I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Eric,

You mention polarised interconnects - can you give more details.

If you like I could do that too, just be a little patient.
I need to dig up that document and...it's written in French.
Basically it prevents micro charges to build up beteen conductor and sheathing material.
Do you recal the " Cap Skinning" thread?
Basically I assume it's about the same phenomenon.

Cheers,

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by Kuei Yang Wang
What I object to is the next step or two that you take, namely:

1) I cannot hear it so no-one can (and your blind tests really are very poorely implemented).

2) Because I cannot hear it and nobody can hear it anyone saying they can is a charaltan.

And how are those any more objectionable than:

1) I perceive it, therefore the only possible cause is some physical phenomenon in the equipment producing an actual audible difference.

2) Because I perceive it, those who don't must have cloth ears or lousy systems, or both.

Flip side of the same dogma if you ask me.

se

[DrewP]

Mr Feedback:

**"What kind of 'unlistenable' do you mean ?"


I mean bright, irritating, harsh, muddied. Remember these were not brand new speakers, they were the store demo pair and were run in approximately as much as mine had been. ie, equivalent to I guess 6months of domestic use.

The fact that in order to counteract the gross flaws which I ****assume**** were from the internal cabling of the speakers (given that no other component was obviously different and two were absolutely identical) meant an upgrading of equipment to a level of around 3 times the price was proof that something was drastically wrong.

FWIW, other equipment from the store that I'd previously listened to there sounded the same so I don't believe I had my cloth ears on that day.

**"As a further note, I have never found a hifi store to be an optimum listening environment - noisey power, sub optimal room treatments etc, but despite that you can usually get a good enough idea."

Granted, I find stores far from a reference environment too but this one was farily much ok as it was basically the one rectangular room, had carpets all over and wall hangings on the sides at the equipment end andthe only glass in the place was a good 6 metres behind the listening position. Not a perfect example of "live end dead end" but nowhere near the "listen in this small nook" comparator chaos of some places.



**"BTW - What's a "Large Technology Conservator" ?"

Aha! Conservators are like book editors. If they do their job properly you'll never notice them. We're the little pixies in white lab coats (in my case blue overalls as I'm playing with bigger stuff) who hide in the back of museums, art galleries, libraries and archives preserving their collections and slowing down the deterioration.

I'm a specialist metals conservator who has spent the last 5 years at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. So far I've worked on a WW2 air warning radar station, a MiG 15, an A6M2 Zero, the stern of HMAS Sydney from WW1, a WW1 german field periscope (with lnses by Zeiss no less!) and at the moment I'm on the home stretch with "G for George", the Lancaster bomber we have.

It's a great place (and the radar station had some loverly NOS 833's in it) (they stayed in it!) :-(

Drew

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Flip side of the same dogma if you ask me.

Yet another side of the coin?

A parameter that is critical in cable design is characteristic impedance. But because of its complexity, this important factor is often misunderstood.

The characteristic impedance of a cable is given by
Z = [(R + jwL)/(G + jwC)]1/2

where R is the series resistance, L is the series inductance, G is the shunt conductance, C is the shunt capacitance, and w is the angular frequency (w = 2pief).

Note that this is not a simple number for a cable, but one which changes with frequency. It is also important to note that R, L, G, and C also change with frequency, making the impedance of a cable even more frequency dependent.

Z is a complex number, and it is common practice in the cable industry to simplify the situation by assuming a loss less transmission line ( nice, but not real) and, in turn, assuming that R and G are zero.
While this may be a valid approximation at high frequencies, it is not valid at low audio frequencies if you plan to construct an accurate model of a cable.

For example, stating that a speaker cable has a constant, characteristic impedance of 10 ohms across the entire frequency range of 20 to 20,000 Hz, assuming that's your target, is a drastic oversimplification that, in the end, is simply untrue.

The same type of statement is also inaccurate when applied to loudspeakers.
A speaker only has a constant impedance of 8 ohms at a single fixed frequency.
To state otherwise is to ignore the complexity of impedance
changes as signal frequency changes.

The measurement brigade may have a field day once they finally lay their hands on an FFT analyser so they can actually SEE what's going on for that's apparently the only to convince them that what they may actually well be there.

Amazing what one can derive from Ohm's law, isn't it?

