Replaced pre-amp/main-in jumpers on CA-810 with cables

Roboturner91

Super Member
And my goodness, what a difference it makes!

I am not a big believer in expensive cables at all; my speaker cables are made from orange outdoor extension cord and my interconnects are Radio Shack brand things that I got on clearance.

So I wasn't expecting anything to change when I did this; but hey, it costs nothing to try (I already had an extra cable hanging out) and only takes 2 minutes to swap in. But wow! I can actually hear a distinct cymbal crash, instead of a random-sounding sizzly mess. Mids seem cleaner too - if you had asked me before I would've said there's no noise or interference going on here, but doing the best A-B comparison I can there's a marked difference.

I thought my speakers needed a recap, but my guess is that replacing those jumpers makes a bigger difference than a recap job ever would.

If you have a CA/CR with those original jumpers plugged in, you need to try this out. I'm not saying to go buy some expensive jumper cables, just grab any cheap cable you have laying around.
 
Or properly clean or replace the coupler/decoupler switch.

but my guess is that replacing those jumpers makes a bigger difference than a recap job ever would.

If it made that big of a difference then obviously the switch is most likely at fault.
 
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No coupler switch on a CA-810, and the jacks and jumpers were both clean as a whistle. It may be as simple as the cable being shielded whereas the piece of bare metal obviously was not. Whatever the case, I can definitely tell the difference and I don't usually buy into this kind of stuff.
 
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Pretty cool you got a nice improvement. I'd be tempted to swap the jumpers back in just to rule out there wasn't some sort of corrosion that got cleaned up, even though they looked clean.
 
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