I missed the "wondering" part. Still do. But then, my non-existent Greek is admittedly infinitely inferior to your very competent English.
i see a lot of hype about pure silver conductors, ie interconnects and speaker cables what gives? in what wa is it 'better' than copper? surely the most important connections are the ones in the line level? i found cheap interconnects here make a difference in sound, usualy loss of detail, if i use good interconnects there seems to be 'more' music. just my little observation.
SY,
I'm trying my best with my English🙂 Not complaining about your Greek either.
Here's a little funny incident.Many years ago I was at a hifi show in Paris.It was the time when Focal had released their Grand Utopia speaker.At that time a Greek magazine had published a review of the Grande Utopia.An English spoken friend,had a copy of that review,and came to me and said"excuse me could you please tell me what it says here?It looks like Greek to me".He gave me the review copy,I have read a few lines,and told him"You are right,it looks like Greek to me too".For a moment he was confused,but then I told him I was joking,and just explained to him what was in the review.If you have any problems with your Greek,ask me.I'm good at it🙂
I'm trying my best with my English🙂 Not complaining about your Greek either.
Here's a little funny incident.Many years ago I was at a hifi show in Paris.It was the time when Focal had released their Grand Utopia speaker.At that time a Greek magazine had published a review of the Grande Utopia.An English spoken friend,had a copy of that review,and came to me and said"excuse me could you please tell me what it says here?It looks like Greek to me".He gave me the review copy,I have read a few lines,and told him"You are right,it looks like Greek to me too".For a moment he was confused,but then I told him I was joking,and just explained to him what was in the review.If you have any problems with your Greek,ask me.I'm good at it🙂
What little I know of Koine, it's a wonderful language. Extremely expressive; one is able to say so much in one word that takes 3 adjectives in English.
Wish I knew more; the grammar isn't easy to follow.
Wish I knew more; the grammar isn't easy to follow.
wazzy said:
Technically, by insignificantly higher conductivity. Not that it would matter at line levels and below. It is also difficult to make any generalisations about "silver" sound such as "bright" or "thin" as good silver wire is neither. For some reasons silver reveals slightly more inner detail but lacks ultimate mid-bass punch. My first intoduction to silver was lacklustre but eventually i found silver wire i really like.
In the days of my youth Kadoma was a great place to pass a driving test; still popular with out-of-towners? 🙂
Yes, but the phase lags at a continuously increasing angle at continuously varying skin depth with continuously varying frequency. Current density (i.e. signal level) also varies continuously at continuously varying skin depth with continuously varying frequency. Not to mention wave propagation velocity varying continuously with continuously varying frequency.
Add to that calculating actual permeability of the conductor including impurities such as iron and nickel.
John
That reduces to an inductive term- skin depth is not a function of voltage for normal conductors, it's simple inversely proportional to the conductivity and frequency.
Scale question again: What's that inductance and what's the phase shift at 1kHz and 20kHz from some Home Depot 12 gauge?
Scale question again: What's that inductance and what's the phase shift at 1kHz and 20kHz from some Home Depot 12 gauge?
Skin depth at 5000Hz (the upper limit of the region where the ear is its most sensitive) is ~.037" which is almost to the center of the Home Depot extension cord. With the iron impurities probably much higher in hardware store copper wire, mu increases so the skin depth is probably even less. Obviously it's debatable whether or not the much attenuated lagging plane wave is audible or not.
John
Third try: what is the inductance and what is phase shift at 1kHz and 20kHz of a 12 gauge Home Depot cable?
(gratuitous hint to simplifiy things: there's not a dime's worth of conductivity difference between the cheap wire used there and six nines copper, else the skin effect is LESS with the cheap wire, as you say)
(gratuitous hint to simplifiy things: there's not a dime's worth of conductivity difference between the cheap wire used there and six nines copper, else the skin effect is LESS with the cheap wire, as you say)
OK, cables make a big difference when we sit in our living room listening for long periods, and make no difference when we examine the issue scientifically from any POV. Our brain or not, for many of us, its the sense of final comfort that counts, the way we normally enjoy auditions. We are emotional animals and in the end we will do whatever picks our fancy in our leisure time in a hobby. What is the fuss? Since we are a DIY community, I propose we just make our own like Bud does, have fun if we are inclined so, and don't pay big bucks for ready made. Because the materials cost is NOT worth buying retail Hi-End cable even if its silver and gold.🙂 Me I find more joy in tampering with circuits, it can alter the experience and learn something concrete too. I find that is a more creative tampering.😉
You've veered a bit from by original post. I was referring to the content of the Hawksford article in Stereophile in relation to skin depth and consequent lagging of the plane wave. My hourly rate goes up when asked to calculate variables unrelated to my own post.🙂
Skin depth is also inversely proportional to the permeability of the conductor (something has to help out with the high value of conductivity value for copper🙂 ) So, no, skin depth is not less with cheap wire where the metal impurity with the highest concentration is usually iron.
