Speaker cables don't influence harmonic distortion!

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turk 182

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Joined 2012
mchambin said:
It is pity to see this going on and on, spoiling the interesting work of Valery.
Let us READ post #66, UNDERSTAND it's meaning and not preach your own interpretations.
The facts, just the facts, the measurements and the summary in post #66.
Click to expand...

that post is self evident for me.
only other thing i would like to see (and wish i could test myself) is keeping the cable length the same but vary the gauge and see if there's a similar effect as found in varying the length.
that for me would confirm that keeping length and gauge in the appropriate size delivers best results and would help establish if there is a point where any further change in length or gauges does not change results as in a significant performance difference.
does overall power level change this? as in does this scale linearly with power?
if the systems max power does not go beyond a certain level is there any benefit to increasing gauge or shortening length? both i think would have practical limits.
 
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gabdx

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Discussing 0.1 to 0.05 thd is meaningless.

Point: I have dacs from reputable companies with thd's of 0.002 IMD 0.003% which sound very poor (glare, plastic sound, no detail,) vs dacs with 0.05% thd and 0.1 IMD.

Sound is night and day, everyone I asked could hear clearly a major difference.

Cables = capacitors, I don't think they could be responsible for a bad sounding system. They are absolutelly not a fix for bad sound or magic improvements.
 
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DF96

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turk 182 said:
only other thing i would like to see (and wish i could test myself) is keeping the cable length the same but vary the gauge and see if there's a similar effect as found in varying the length.
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You could do the test, but there is no need because you can calculate the result. The cable resistance is merely acting as the sense resistance for a current measurement.

if the systems max power does not go beyond a certain level is there any benefit to increasing gauge or shortening length? both i think would have practical limits.
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Shorter the better, whatever the power level. Thicker the better, whatever the power level. However, you quickly get into diminishing returns so best to stick to practical cable sizes.
 
vzaichenko

vzaichenko

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Joined 2010
A good analysis by Nelson Pass, published at Pass Diy:
PassDiy - Speaker Cables

A speaker cable is characterized by a series resistance, series inductance, and parallel capacitance. My 15 meters cable measures pretty close to 18 gauge "zip" cord.

Note some audiophile-grade cables at the bottom of the Fig.2 in the article - those are rather low resistance and low inductance ones, but they are the real "capacitors" at the output of an amplifier :eek:
 
mchambin

mchambin

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Joined 2011
what.me.worry
scottjoplin said:
A rough guide would be looking at how the cable resistance effects the amplifier's damping factor
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I did this kind of calculation. My commercial amplifier specs indicate a Dumping factor 30 for an 8 ohm speaker.
So the output impedance is 8 / 30 ohm, that is 0.2667 ohm
With speaker cables 5m, 2.5 mm2 thick, copper. It's resistance is 0.0272 ohm.
So actual Zout has increased at 0.294, actual dumping factor has decreased at 27.
In my case, this shows, 2.5 mm2 speaker cables is overkill. I was not expecting any sound difference anyway, that was just for fun.
2.5 mm2 is the right choice ....Because it is the maximum accepted by Quick connect terminals.
( gauge #14 is 2.1 mm2 )
 
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turk 182

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Joined 2012
dumping or damping ??

this is starting to look like the classic "chicken or the egg came first" circular argument.

does the amp have the ability to drive the load or does the loads reactance/non linearity dominate?
next would be is it audible or is all of this just anal fretting over performance specs that don't change what we hear?

vzaichenko thanks for the link to the Nelson Pass article!

sharing is caring!
 
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gabdx

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amplificateurslegrand.ca/
greierasul said:
I have a DAC with maybe one of the best measurements in the world:
Auralic Altair D/A processor Measurements | Stereophile.com
Did you know what it is the phase shift between 1khz and 20khz of the analog output stage ? Almost 20 degree ! The sound ?... of course, life in plastic is fantastic :)))) From time to time you can hear a "nice whistling".
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It is more than just phase shifts.

It is micro static electricity between transients accumulated in the plastics.

Comparing a capacitor to a cable in the sense that it doesn't vary much, being all imperfect devices and with high quality modern standards those components are not determining if a sound is good/bad in a system.

i.e. I can take a super sound system and use telephone wires, it will still sound pretty good.

I can take a super nice amplifier and install cheapest capacitors, it will not sound bad for this reason.
 
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