Star-Quad Is Good.
Electrical suppliers sell 4 wire mains flex, and this can be configured as star-quad and is cheap.
This works very well for the price.
An alternative is
Canare Star-Quad
Eric.
Electrical suppliers sell 4 wire mains flex, and this can be configured as star-quad and is cheap.
This works very well for the price.
An alternative is
Canare Star-Quad
Eric.
Re: Star-Quad Is Good.
Yes, I will buy some of cheap cables configured as star-quad and will compare them to find one set as speaker cables, and I will use remaining cables for other purposes. This is the only solution I could manage safely and economically.
fdegrove said:
Thanks, both of you.mrfeedback said:
Yes, I will buy some of cheap cables configured as star-quad and will compare them to find one set as speaker cables, and I will use remaining cables for other purposes. This is the only solution I could manage safely and economically.
The Paulinator said:
Paulinator,
This may be a little off toppic, but since you seem to know what you are talking about I'm going to ask anyway.
I have done some prelimminary tests on transformers without iron cores, to lower the losses from that, eddy current and core losses. I decided to try a wooden core for ease of manufacturing, but got very low efficiency. A friend woodworker pointed out to me a rare tropical wood called iron wood. This, because of its iron content actuall has a specific weight above 1, (it sinks in water). I am currently trying to get some.
Have you any experience with this or, if not, an opinion?
Jan Didden
janneman
I have worked a bit with iron wood before (occasionaly used as railway-sleepers here in South Africa).
You will need to invest in some serious equipment to work with the stuff... Example:You need to use nails designed for concrete, the standard hardwood stuff just bends. I used a metal lathe and high speed steel bits to for the wood.....
You can also try to get hold of Rhodesian Yara, for similar properties (they are related).
If you like I can try and source some for you, but the shipping cost will be prohibitive... (Yes, it weighs a LOT!).
May make a prettier than metal enclosure though...... (Darkish ochre coloured wood, not exceptionally pretty grain, but not bad ... polishes VERY well.. and of course, durable).
Regards
Jan
I have worked a bit with iron wood before (occasionaly used as railway-sleepers here in South Africa).
You will need to invest in some serious equipment to work with the stuff... Example:You need to use nails designed for concrete, the standard hardwood stuff just bends. I used a metal lathe and high speed steel bits to for the wood.....
You can also try to get hold of Rhodesian Yara, for similar properties (they are related).
If you like I can try and source some for you, but the shipping cost will be prohibitive... (Yes, it weighs a LOT!).
May make a prettier than metal enclosure though...... (Darkish ochre coloured wood, not exceptionally pretty grain, but not bad ... polishes VERY well.. and of course, durable).
Regards
Jan
janneman said:
Christopher said:
Two cores, about 0.75mm^2 each, sold as extension cable for garden tools - I think the current rating was 8 or 10A.. The 10m length I was using had a DC resistance of about 0.5R each leg.
The cable was several years old, and maybe quite a lot of the copper had oxidised; perhaps new cable is not as bad. Nevertheless, this is what I had been using and I'm sure other people have the same or worse.
Cheers
IH
Hi George, thanks for dropping in and offering the input.
I too was using some computer ribbon cable,(your configuration 1). Presently I'm back to my cardas cables, not because I think they're superior or different, just that before I put them up for sale, I figured I'd do some dblt tests between them and the ribbons. (I haven't yet)
I hate to harp, but when you listened to all the configurations did you do it blind ABX or such? I am assuming you didn't measure or calculate the LC's or you would have posted your results.
Chris
I too was using some computer ribbon cable,(your configuration 1). Presently I'm back to my cardas cables, not because I think they're superior or different, just that before I put them up for sale, I figured I'd do some dblt tests between them and the ribbons. (I haven't yet)
I hate to harp, but when you listened to all the configurations did you do it blind ABX or such? I am assuming you didn't measure or calculate the LC's or you would have posted your results.
Chris
Hello Chris
I did not do any blind test (both eyes open), nor ABX. All cables were burned in for 2 days. Then each one was connected for 2-3 days in the same position of the chain for proper listening. After this, another position in the chain was chosen ( i am talking about interconnects), and so on. I did also some short term change overs just for confirmation. Two friends (one believer and one non believer) were invited for a few beers. Then they took some of them with for local testing, then i went for a few beers over there and so on. Pretty scientific! Now i am left with two interconnect pairs and one speaker cable pair, not necessarily my favorites. But i still love my friends.
I do not have the gear to measure L and C.
I do not have the time to calculate L and C. This is not plain easy too. Some assumptions have to take place in the beginning, and the validity of them should be verified by actual measurements.
