An exceptional example of speaker cable nonsense.
To drive a extra low inductance speaker cable you have to insert an inductor - this is a good one😉
To drive a extra low inductance speaker cable you have to insert an inductor - this is a good one😉
I never claimed that I know the exact reason why low inductance cables perform better. I am not the only one who noticed that. I personally know several audiophiles who noticed that and use Kimber cables. Also, some amplifiers are more prone to instability with such cables than others. Some amplifiers will tolerate it without any problems even without inductor.
Pleated cable like Kimber can improve the sound even when used as mains cable. Proved many times over the years.
Pleated cable like Kimber can improve the sound even when used as mains cable. Proved many times over the years.
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Asserted perhaps, false in fact, and certainly never "proved". People can't tell coat hanger from copper wire in a double blind test of speaker cables even. Many of us do not consider opinion as proof, we have much higher standards.
To be precise, when I build DIY amps I always put inductor at the output. So the inductor (with it's 1uH inductance) is there weather the loudspeaker cable is ordinary two core or pleated low inductance. But low inductance sound much better. Why is that so? I don't know. May be it's because it filters some RF detection better than ordinary speaker cable. As I said I don't know. May be it's teflon insulator that sounds better. In the threads about audio oscillators you can find evidence that even color of insulator influences the performance of caps and passive components. Why is that so? I don't know.
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If you are math-lazy, use the Reactance Chart.
3m of most cable is probably 300pFd or less, and <5uH.
Speaker is nominal 8 Ohms; however there is a bass rise and almost-always a significant treble rise.
Plot, C, L, nominal Z, and probable Z.
The C is never close to adding load to the speaker.
The L does come near 1/10th of an 8 Ohm resistance at 20kHz. However most real speakers are rising above their nominal at 20kHz.
I'm not going to speculate about >20kHz because speakers may be screwy, and transistor amps are OFTEN screwy 100kHz-10MHz. You think it is an audio system but the transistors do not know that. There's no way to generalize what different designers do.
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LF in-room response of loudspeakers most certainly rise, depending of how near the speakers are to room boundaries. Standing waves makes LF response wavy and irregular. But treble in-room response does not rise. Reasons for this are many. First, most dome tweeters can barely touch 20kHz, and only on-axis. No need to say that tweeter in most cases is not exactly on-axis relative to the ear. Dr. Friedemann Hausdorf in his "Handbuch der Lautsprechertechnik" explained that there will always be some HF loss due to absorption depending on the distance between listener and loudspeaker. In near field the loss is reduced. In far field the loss is bigger. I think that most people who like HF horn speakers prefer the dispersion characteristic of the horn - horn directs HF more to the listener and the loss is reduced.
For sure. It really takes a waveguide to tame the dispersion of a dome tweeter to an acceptable degree (not to mention the potential efficiency gains to go along with it).
I'm not sure what you mean with pleated cable, as with pleated I assume something like this: Skirt - Wikipedia
Anyway, I've seen braided Kimber cables. Do you mean that?
If an amplifier performs different with a braided mains cable than with an ordinary one with three more or less parallel wires, it is either defective or misdesigned, I'd say.
Best regards!
Yes. Braided cables. My mistake.
But you are wrong about advantages of braided mains cables. Such cables filters a lot of HF interference traveling along kilometers of high voltage lines and which act like antennas for interference. I once attached Ben Duncan document explaining why braided cable is excellent suppressor of background noise in audio system. There are other ways to suppress HF interference, which are much cheaper than one meter of Kimber cable, but people tried them as mains cables and were surprised how good they perform as mains cables.
Many years ago when kimber started selling cables they claimed that braided cables perform better because inherent HF interference suppression prevents amplifier to recognize interference as form of HF distortion trying to cancel it with feedback. Two core cables act as some kind of antenna for HF interference and that interference appears as signal at the amp output. Amp "thinks" that interference is error generated in the amplification process and starts to rectify this error.
Of course, I am unable to prove or disprove their claim. I have no formal education in electronics, not one minute of it. I am educated in humanities.
Of course, I am unable to prove or disprove their claim. I have no formal education in electronics, not one minute of it. I am educated in humanities.
Well that's not normally the issue, the issue is the RF gets to the amplifier _input_ and is unintentionally rectified and amplified. The output inductor on amps helps prevent RF interference affecting the output directly, as does the very high capacitances of active output devices and the low impedances.
Even if RF gets into the output section and the amp reacts to it, this is all well above the audio band and independent from it.
There is rationale for filtering out RF from any part of the audio chain, but this is done with ferrite toroids and ceramic capacitors, the cable can carry RF whatever sort it is, you filter at the point of entry to the shielded enclosures for best effect.
I think they are trying to make you spend more money than you need to for a speaker cable with excellent properties. I think its rare than anything better shielded than pair or twisted pair is needed - and if there is a lot of RF around even braided coax can't prevent it...
Even if RF gets into the output section and the amp reacts to it, this is all well above the audio band and independent from it.
There is rationale for filtering out RF from any part of the audio chain, but this is done with ferrite toroids and ceramic capacitors, the cable can carry RF whatever sort it is, you filter at the point of entry to the shielded enclosures for best effect.
I think they are trying to make you spend more money than you need to for a speaker cable with excellent properties. I think its rare than anything better shielded than pair or twisted pair is needed - and if there is a lot of RF around even braided coax can't prevent it...
If another mains cable has effect on the amplifier says something about the quality of the amp his power circuit. Put a few ferrite rings on the power cable, if the amp acts up. Cost only a few euro’s. (Never saw very sensitive industrial equipment equipped with a braided power cable 🙂 )
Not wanting to split hairs, but you probably mean 0.1uF and 0.01uF.
Farad is a persons name so must be capitalized.
m = 10^-3; u = 10^-6. Only a factor 1000 different ;-)
Jan