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Ibis Jumpers are as good as it gets for replacing those less than hi-fi brass straps on bi-wireable speakers. Termination is not solder but an extreme pressure crimp (cold forged to the conductor). Loudspeakers with jumpers are designed, or at least marketed, as being able to benefit from being “bi-wired” which is to run two cables from the amp to the speakers; one connecting the lower binding post and another connecting the higher. In our experience it is generally better for the same investment to use just one cable of a higher quality than two lesser, using the Zu Ibis jumpers to connect the input terminals in place of the stock brass straps.
Installation Notes
Switch your power amp off prior to disconnecting or connecting your loudspeaker cables.
Now, wash your hands with soap prior to handling any cable with bare metal—you don’t want to push halides and other subtle tone robbers into the amplifier, cable or loudspeaker connectors. If you do touch the exposed contacts you might want to buff them with a clean cotton rag. Keeping the contacts free of contaminants ensures a long-term and trouble-free connection.
To clean plated connectors, shinny bright gold or silver colored ones, just use rubbing alcohol on a cotton cloth and some cotton swabs to get into the tight parts. If the connector being cleaned is bare copper or silver we recommend cleaning them with our favorite polish, Cape Cod.
Anytime you are making an electrical connection make it a habit to inspect the contacts and clean them if they are tarnished or dirty. Our bare copper spade lugs may need to be cleaned every year, depending on how clean they are when connected and your environment. Most any copper polish will work for this though we have found Cape Cod™ to be excellent. Brasso™ is also good. Acid based cleaners are tricky, if you don’t have experience cleaning copper with acid we wouldn’t recommend that you start with your audio gear. Most of the time your terminals are going to be in good condition and just need a little buffing and for that you can use a bit of alcohol and a cotton cloth.
Burn-in
Zu Ibis Jumpers will require a good bit of play before they are fully burned in, roughly 400 hours—the use of Teflon® equals slow burn-in. We do not recommend any burn-in devices or special recordings. We do recommend music you enjoy, preferably upbeat full spectrum recordings: rock, roots, full orchestra, big band.... For the possible how and whys about burn-in please see our Answers section.
Ibis Jumper maintenance
No maintenance is required for the wire or the connectors save for the annual copper spade cleaning. If your connector contacts are nice and bright, don’t worry about it. However, anytime you are making an electrical connection make it a habit to inspect the contacts and clean them if they are tarnished or dirty.
Termination Options
Standard spade: ¼ inch [6.3mm] inside diameter (outside fork width = 7/16 inch [11mm]). Most amps use this size. If your binding post has full plastic encapsulation and has a slit for you to slide the spade through, ¼ inch [6.3mm] is the standard size and is the right fit 99% of the time.
Oversized spade: 5/16 inch [8mm] inside diameter (outside fork width 5/8 inch [15.9mm]). This is a common size for loudspeakers, but most loudspeakers accept both standard ¼ inch [6.3mm] and oversized 5/16 inch [8mm]. That said, if your loudspeaker feature binding posts that are fully encapsulated with plastic, with a slit-window for you to pass the spade lug through, then you should reachout to the maker of the speakers to find out which will work.
Banana—the common banana plug. Fits banana socket size 5/32 - 3/16 inch [4.0 - 4.7mm].
Bare wire.
