And as we are now living in a world so completely polarised in our assumptions of how other people think or should believe in, it is therefore logical that the best thing that I can do is leave and return to what is left of terrestrial life before it burns itself to a crisp.
Good luck Dan, you are a better man than I am.
TOS
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Sorry, I don't understand the question. Are you asking whether a proper coaxial cable for unbalanced connections is better than a cheap pair of wires with no attempt at screening/shielding? If so, the answer is yes. The answer would still be yes when comparing a cheap coax with a really expensive unshielded two-wire with a good story attached. The wrong cable is the wrong cable, however much you paid for it.mountainman bob said:
Yes, that is precisely what I thought you said. It uses the logic of the lawyer or artist, not the logic of the engineer who actually knows about electricity.tapestryofsound said:
No. As I said, the electrical requirement is for the two channels to be identical.
DF96
For your information, my grandfather was a pharmacist, and my father was an engineer. My skill set is that of optical painter, sculptor, writer, qualified teacher, and I am also trained in laboratory practice and methodology. Audio is but one interest amongst many. I can more or less turn my hand to anything. This makes me both an objectivist and subjectivist, which I know is difficult for you to accept or understand, but even you with all your ingrained prejudices have a place in this world. I am not the agent of your existential unhappiness, merely a symptom of what you are missing out on.
Thus, if I ever saw you stumble into a bog, I would pull you out.
ToS
Except for induced interference signal, in what terms is a coaxial connection better than a pair of wires connection ?.
ROTFLMAO, when you find one will you let me know please.
In this case yes, the lawyer and the artist correctly point out the logically obvious, the engineer makes unsupported assumptions....it is not logical to assume all unknowns are unimportant or to believe unsupported claims.
Yes, so how is it that this can be accomplished ?.
Dan.
I recommend to use single wiring to each path of the crossover before the speakers, so for a 3 way it's 6 wires from the amp+ 6 wires from the crossover.
What else ?
Yes, I do realize it’s basic but I never knew why......maybe the sales teams should lead with something relevant like properly shielded, instead of how many 9’s fine the copper is.
True that, everything needs a little marketing though......it would be nice just to be able to find the stats. Everything else seems to come with measurements, you really have to dig for interconnect and speaker cable numbers.
And even though some say it doesn’t matter, the values are part of the equation.
If conductor is expensive, the economic optimum is equal sizes.
Grab a length of two 1mm pair. Say it happens to be total 1 Ohm go and return, 0.5r per wire. Say stranded for experimental ease.
Now unwrap some strands from one and add them to the other. (If you prefer, melt the metal and make new wire of different size.) At the extreme one wire is 1.414mm and the other is zero. Say we go 1.400mm and 0.200mm.
Now the fat wire, 1.400mm, is down from 0.5r to just over 0.25r, and the thin wire is up from 0.5r to about 12.5r. Total loop has gone from 1 Ohm to 12.75r, nearly 13:1 increase for the *same* copper.
Lesser differences are less bad, but not good. Replacing two #18 with a #17 and a #19 gives nearly the same copper (cost) but about 2.5% increase of resistance.
Bad way to spend your money.(*)
Of course in Hi-Fidelity you may spend as much as you want.
(*) There are cases where unequal conductor "make sense". My garage feeder is #6 power conductors and #8 ground. I can load the #6 to 55 Amps all day long. There should be "no significant" current in the #8; if there is that is a fuse-blowing Fault. The requirement then is that the #8 hang-in long enough for the fuse to let go. NEC allows this mild under-sizing.
But we did not agree to disagree. You made a statement, claiming that it was based on "logic". I told you that it was electrically false. That is what you do not like. Instead of coming back with a counter-argument you simply insult me, and go off into bar room psychology. If you find it difficult to be told that you are wrong on some technical point then this forum will not be a happy place for you.tapestryofsound said:
OK, but that is an economic argument not an electrical one. We were speaking of insulators, not conductor size. However, thank you for demonstrating to some others the correct way to have a technical discussion.PRR said:
Any rational thought would suggest that, with modern plastics, insulator conductance is insignificant for any realistic audio use. Especially for speaker cables. (Were youall talking speakers? Or sheep? We had a cow fall in a septic pit. Took a tow-truck to winch it out.)
Paper-based insulators "do" matter on very old phone lines (looking out at mine; today it crapped-out before the rain hit) and older tube guitar amps (damp board syndrome).
You know that and I know that and anyone who has done enough with electricity to use a VTVM or DMM to measure the resistance across two wires of an unconnected cable knows that (it's over a hundred megohm!), but apparently that leaves quite a few people on this forum who believe different types of insulation in use on cables suitable for speakers can make a difference in the sound.
Now I'm wondering how much weight can be supported by 12/2 landscape wire.
i do not believe we have to prove ourselves to anybody but ourselves....
keep the discussions without the emotions, please.....
keep the discussions without the emotions, please.....
True.
When talking the combination: high voltage + lossy insulator + sensitive very high impedance devices (tube grids) , all of which we find in old black fiber Fender boards and even on modern products (very poor quality glass epoxy (Marshall JCM2000 boards) we are in big trouble.