Cheers,

Bibliography:

Henry W. Ott, Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronics System (New York, NY John Wiley and Sons, 1988, p. 150)

Wilska, A.: Eine methode zur Bestimmung der Horschwellenamplituden des Trommelfells bei verschiedenen Frequenzen, Skandinav. Arch. Physiol., 72:161, 1935.

Sivian, L.J., and White, S.D.: On minimum audible sound fields, J. Acous. Soc. Am., 4:288, 1933

[ThorstenL]

Koinichiwa Eddy San,

Originally posted by Steve Eddy


And how are those any more objectionable than:

1) I perceive it, therefore the only possible cause is some physical phenomenon in the equipment producing an actual audible difference.

2) Because I perceive it, those who don't must have cloth ears or lousy systems, or both.

I completly agree. I personally neither exclude the possibility that I am still deluding myself (if about nothing else at least about cause/effect - remember I'm a Hume'an) nor the possibility that the todays most outrageuous, most unbelievable and most extreme conspiracy theory are way to tame to come close to the truth.

What I do provide (other than a often scathing exposure of fundamental logical falws - not that logic in itself has any relevance) are empirical datapoints of what I have tried.

To actually remove the argument from the realms of audio and make it morally, financially and religeously neutral I shall propose a theory:

"When I poke myself into my eye it hurts!"

Empirically (if unwillingly) I have poked myself into my eye a few times and each and every time it hurt (luckily enough I have so far avoided doing the poking with heated soldering irons). Now I cannot infer from my data that ionvariably and automatically everyone poking themselves into the eye will feel pain.

But, if after appreciating my premise and poking themselves into the eye too many others say "For me it hurt too" we can draw the conclusion that for many people being poked in the eye is painful.

Now you may or may not feel pain when being poked into the eye and you or may not wish to aknowledge that you feel the pain if you do. That is fine. Keep poking yourself into the eye insisting "there is no pain". But please, do not try to DICTATE to others that they should not feel pain.

Now you can replace the words "poke in eye" and "feel pain" with any number of subjects of enquiry, including all those keeping the subjectivists and objectivists hot under the collar.

Yet if I after repetetively having tired the "poking in the eye" bit still reliably feel pain, please DO NOT tell me I'm imagining it (at least not beyound the basic premise that this whole world is illusion and that all in it, pain, pleasure, solidity, emptiness et al are mere illusions, just Maya).

Sayonara

PS, of course diferences in sound between are pure Illusions, just as the music, the cables, the gear and the whole universe are. However, these illusions obey a limited, if very large number of basic rules and hence the "grand" illusion is ameanable to empirical study, though sudying thusly the illusions yields no data on absolute reality, only on the illusions.

[Circlotron]

Originally posted by fdegrove
A parameter that is critical in cable design is characteristic impedance. -snip-
The characteristic impedance of a cable is given by
Z = [(R + jwL)/(G + jwC)]1/2

Doesn't j (and therfore Z) have both a real and an *imaginary* part? That might just explain a thing or two.

[Circlotron]

I have some lengths of Litz wire, 100 strands and bundled diameter of about 1.5mm. Does anyone think that would make suitable wire to try an experiment with?

[sfdoddsy]

Hmmm. Well I poked myself in the ear with a cable and it both hurt and changed the way my speakers sound.

So I guess everything is proved.


Steve

[mrfeedback]

Originally posted by Circlotron
I have some lengths of Litz wire, 100 strands and bundled diameter of about 1.5mm. Does anyone think that would make suitable wire to try an experiment with?

Hi Graham,
Yeah I have tried it in a P-P wired DAC/output stage I made years (10+) ago.
I did not like the sound - much preferred solid copper wire, although I think some of the sound was due to the insulation.
This insulation required a red hot iron to tin it, and gave off some savagely bad fumes.
I think I tried it for interconnects too, and did not really like the sound - same thing, solid wire sounded better (cleaner, nicer) to my ear

Eric.

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Yet another side of the coin?

A parameter that is critical in cable design is characteristic impedance. But because of its complexity, this important factor is often misunderstood.

The characteristic impedance of a cable is given by
Z = [(R + jwL)/(G + jwC)]1/2

Except that cable doesn't have any constant characteristic impedance at audio frequencies.

In the audio band, impedance is characterized by:

Z = [R/(jwC)]1/2

The equation you give above characterizes the transition curve and above this, it basically simplifies to (L/C)1/2 which remains rather constant and is really the only "characteristic impedance."

se