John
SY, last year I went on a tour with work to one of our suppliers who is one of the largest cable manufacturers in the country. As we walked past the raw 8mm diameter copper spools raw from the foundry I asked what the purity was, and his reply was 'four nines'. Most of this goes to making generic power cables for use domestic and industrial as well as power distribution, so I doubt purity will have much difference between this a six 9's stuff.SY said:
Even if we concluded that the cables are altering the sound a lot, retail cable just ain't worth the money they ask! That is the real problem IMO. Dealers have a fantastic margin, brands too, its 99% OEM, and why pay lucrative for some people cooking with no real scientific control or labs? To make a well known tech good tube amp, George of Tubelab has a vast inventory of tubes, kills some, and has a thoroughly equipped bench for instance. What is it into playing with some materials, liking something under no controlled parameters in ones own system, then finding someone to do it industrially in a cheap country and make lots of bucks after some fellow scribes reviews? That is the way you do it, money for nothing and your cigars for free.😀
Salas said:
Certainly. The same is true for any other high end item. The problem with cables is that the vast amount of empirical data essential to build a good sounding cable is not really in the public domain the way it is for amplifiers. The reason probably is that cable building is just not so diy-friendly as amplifier building and most people find it a lot more interesting and entertaining to build amplifiers or speakers. In my and my audio-buddies experience it is more cost effective to buy good sounding factory made cables (especially used) than to attempt diying. The price of quality raw materials and the amount of work is just prohibitive.
Brett, that's also my understanding.
Now, as to my still-unanswered question to John (major impurities in commercial copper do not include iron, but that's a distraction and not an answer to the scale question)... you can calculate the self inductance of the canonical wire, but the number won't be terribly accurate- the late, great jneutron gave me some data on calculated versus actual skin depths. In any case, the calculated number is about 0.01uH/foot. My measured value was less than that, but let's go with the worse number.
For a 10 foot cable, there and back, that's 0.2uH. If we assume that the speaker designer has thoughtfully Zobeled out the inductance of the tweeter and we have an 8 ohm impedance at both 1kHz and 20kHz (a non-Zobeled tweeter will show less effect here), would anyone care to calculate the phase shift and attenuation due to the inductive component?
Now, as to my still-unanswered question to John (major impurities in commercial copper do not include iron, but that's a distraction and not an answer to the scale question)... you can calculate the self inductance of the canonical wire, but the number won't be terribly accurate- the late, great jneutron gave me some data on calculated versus actual skin depths. In any case, the calculated number is about 0.01uH/foot. My measured value was less than that, but let's go with the worse number.
For a 10 foot cable, there and back, that's 0.2uH. If we assume that the speaker designer has thoughtfully Zobeled out the inductance of the tweeter and we have an 8 ohm impedance at both 1kHz and 20kHz (a non-Zobeled tweeter will show less effect here), would anyone care to calculate the phase shift and attenuation due to the inductive component?
Here is the officially accepted skin effect RAC additional loss % from conductor size vs frequency, for single conductors, from the E&M freak show.
Bud
Bud
SY said:
SY, I don't think the phase shift you are talking about is the issue, if I may give my opinion, based on differences I hear and also what I believe some here are suggesting, we must rather look at what happen with the audio signal inside the cable. For example, if small amounts of signal information get absorbed and then put back later (dielectric), surely it will tend to filter or distort low level detail. What may the influence of larger signals and their EMF have on the smal signals riding on it? Same with external interference.
My guess is that detail get filtered and phase relationship get distorted enough to influence soundstage focus. I believe as soon as stage focus are compromised it become difficult or impossible to hear the subtle sounds coming from instruments. I've been amased many times by the amount of detail that are recorded on a known CD but was never heard before.
Phase shift has a different meaning than the way you are using it. John knows that meaning very well and that's the sense in which he used it.
The echoes you suggest don't actually exist, so the "what if" doesn't really make sense.
The echoes you suggest don't actually exist, so the "what if" doesn't really make sense.
SY said:
My post wasn't aimed at the discussion between you and John.
SY said:
What "echoes" are you talking about? I don't see a "what if" in my post, only a question that I have asked.
That's your "what-if."
The first part doesn't have any actual meaning; the second part does and is incorrect.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.