A 1M grid resistor can drop enough voltage to turn tube bias out of whack with even 1 uA loss current, which might mean, say, 200 Megohm lossy board resistance , but at speaker levels, even if black cable insulation were loaded with so much carbon black pigment that it turns into a composition resistor 😱 and such resistor were, say, 10k or even 1k, it would NOT affect power transmitted to a 4/8/16 ohm speaker.
This just as a "mind experiment" to test a theory, because it´s impossible anybody makes such a cable.
You might have a signal cable shield made out of conductive plastic instead of metallic braid or metallized foil, but that´s an entirely different problem.
And there very low resistance, if possible 0 ohm, is the impossible to reach goal.
And only possibly conductive pigment would be carbon black or actual metallic dust (aluminum, copper, brass, etc.)
Most pigments out there are ultrafine ground minerals or some synthetic dyes, which in principle are NOT conductive.
And for practical/cost reasons, very often "commercial carbon black", when used as plastics pigment, is actually ultrafine "black ferrite".]
I should know, I manufacture lots of Amplifier components for own use , from boards to transformers to speakers to ...... , and stamp or inject some parts.
A 1 kg bag of black ferrite is about the size of a 1 kg sugar or salt pack ... I have never ever seen a 1kg bag of carbon black, it´s so fluffy.
And it stains everything.
Much worse than Laser toner, go figure, that´s why most try to avoid using it if at all possible.
All materials have fundamental properties of susceptibility and hysteresis and losses (conversions), and the values of these properties are unique to each material and constitute materials individual 'finger print' as it were.
Theory calculates and armchair debate argues that these effects are minor and therefore should be automatically disregarded and discarded out of hand.
For data, communications etc systems this assumption is 'valid', however for base band audio I find that these fundamental properties of susceptibility and hysteresis and loss are of importance and IME define the audio band sonic signature/finger print of materials and systems.
Delete "Insulation has a small effect on wires." and again the argument founded on assumptions and countered by experience falls down.
Logic is logic, no skill sets required.
You understand some behaviours of 'electricity', that doesn't mean you understand all properties of 'electricity', same as everybody else.
If appropriate equipment port filtering and cable pair matching is employed, induced interference should be of no issue.
It is known that red and black wires are not identical, Red send-Red return is not the same as Red send-Black return.
This argument is again not logical.
Purity affects noise properties and so is of importance.
DF every time it is mentioned that wires and cables and insulations can have audible behaviours you and others are straight in there aggressively attacking such 'notions' as imaginary and insisting that all cables at audio frequencies can be modeled by simple lumped RLC values.
If the R&L&C values which are derived from the fundamental properties of susceptibility and hysteresis and loss are perfectly constant wrt to electric potential, coulomb rate and frequency then and only then can it be said that this is true........cable dielectric properties are indeed frequency dependent.
Experience through history says that in the audio band there are materials electrical behaviours dependencies that can and do influence if not define audio system behaviours.
I posted recordings links that show changes in behaviour of a system according to loopback cable used, and recordings showing changes due to modifications of cable used.
I have multiple recordings of changes due to modification of one only property at a time.
This allows subsequent playback of these recordings in a multitrack player/DAW and rapid switching between any of these recordings in real time.
By this method of comparing recordings very fine alterations can be detected and learned and then successfully ABX'd.
Turns out pure silver does add bright but it's a nice accuracy 'brightening', pure gold adds damping and emphasis to low end, ie adds fat and comfortable, pleasing but not accurate.
That's just two elements individually, compounds and mixtures as dielectrics bring another whole world of sounds to the table.
Ferrite sets an 'order' to the sound but also imparts a characteristic noise that 'sets a tone', and once identified is subjectively rejected as an annoyance type sound.
With this range of recipe ingredients it would be surprising if PVC did not cause a host of dependencies causing sonic signature.
DF I suggest you try the recordings DAW fast switching approach and you might discover fine behaviours that you have overlooked or dismissed due to our standard text book 'learnings'.
I also passed my exams and 'understood' that cable insulation and direction can have no influence or basis UNTIL I discovered for myself that this is not always true.
If you were to try an RCA cable direction recording experiment you might make some 'discoveries'.
Dan.
About 400 pounds breaking strength. (It should yield a lot first, so not for precision calf-hoisting.)
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Thanks that's good info.
So expect then that black sheathed wires and cables possibly have ferromagnetic properties ?.
Dan.
No, they do not. From experience.
Not in MRI's, either main or gradient coils, not at any magnetic field up to 24 tesla (in my building), not in any of the wiring of the LHC, not at the high field facility in Fla.
Black tefzel heat shrink is used for durability, loaded with carbon black. Only kapton is better near absolute zero but suffers rip susceptibility hence the tefzel.
Stycast 2850 is used everywhere for feedthroughs seals at the magnets, I use it extensively as a compressive member in between superconductors at 3 to 5 tesla, it is carbon loaded and has exactly zero magnetic properties.
Stycast originally was colored black, they came out with blue because they worried about carbon and electricity. Decades later, all military high voltage product is black, everyday bridges are potted blue for looks.
No scientific facility on this planet has ever reported black insulation as something to be avoided for any reason, kapton, yes.
Jn
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