Hi,
In an article on audio cables I wrote over a decade ago I called these "first order" effects and ascribed MOST gross subjective differences between cables of dramatically different construction and electrical parameters, especially in cases where certain cables cause "bad sound".
I even allowed for such factors as dielectric absorption, conductance and RF-Shielding limiting RFI as "second order" effects.
I also postulated that there may exist "third order" differences, that is for example caused by metal purity, alloy/base metal chosen and so on.
For third order effects I cannot really postulate any reasonable explanation for audibility at this time (it can be made quite safely for the 2nd and 1st order effects though), however I am unwilling to reject the possibility of such existing on any evidence presented so far and am more inclined towards a position that leaves this whole are as unproven, but with a large body of anecdotal evidence for the presence of such third order effects.
I would probably expect tube amplifiers generally to by far less sensitive to speaker cable effects, but tube preamplifiers generally to be more sensitive to interconnect cable effects then their counterparts due to the obvious technical reasons.
I would suggest that we are quite safe to reject the hypothesis as quoted, though I would not safe to accept or reject the hypothesis that what I call third order effects are responsible for the remainder of the audible differences widely reported, or that other factors are responsible...
As others have reported here, I have too done trials with multiple cables build up to exactly the same geometry, same RLC parameters AND same second order parameters with respective parameters optimised to minimise any impact of first and second order effects on the signal (in this case RCA interconnects made with very low capacitance [< 10pF/m], very low DA [mostly air dielectric] AND with the same Neutrik Pro RCA Plugs on all cables.
The cables where visually identical, except for marking of A, B and C and where given to prospective buyers for audition, it was indicated that the cables would all cost the same and had only minor differences.
The only differences where the signal conductors materials (all bare wires with different conductor materials and different coatings or non).
At the time I had at least ten cases where the potential buyers all preferred ONE of the cables significantly and asked their cables to be made to this one pattern, not to the other, incidentally, they all also bought the cables, at a fairly high price for line level cables, voluntarily, without any heavy sales talk etc.
Ciao T
In an article on audio cables I wrote over a decade ago I called these "first order" effects and ascribed MOST gross subjective differences between cables of dramatically different construction and electrical parameters, especially in cases where certain cables cause "bad sound".
I even allowed for such factors as dielectric absorption, conductance and RF-Shielding limiting RFI as "second order" effects.
I also postulated that there may exist "third order" differences, that is for example caused by metal purity, alloy/base metal chosen and so on.
For third order effects I cannot really postulate any reasonable explanation for audibility at this time (it can be made quite safely for the 2nd and 1st order effects though), however I am unwilling to reject the possibility of such existing on any evidence presented so far and am more inclined towards a position that leaves this whole are as unproven, but with a large body of anecdotal evidence for the presence of such third order effects.
I would probably expect tube amplifiers generally to by far less sensitive to speaker cable effects, but tube preamplifiers generally to be more sensitive to interconnect cable effects then their counterparts due to the obvious technical reasons.
I would suggest that we are quite safe to reject the hypothesis as quoted, though I would not safe to accept or reject the hypothesis that what I call third order effects are responsible for the remainder of the audible differences widely reported, or that other factors are responsible...
As others have reported here, I have too done trials with multiple cables build up to exactly the same geometry, same RLC parameters AND same second order parameters with respective parameters optimised to minimise any impact of first and second order effects on the signal (in this case RCA interconnects made with very low capacitance [< 10pF/m], very low DA [mostly air dielectric] AND with the same Neutrik Pro RCA Plugs on all cables.
The cables where visually identical, except for marking of A, B and C and where given to prospective buyers for audition, it was indicated that the cables would all cost the same and had only minor differences.
The only differences where the signal conductors materials (all bare wires with different conductor materials and different coatings or non).
At the time I had at least ten cases where the potential buyers all preferred ONE of the cables significantly and asked their cables to be made to this one pattern, not to the other, incidentally, they all also bought the cables, at a fairly high price for line level cables, voluntarily, without any heavy sales talk etc.
Ciao T
