact area than almost anything. Gold plated or not. And brass is not an ideal conductor anyway. Bare speaker wire, the same as your preferred main speaker wire, seems the logical approach. As long as it is stranded* it will surely provide better contact.
* No comment on whether solid or stranded is better in any other way.

 

[Rug Doc]

On the same subject, I’d love to know how the jumpers on celestion Sl600 work. I have a pair of thee speakers, but have never seen a jumper.

 

[RustyB]

Those brass plates are crap to start with, tarnish with age and loosen off. Anything will be better, especially soldering links internally. As a temporary fix I use links comprising a Z-plug on one end and a Deltron on the other. The difference substituting these makes was most dramatic on a pair of CDM1's, genuine jaw on the floor moment.

 

[Hazelberry]

Tried it and heard no difference. Keeping the contacts clean and tight is close enough to speakerly godliness in my experience.

 

[zippy]

Gold solid links look prettier, but are less easily replaced when lost !
I use offcuts from the speaker cable, checked every now and then for tightness..

 

[Del monaco]

Done it now. Will listen for a while to see if any changes but it hasn’t made things worse.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

some years ago i tried about 6 lots of jumpers on a set of speakers [ think it was focal 1028be maybe]
ranging from chord signature , vertex , analysis plus and a few others . they all sounded different and i ended up with chord signature which are still in use in a pair of speakers . cheap tweak , if it works then good , if not then they sell fast

It wouldn’t have been Focal, they don’t have bi-wireable terminals. I agree though, jumpers can and do sound different. The most significant difference I found was with a set of shotgunned jumpers, rather than just straightforward jumpers to replace the links.