Jumpers on 340SE Center

[Down]

Hi all,

I just bought a used 340SE Center that came w/o the jumpers. It came with a bi-wire cable, however, that cable's banana plugs were too thick for my 1018's inputs. That was odd enough in itself, I thought.

Anyways, 9 o'clock on a Saturday night, just finishing a complete redo of the theater room and I didn't want to wait till tomorrow to scrounge Radio Shack for a proper jumper, so I made my own out of some 14G speaker wire.

Any problems with that?
Any reason to get the proper jumpers, other than aesthetics?

Thanks!

[curtis]

Should work just fine.

[GirgleMirt]

Actually 14 awg probably has less resistance than the default jumpers so in theory they should work even better. But in practice it won't make an audible difference anyhow because the distance is just so damn short; difference is really negligible. So I'd say it's more than just fine, really can't get any better than that.

[Down]

Cool guys, thanks.

My main concern was that there was more to a jumper than I thought there was. From the sounds of it, I was spot on.



For once:D

[davef]

Actually 14 awg probably has less resistance than the default jumpers so in theory they should work even better.

Actually, that is incorrect, the jumpers would have less resistance. However, we are talking about thousandths of an ohm here -- using jumpers or 14 awg cable would make no audible difference.

One important note, the jumpers are gold plated and thus not subject to oxidation. If you use speaker cable, I would recommend "tinning" any exposed copper.

Hope this helps!

[Down]

Actually, that is incorrect, the jumpers would have less resistance. However, we are talking about thousandths of an ohm here -- using jumpers or 14 awg cable would make no audible difference.

One important note, the jumpers are gold plated and thus not subject to oxidation. If you use speaker cable, I would recommend "tinning" any exposed copper.

Hope this helps!
I hadn't even thought about that. Out of curiosity, would I be able to order the 340 jumpers from you?

[GirgleMirt]

Actually, that is incorrect, the jumpers would have less resistance.

Hmmm... Really? Actually Sunday morning I wondered about it and pulled out the old multimeter to compare, but it stops at 0.3 ohms so nowhere near precise enough to compare the jumpers, so just thought I'd forget about it since anyhow it makes no difference...

I thought the jumpers were made of brass... Are they? They look about 5mm x 1mm, that would be equivalent to about 10 awg, but if they're not copper, and indeed brass, then it is like 3 times less conductive than copper so should come out a bit worst than 14 awg...

[curtis]

don't you have to factor in the gold plating too?

[GirgleMirt]

Nah, the plating is extremely (incredibly) thin and shouldn't factor in conductivity, it's really as Dave mention for anti-oxidation purposes. Gold plating on connectors is something like less than a hundredth of a mm... Actually less than a 0.001mm!

http://www.iicit.org/Topic.aspx?wiki_id=357

Because gold is expensive, it’s important to stay within a limited range of thicknesses. The standard for military-grade thickness is 50 millionths of an inch. The minimum gold thickness is something in the range of 4 to 7 millionths of an inch, referred to as flash gold. At flash-gold thicknesses, the cost of the metal itself is overwhelmed by the cost of processing. Relatively speaking, fused tin/lead (tin and lead electroplated and then reflowed) costs roughly the same as flash gold over nickel. While excellent for soldering, flash gold is not thick enough to be a valid wear surface, as in the case of a mated pin and socket.

A workhorse thickness for most mated contact surfaces is 30 millionths of an inch. Industry expert Max Peel of Contact Research (Attleboro, MA) has tested more interconnect problems in his lifetime than any of us will ever see, and he believes that any gold thickness less than 30 millionths of an inch over a barrier layer is problematic.

I'm guessing that's what is used for the jumpers, gold costs quite a bit and 'wasting' gold on jumpers would be quite a waste of money and in the end would be against Ascend's philosophy :D But I'm sure Cardas or another cable company does have solid gold jumpers...

http://www.dedicatedaudio.com/inc/sdetail/2129 Bwahaha! 250$ :p
But Cardas will not be undone! http://www.dedicatedaudio.com/inc/sdetail/1984 308$!!! :D lol

I'm sure the 340SEs would sound AWESOME with these jumper cables!!!


Contributing to the excellent time domain characteristics of the Au24 cables are high quality materials and proper configuration." LOL! Man, it seems some of us don't live on the same planet!


The Au24 cables will begin to sound good after 2 to 3 hours playing time and will continue to improve for approximately 50 hours.
Funny!!! :D So before 2-3 hours, the >300$, 6 inch wire (jumper cable) does not sound good. LOL! only after 2-3 hours does the cable properties change and this now somehow affects the sound of the cable... In a good way evidently... And they continue to improve till 50 hours... Wow... They're smoking some good shit over there!

[davef]

I thought the jumpers were made of brass... Are they? They look about 5mm x 1mm, that would be equivalent to about 10 awg, but if they're not copper, and indeed brass, then it is like 3 times less conductive than copper so should come out a bit worst than 14 awg...

I believe the jumpers are gold plated aluminum. Aluminum is close to copper with regard to conductivity. Also, it is important to note that the amount of surface area plays an important role in conductivity, electrons tend to flow along the outside of materials.

Conductivity is a function of surface area and electron resistance.

Again, we are talking about thousandths of an ohm... impossible to measure without sophisticated equipment.

[davef]

I hadn't even thought about that. Out of curiosity, would I be able to order the 340 jumpers from you?

Yes -- just give us a call, it is not a problem. However, as mentioned, a bit of solder can save you a couple bucks :p