Analysis of speaker cables

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I have detailed what cable "geometry" is needed to reduce ITD variation despite variations in speaker impedance vs frequency vs acceleration.

I have detailed how to spot a sensitivity between cables and speaker impedance.

I have presented a design of cables which alleviates the issue.

My "design" requires quadrupling the number of bog standard zip cables, using #18 or #16 zip cables in parallel to drop the RFZ.

My "solution" does not require expensive cables. And, it requires only a specification of L, C, and R.
Jn
Jn
I have found your information to be the most constructive and informative in this topic. Thank you
I also find it interesting that I independently reported on my subjective perception of a cable comparison that seems consistent with your report of the science. Again, based on reading the marketing blurb that is the subject of this thread (however flawed that blurb may be) I exchanged speaker cables and reported that I heard an unmistakable improvement in the sharpness of the image. The previous sound was not highly flawed and the image was deep behind the speakers, wide and 3d. It was not overtly distorted and many who heard it described it as one of the more natural systems they had heard. But after the cable swap it was better. Better if your head was spot on in the sweet spot, or walking around the room or in fact down the hall.
The original cable was made up of + and - conductors separated on a flat tape 1 inch apart. Each conductor was made of multiple strands varying gauges (12, 20, 24 & 28).
The replacement cable was a self made litz. It is many twisted pairs of 24 gauge teflon insulated wires (from cat5). Each of the pairs are twisted and then those groups twisted to make a bundle of (if I recall 16 pairs). The + & - conductor of the speaker cable is simply the sum of each of the individual strands. All the white wires join to make the + and all the colored wires make the -. I don't advocate that there is any merit in this cable. It's just something I made 15 years ago. I thought it would represent a reasonable comparison. It has a low resistance with an effective gauge of 12. I use a 12 gauge litz inductor in the crossover so that also matches. The conductors are closely separated by teflon insulation. I don't have a means to measure the impedance, but it seemed that it would be radically lower than the cable with conductors separated by 1 inch.
Thanks to Rick for starting this lively discussion and to Jn and others for shedding some light on what may be causing the subjective perception I experienced. I am happy with the sound of my system and do not have any need to investigate speaker cables further. It's clear that most are happy with zip cord and that is fine. I am happy with my twisted pair cables and feel a little more aware of cable geometry from following this thread.
 
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wow, this thread !
Over 300 replies and discussion about esoteric cable sound just because someone created some fake measurements.
Guys!

And I thought this was an serious audio-forum!
There were hundreds of blind test for Audio-cable and serious physical measurements, calculation and simulation (of people who DONT want to sell cables for unrealistic prices to you). The speaker cable makes no difference (if real copper and A > 2mm^2) !
But it seems like people want to believe in some BS, because they dont understand the real world anymore.
 
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Darakon,
They did not create "fake" measurements.

However, their test design was not very good, so their data, while consistent with their expectations, may be quite compromised. (Edit: one very big problem in test (actually in science in general) is not questioning the validity of your own results simply because they were consistent with expectations.)

Trying to measure the end to end voltage on a large conductor carrying high slew rate currents is not as easy as they thought it was as they ignored the dI/dt induction component in the test lead loop area.
Neglecting the field contribution of the return conductor, which tries to cancel the induced voltage within the test loop, they ignored how the wire to wire spacing would impact their results. So when they increased the wire to wire spacing, they reduced the cancellation of the induced voltage the second conductor would have provided.

Very sloppy.

Jn
 
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I wonder if this "HARP" is something to do with impedance matching as they are talking about resonances in a cable.

"HARP was discovered during Caelin Gabriel’s research into current drift and audio frequency current resonances that occur in speaker cables. These resonances are roughly analogous to standing waves (modals) in room acoustics. The exclusive HARP module acts as a current-mode diffraction device that breaks up these resonances, improving the perceived resolution and coherency of the system."

Sigma v2 Speaker - Shunyata Research
 
The only way to find out if some music reproduction idea works is to listen to it. If it does work, then would be the appropriate time to figure out why by using a combination of experimentation and theory. Useful way find out some interesting things that go against some common but incorrect or incomplete assumptions.

Regarding marketing claims, we all know they are made up to sell stuff. Not just in audio, but for everything. That doesn't mean a product doesn't do something useful. For some industries its surprising to see some of the lengths that are gone to in order to make people believe they are not being marketed to, just being offered useful advice or information.
 
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In point of fact, my foray into ITD was started because I was unable to get a centered proper lateralization with my headphones. It turned out my computer soundcard had one DAC and two S/H. There was a half rate delay between ears I could not compensate using the pan control.

Jn

As I said, I have no problem seeing this as a problem with headphones, (but yould think pushing one side of the phones in would shift centre, does it?) speakers not so much. You really think moving one speaker closer 2mm will shift the centre? I don't. Interchannel delay is not the same as ITD. You get ITD from both speakers (the left signal hits both ears as dose the right). There are no natural sounds that come from 2 sources so how have we evolved to hear interchannel delay?
 
The only way to find out if some music reproduction idea works is to listen to it. If it does work, then would be the appropriate time to figure out why by using a combination of experimentation and theory. Useful way find out some interesting things that go against some common but incorrect or incomplete assumptions.

Yes and this one is easy to test. Put a mono sound (some thing easy to locate, like a metal impact) in a stereo track and compare it with one track delayed various amounts. Does anyone see a problem with this?
 
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