What we have here is a conflict between two belief systems: The hear-a-difference people and the near-no-difference people. I'm in the hear-a-difference camp, so I will side with Dr. Hawksford, until PROVEN otherwise. I want to try to explain the differences in cable, rather than presume that it is all nonsense. It does me little, or no good, to dismiss EVERYTHING unless it is peer approved.
A false dichotomy. I never got the impression that Dr. Hawksford was promoting himself as a spokesperson for one side or the other. In fact I rarely ever see his actual listening experiences in print, though I have not sought them out. Usually you hate his kind of carrying on, tedious analysis, simulations, complicated measurements on even more complicated circuits. The cable result as pictured in his paper is not very interesting. A suddenly stopped sine wave into a simple RL would also show a tail as would a tone burst into any real speaker (orders of magnitude more delayed energy in this case). It has been shown may times that some exotic cables and some speakers have easily heard (by some) 10ths of a dB response anomalies, no one argues that they can't hear them.
There is not much difference here to the person that measures -112dB vs. -109dB seventh on a preamp and says "there end of story, that must be what I hear".
There is not much difference here to the person that measures -112dB vs. -109dB seventh on a preamp and says "there end of story, that must be what I hear".
john curl said:
You are correct. For all the hear-a-difference people, here's an amazing deal: a magic brick for $55!!!!
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?accstwek&1230911003&/VPI-db-5-Magic-Brick
Don't miss this opportunity to significantly improve your system!!!
Gents,
Around 1984 I talked with my audio Guru who told me of a discovery he had made. The said that for audio, cables carrying signal must be 1/ solid core and 2. as thin as earthly possible.
This of course made no sense to me but I was enoughh to try out these theories, and went home and replaced my speaker cables with 28 gauge wire wrap wire, one strand per terminal. What a wonderous revelation!
I then made interconnects from 40 gauge enamelled copper wire with similar improvements - to my ears.
These ideas were shared with many others in the Sydney (Australia) hi-end scene with universal acceptance by those open minded enough to actually try.
Then in 1985/6 Prof hawksford came out with the essex Echo papers in HiFI News and RR givingtechnical explanations for what we had been hearing for over a year.
IN the 90's I wrote a book called "The SuperCables CookBook, where I reprinted the Prof's orginal article, as well as a simplied version for non mathmaticians - for which the prof gave me an "A".
Since then we have commercially made cables using ultra thin wire and foil, the foil of course being able to be as wide as needed to get the resistance down, as www cannot be expected to drive big woofers!
I am a fan of the Prof's work, and from over 20 years of testing and commercail manufacuring, I stand by his theories, as do my clients. I don't care what counter theories maybe advanced, cables made to his theories work better than any other we have tested.
Regards, Allen (Vacuum State GmbH)
Around 1984 I talked with my audio Guru who told me of a discovery he had made. The said that for audio, cables carrying signal must be 1/ solid core and 2. as thin as earthly possible.
This of course made no sense to me but I was enoughh to try out these theories, and went home and replaced my speaker cables with 28 gauge wire wrap wire, one strand per terminal. What a wonderous revelation!
I then made interconnects from 40 gauge enamelled copper wire with similar improvements - to my ears.
These ideas were shared with many others in the Sydney (Australia) hi-end scene with universal acceptance by those open minded enough to actually try.
Then in 1985/6 Prof hawksford came out with the essex Echo papers in HiFI News and RR givingtechnical explanations for what we had been hearing for over a year.
IN the 90's I wrote a book called "The SuperCables CookBook, where I reprinted the Prof's orginal article, as well as a simplied version for non mathmaticians - for which the prof gave me an "A".
Since then we have commercially made cables using ultra thin wire and foil, the foil of course being able to be as wide as needed to get the resistance down, as www cannot be expected to drive big woofers!
I am a fan of the Prof's work, and from over 20 years of testing and commercail manufacuring, I stand by his theories, as do my clients. I don't care what counter theories maybe advanced, cables made to his theories work better than any other we have tested.
Regards, Allen (Vacuum State GmbH)
scott wurcer said:
Hi Scott
I find it strange that nobody ever pointed out the fact that his experiment used steel wire, not copper. JC stated years ago that the steel had a mu of approximately 100.
The internal inductance of a cylindrical wire is 15 nH per foot (oops, 15nH per foot time mu), so the wire MH tested had 30 times 100 nH per foot, 3 uH per foot.
Squeezing the conductors together certainly reduces the external dipole field, but as long as they are round, there will be that nasty 3 uH per foot term. Truncating the sine will certainly cause issues with that inductance.
john curl said:
Hey John, long time no talk. I hope all is well with you.
Absolutely...the relevant parameter is called RRR, or residual resistivity ratio. It is a parameter of the metal that defines what it will do at low temperatures. For superconducting magnets, it's an important parameter for the superconductor stability prior to a quench, and defines the thermal and electrical conductivity of the metal in the presence of a magnetic flux, usually in Teslas.
Typically, it's really just a relation between the mean free path in the structure vs temperature.
Here a few links to the information:
http://cryogenics.nist.gov/MPropsMAY/OFHC Copper/OFHC_Copper_rev.htm
http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/accelconf/p89/PDF/PAC1989_0506.PDF
The interconnect you mentioned, would you happen to know it's characteristic impedance? Did anybody ever measure L and C?
Cheers, John
I returned to hifi audio, as a hobby, some 7 years ago, after 20 years gap (20 years ago I built something and believed it was beyond audibility limits 
), first only as a hobby, then it became a small part of my design, consulting and business activity.
6 years ago I would swear that cables make no difference, impossible, nothing to measure, nothing to hear.
5 years ago I would swear opamps are the best audio solution.
3 years ago I had quarrels with John here (my apology).
During those 6-7 years, my view at audio has completely developed and changed. Without continuous listening experience and comparisons, my view would have been the same as 7 years ago.
), first only as a hobby, then it became a small part of my design, consulting and business activity.6 years ago I would swear that cables make no difference, impossible, nothing to measure, nothing to hear.
5 years ago I would swear opamps are the best audio solution.
3 years ago I had quarrels with John here (my apology).
During those 6-7 years, my view at audio has completely developed and changed. Without continuous listening experience and comparisons, my view would have been the same as 7 years ago.
syn08 said:
Syn08 you read too much :bs: from the idiocritic.
Quote from yor link:
"Similarly, anything that takes place inside the conductor such as boundaries, grains, and all that junk are irrelevant, since any energy that enters the surface of the conductor is lost as heat anyway. It does not matter how it is lost, since it never again contributes to the information traveling along the axis of the conductor."
With such :bs:, no wonder the guy choose to stay anonymous.
PMA said:I returned to hifi audio, as a hobby, some 7 years ago, after 20 years gap (20 years ago I built something and believed it was beyond audibility limits
6 years ago I would swear that cables make no difference, impossible, nothing to measure, nothing to hear.
5 years ago I would swear opamps are the best audio solution.
3 years ago I had quarrels with John here (my apology).
During those 6-7 years, my view at audio has completely developed and changed. Without continuous listening experience and comparisons, my view would have been the same as 7 years ago.
Today couple of ladies knocked to our door: they brought a flyer. There was a very similar story there... However, things were different, but the path was the same.
Gee, I thought the JW's had gone into hiding. You probably did't have Jack Chick in Russia.
http://www.chick.com/catalog/books/0204.asp
http://www.chick.com/catalog/books/0204.asp
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