Chris, If you will compare your ribbons with the Cardas, please inform us for your findings
Regards
George
I did not do any blind test (both eyes open), nor ABX. All cables were burned in for 2 days. Then each one was connected for 2-3 days in the same position of the chain for proper listening. After this, another position in the chain was chosen ( i am talking about interconnects), and so on. I did also some short term change overs just for confirmation. Two friends (one believer and one non believer) were invited for a few beers. Then they took some of them with for local testing, then i went for a few beers over there and so on. Pretty scientific! Now i am left with two interconnect pairs and one speaker cable pair, not necessarily my favorites. But i still love my friends.
I do not have the gear to measure L and C.
I do not have the time to calculate L and C. This is not plain easy too. Some assumptions have to take place in the beginning, and the validity of them should be verified by actual measurements.
Chris, If you will compare your ribbons with the Cardas, please inform us for your findings
Regards
George
Beer Fest
If so what did they say about the cables that they prefer ?.
Eric.
Are you saying that your friends won't give them back ?. 😉
If so what did they say about the cables that they prefer ?.
Eric.
Easy measurement
Basic frequency-response type measurements can be done really simply, if you have a multimeter with a tolerable bandwidth AC range, and a test CD (or computer+sound card+software).
The basic procedure is to put on a test tone at a given frequency, measure the AC voltage across the amplifier output terminals, and then across the speaker terminals. Divide one by the other, take the log & multiply by 20 and you have a loss figure in dB.
This won't tell you the cable L/C/R directly, but it will give you an idea whether they are having an obvious effect (i.e. on the frequency response). Well worth the 20 or 30 pounds it'll cost.
Cheers
IH
gpapag said:
Basic frequency-response type measurements can be done really simply, if you have a multimeter with a tolerable bandwidth AC range, and a test CD (or computer+sound card+software).
The basic procedure is to put on a test tone at a given frequency, measure the AC voltage across the amplifier output terminals, and then across the speaker terminals. Divide one by the other, take the log & multiply by 20 and you have a loss figure in dB.
This won't tell you the cable L/C/R directly, but it will give you an idea whether they are having an obvious effect (i.e. on the frequency response). Well worth the 20 or 30 pounds it'll cost.
Cheers
IH
Frank, I think you are missing something. Not only they want more beers, they are asking for Chetos potato chips as well.
Eric, what i can understand is that they like the appearence of the cables a lot, their "sound" a bit less, but most of all they are very satisfied with them, because it didn't cost them anything.
Ian, thank you for the advice, but the intent of the exercise was to construct some cables with same materials but different geometry in order to see if they "sound" different. Six ears said yes and this is enough for me, since we had no particular preference for any cable initially. The implication is that the "WHY" comes after and it doesn't go away easily. I know that the geometry sets the C and L of the cable (for the C, dielectric constant of the insulator as well). So suppose that we measure these. Does this LCR pad inserted between the o/p - i/p impedances demistifies everything? I doupt it, but i will try to help it. For now, i did some rough capacitance measurements (with my multimeter, i am sure this is not the accepted way of doing this, but it is the only i can do. In any case, accuracy will be worse than +/- 10 %). Results:
Pair 1:
+++++++++++++-------------
Capacitance: 75 pF/m
Pair 2:
-+---++----++++----++---+-
Capacitance: 295 pF/m
Pair 3:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Capacitance: 650 pF/m
In addition to this and for confirming the validity of the above figures,, i measured the capacitance of adjuscent strands of the 26 strands ribbon, each time strands number increasing by one, up to 13 strands X 13 strands (configuration of "pair 1")Results:
Strands No Capacitance/m (pF/m)
1x1 15
2x2 21
3x3 26
4x4 30
5x5 32
6x6 34
7x7 39
8x8 43
9x9 47
10x10 53
11x11 62
12x12 67
13x13 75
All these measurements do show something, but the full picture is not clear yet. I will search beneath the paper piles in my room for some equations that combine R,C,L,Characteristic impedance and Geometric factor. This way i may get the L that i am not able to measure.
With the same multimeter, just for comparison and out of curiosity, i measured the capacitance of some more cables that were lying around.
Flat lamp cord 0.75 mm^2 multistrand, centers 2.5mm appart : 38 pF/m
Flat speaker cable 3mm^2 multistrand, centers 4mm appart :65 pF/m
Telephon cable 0.2mm^2 solid, centers 2mm appart, loosely held in PVC outer cover : 60 pF/m
Coaxial interconnect ("PROFIGOLD"), screen diameter=8mm, center conductor diameter=0.7mm :22pF/m
Normal Screened cable, screen dia=2.5mm, center multistrand conductor dia=0.25mm :150 pF/m
RG 154 coaxial cable, screen dia=2.5mm, center multistrand conductor dia=0.25mm :85 pF/m
RG 59/U coaxial cable, screen dia=4mm, center solid conductor dia=0.5mm :75 pF/m
RG 62/U ("ALPHA WIRE") coaxial cable, screen dia=4mm, center, hollow dielectric, solid conductor dia=0.5mm :30 pF/m
Twisted (4 twists/cm) pair, , 0.5mm^2 multistrand, centers appart 1.3mm):40pF/m
jh6you, nothing is common practice. I just wanted to make sure that i treat all cables in the same way (that's for burning in). 2 days under broadband noise (FM interstation noise) is enough for my purpose.
