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

[CONVERGENCE]

Here in Canada the engineer at CBC has a cable analyser.

He performed severall tests on 12$ shielded cable and the 40 $
ones . There were no difference.

That puts and end to your inquiry.

.................................................. ..

[soongsc]

Originally posted by CONVERGENCE
Here in Canada the engineer at CBC has a cable analyser.

He performed severall tests on 12$ shielded cable and the 40 $
ones . There were no difference.

That puts and end to your inquiry.

.................................................. ..

I would be interested in what the brand and model of the cable analyzer is, and probably later how the test was setup, what test signals were used, etc. Some people come up with measurable differences, some don't.

[R-Carpenter]

Being a DIY is great. If you want to experiment with cable, you can. I just got 50ft of 99.999 solid core silver wire in Teflon for RC As. I'd be extremely surprised if it did make a slightest difference in my system. As a mater of fact, I will try it in 5 different setups and let you know.
I play with cables for the looks.
Good connectors are important. Gold plaiting is important and a good dielectric can make a difference. But wire itself? I don't believe so.
Look at it this way. The demand for the better products is there. A wealthy shmak, purchasing a stereo system and wishing to impress his friends will ask for the best. Manufacturers are simply giving him what he wants.
It is a shame, then a young kid with $10an hour job is sold on this by an *** of a salesman in audio boutique. I was almost that kid except something stopped me. I was also told that the most important element in the stereo system is the CD transport.
Like anything else. Do your research.

[rdf]

Originally posted by CONVERGENCE
Here in Canada the engineer at CBC has a cable analyser. ...He performed severall tests on 12$ shielded cable and the 40 $ones .... There were no difference.

I saw that episode of Marketplace. While I would never drop $240 on a Monster HDMI cable (15 foot for $25 at NCIX for me) that test looked poorly constructed. I swear the engineer said the source was DVD (for HDMI?) and the only thing tested was data integrity.

[Conrad Hoffman]

I've had line level interconnects make a difference, but I believe it was for obvious reasons related to the output impedance of the preamp, the RLC values of the interconnect, and the input characteristics of the amp. Absolutely nothing magic or inexplicable, and no need to invoke skin effect, single crystal metals, or any other snake oil explanations. Just slight changes in frequency response. The difference was minor. Interestingly, since I went to a tri-amped active crossover system, low level and high level interconnects seem to make no difference what-so-ever. Nor do amplifiers. Narrowing the bandwidth of any component is a good thing.

[EC8010]

Originally posted by soongsc
Most cables sound different most likely due to how it handles impedance mismatch induced energy reflection.

I'm afraid not. Signals travel down typical co-axial cables at about two-thirds the speed of light and a mismatched cable will cause a reflection. However, audio cables are not transmission lines unless they become very long. Consider, one degree at 20kHz is 139ns, so at two thirds the speed of light you would need a cable 28 metres long to achieve a delay equivalent to one degree at 20kHz. Leaving aside whether one degree at 20kHz is even audible, domestic cables aren't 28m long.

[soongsc]

Originally posted by EC8010


I'm afraid not. Signals travel down typical co-axial cables at about two-thirds the speed of light and a mismatched cable will cause a reflection. However, audio cables are not transmission lines unless they become very long. Consider, one degree at 20kHz is 139ns, so at two thirds the speed of light you would need a cable 28 metres long to achieve a delay equivalent to one degree at 20kHz. Leaving aside whether one degree at 20kHz is even audible, domestic cables aren't 28m long.

I'm afraid not. Any time energy cannot be fully transferred, it will be reflected. Where else would you propose it to go?

[EC8010]

The point is not whether it will be reflected, it is that you won't be able to distinguish between the original and any reflection.

[soongsc]

I'm sure some can, some can't. The last time I did measurements of speaker wiring with with amp driving speaker, and the hamonics are altered with different cable. This is the same thing that happens when measuring capacitors. I'm sure if a difference can be heard, there should be some way to relate measurements with what is hear.

[EC8010]

Believe what you will, but transmission line theory is inappropriate to audio frequencies travelling down cables of domestic lengths. If you can hear a change by changing cables it is not due to reflections - look elsewhere for your explanation. The most likely reasons are:

Amplifier to loudspeaker:

Cable series inductance or shunt capacitance causing a change in the stability of marginally stable amplifier.
Cable (aerial) picking up RFI and injecting it into feedback loop of amplifier to be demodulated by input stage.
Cable increasing source resistance as seen by loudspeaker (and crossover, if any).

Line level to amplifier:

Capacitance loading source.
Shield resistance affecting hum (due to hum loop).
Shield affecting hum (electrostatic hum).
Twisted pair reducing hum (electromagnetic hum).

MC transformer to RIAA stage:

Capacitance upsetting transformer secondary (always put the transformer in the RIAA stage)..

Cartridge to RIAA stage:

Capacitance loading source (MM cartridges).
Shield resistance affecting hum (due to hum loop).
Shield affecting hum (electrostatic hum).
Twisted pair reducing hum (electromagnetic hum).