[dspringham]

Very interested in this model and have never previously owned Von S product.

Concern is with speaker cables. Are these supplied with factory jumpers or is bi-wiring essential (adding to extra cost and complexity).

Observations, recommendations and comments greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Dave

[roscoeiii]

Biwiring is recommended for VSA speakers.

[kernelbob]

Absolutely go with biwiring.  You'll get cleaner mids and treble performance since the low frequencies won't be interacting with the midrange & tweeter drivers.  This is due to the mid/tweeter crossover exhibiting high impedance at the frequencies handled by the completely separate crossover feeding the woofers.  High impedance at those bass frequencies in the mid/tweeter crossover means no bass current flow generating interacting magnetic fields.  Of course the woofer crossover is just the opposite, rolling off the mids & treble.

I highly recommend that you give the Masterbuilt cables and powercords an audition.  There are three levels to fit your budget.  Contact VSA for more info or view the various threads on the Von Schweikert circle for more discussion on MB cables.  I'm a happy user of these throughout my system.

[roscoeiii]

Also, not sure what the rear of the Unifield 3 looks like, but the binding posts on the two modules of my VR-4s are quite far apart (3 ft apart or more, would be my guess). So they require shotgun-style bi-wiring or cables whose terminations split off pretty early on.

Not sure what the Masterbuilt cable prices start at, but there are a number of good options out there at a wide range of price points.

[kernelbob]

For biwiring, you want the split into the two cables as close to the amplifier as possible.  This is so that the maximum length of the path isolates the bass and mid/tweeter signals.  So, even if the two pairs of binding posts are very close together, you still want to split the speaker cable close to the amp.

The Masterbuilt cables come in three levels: the Purple Line intro level, the Standard, and the Signature.  The list for 8' biwire speaker cables are/were (the last time I asked) $1250, $3500, and $6000 respectively.