Regards
George
Hi,
I don't know what you did before but check the following:
When you post a reply you can select the portion of text from a previous post and copy that to your clipboard.
Now push the QUOTE button from the menubar and paste in the text from the clipboard by using either ctrl+v or right mouse button,paste.
Click on O.K. and the text should now appear in your reply between html square brackets the first with just word QUOTE inbetween, the closing one with a slash / preceding the word quote.
In that way you can do it manually as well, a bit of a PITA but it works.
This is how I do it anyway.
Cheers,😉
I don't know what you did before but check the following:
When you post a reply you can select the portion of text from a previous post and copy that to your clipboard.
Now push the QUOTE button from the menubar and paste in the text from the clipboard by using either ctrl+v or right mouse button,paste.
Click on O.K. and the text should now appear in your reply between html square brackets the first with just word QUOTE inbetween, the closing one with a slash / preceding the word quote.
In that way you can do it manually as well, a bit of a PITA but it works.
This is how I do it anyway.
Cheers,😉
Hi,
If I understand you correctly you probably mean the the spacing in the table gets lost, right?
The only way I know of to solve this to turn that texttable into a picture.
Just create an empty gif file set for a max size of 100Kb and IIRC to 800*600 frame size, past the table into that and save the picture.
Note that you'll often have to redo the spacing of the data within the pic as well but one it's done you can at least post it to the web without it changing anything.
Hope that helps,😉
If I understand you correctly you probably mean the the spacing in the table gets lost, right?
The only way I know of to solve this to turn that texttable into a picture.
Just create an empty gif file set for a max size of 100Kb and IIRC to 800*600 frame size, past the table into that and save the picture.
Note that you'll often have to redo the spacing of the data within the pic as well but one it's done you can at least post it to the web without it changing anything.
Hope that helps,😉
expensive cables
Hi,
Having read all your posts I would like to add a little input.
I have always been a believer in high quality cables - I don’t think they make a HUGE difference but I do believe they make a minor difference HOWEVER please read on about an experience I had about 6 months ago.
I purchased a new widescreen Philips TV and decided that it was silly to spend so much on a TV without buying a decent SCART lead to connect to my Sky digital receiver. I spend UK £40 on a decent SCART cable and when I got home I plugged it all in and had great picture and sound FANTASTIC.!
ABOUT A MONTH LATER I noticed the picture had gone slightly blurred in areas and after a few swaps of cables identified the expensive SCART cable to be the culprit. I took it back and got a replacement (assuming the cable to be faulty). Interestingly the same thing happened again. To start with great picture and sound then after a while it went blurry.
I got a refund on the cable and started using a bog standard UK £ 2 SCART and it has worked perfectly since.
What do you cable lovers think of that?
Hi,
Having read all your posts I would like to add a little input.
I have always been a believer in high quality cables - I don’t think they make a HUGE difference but I do believe they make a minor difference HOWEVER please read on about an experience I had about 6 months ago.
I purchased a new widescreen Philips TV and decided that it was silly to spend so much on a TV without buying a decent SCART lead to connect to my Sky digital receiver. I spend UK £40 on a decent SCART cable and when I got home I plugged it all in and had great picture and sound FANTASTIC.!
ABOUT A MONTH LATER I noticed the picture had gone slightly blurred in areas and after a few swaps of cables identified the expensive SCART cable to be the culprit. I took it back and got a replacement (assuming the cable to be faulty). Interestingly the same thing happened again. To start with great picture and sound then after a while it went blurry.
I got a refund on the cable and started using a bog standard UK £ 2 SCART and it has worked perfectly since.
What do you cable lovers think of that?
Usually people hear differences when they change over cables, but if you change them back the sound 99% of the time stays the same, I recon it's because a fresh connection has been made. I have noticed this a few times.
It's never usually the wire itself that alters the sound, it's just the connection.
As long as a speaker wire is of adequate gauge and made from copper (or other material that is as good a conductor) then it wont change the signal.
It's the same with interconnects, as long as it's a fresh connection and the IC is adequately shielded and constructed there is no room for changes to the signal.
Lets face it, we are all susceptible to placebo, it affects the way we hear, see and think, like it or lump it, that’s the way it is.
Stew
It's never usually the wire itself that alters the sound, it's just the connection.
As long as a speaker wire is of adequate gauge and made from copper (or other material that is as good a conductor) then it wont change the signal.
It's the same with interconnects, as long as it's a fresh connection and the IC is adequately shielded and constructed there is no room for changes to the signal.
Lets face it, we are all susceptible to placebo, it affects the way we hear, see and think, like it or lump it, that’s the way it is.
Stew
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