Cable Asylum

Posted by Luminator (A) on December 17, 2024 at 18:12:22

When we were in high school in the late-1980s, most of us were barely over 5'-tall. This photo of Theresa says a lot. In order to make herself taller, she untied her ponytail, and fluffed up her hair. We were going "shirts versus skins," but since Theresa was a girl, she could not go "skins," along with the rest of her male teammates. So she wore a white shirt. The other team had to wear dark colors. In order to make herself look bigger, Theresa then wore her brother's long shorts, which covered her knees, LOL!

Her brother joked, "Hey shortie! For you, even a layup is a jumper!"

Theresa's two brothers were a lot older than she. So they did have an interest in audio, but mostly for cars. Nevertheless, one of them picked up some generic-looking black-colored bookshelf loudspeakers. 'Round back, it had four holes. The brother was perplexed. It turned out that the loudspeaker needed to be "bi-wired," and only accepted banana plugs.

During the Fall 1993 semester, Theresa helped me to shop for audio products. We ended up getting a Signet SL-280B/U, which was a bi-wire model. You can't quite tell from the photo, but we were using a regular stereo run of blue and-black Kimber 8TC, and then a 4TC bi-wire jumper.

We do have a Kimber 4TC bi-wire jumper, but in the modern white-and-copper, which does remind you of pickup basketball games of "shirts versus skins."

In 1998, I had replaced the Signet with a Thiel CS1.5. Since the latter was a single-wire model, it was used with Kimber KS-3033 stereo speaker cables. The CS1.5 was a terrible match for my room. I was in audio hell.

Sorry, we don't have any photos from 1998. At the time, because of my employer, I was Lummy The Seahorse. I walked from the office, down Kearny and over to Grant, where Ultimate Sound were. They let me borrow two mini-monitors: the ProAc Response One SC and Totem Model 1 Signature, both of which were bi-wireable. Ultimate Sound did supply me with the excellent Kimber Bi-Focal XL.

I did replace the Thiel CS1.5 with a ProAc Response One SC. Since I already had the Kimber KS-3033, Ultimate Sound let me try a matching KS-9033 bi-wire jumper. We were kind of bummed, that the KS-9033 made the old 4TC seem inaccurate and unrefined.

As of this writing, Kimber have three "Select" series bi-wire jumpers. Sets of four are as follows:

KS 9063 is all-copper. With copper WBT connectors, this retails for $1,300.
KS 9065 is hybrid copper and silver. With copper WBT connectors, this retails for $2,100.
KS 9068 is all-silver. With silver WBT connectors, this retails for $3,300.

Over the years, we have used multiple samples of all three models. But I've never had owners' permission, to blog about them.

We have yet another sample of all-silver Kimber KS 9068. We have put it through its paces, and will continue to do so.

More To Come,
-Lummy The Loch Monster