"Needless to day, I differ with Mr. Thatcher. And, so do about 1,000,000 engineers." - Bill Fitzpatrick
make that 1,000,001 engineers.
If these unexplainable differences exist, why can't we measure them? An "artform"? I was under the impression that an amplifier was supposed to increase the amplitude of a voltage signal, not sonically enhance an "artform" signal.
No one can explain the reason for gravity, yet we don't just "think" or "feel" it's there. We can measure it!!!
anyway, I'm not trying to slam anybody... This is a topic which people generally tend to be pretty passionate about. I don't think there will ever be a consensus. I respect anyone's point-of-view, (as long as they formed their own opinion) so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
make that 1,000,001 engineers.
Thatch_Ear said:
If these unexplainable differences exist, why can't we measure them? An "artform"? I was under the impression that an amplifier was supposed to increase the amplitude of a voltage signal, not sonically enhance an "artform" signal.
No one can explain the reason for gravity, yet we don't just "think" or "feel" it's there. We can measure it!!!
anyway, I'm not trying to slam anybody... This is a topic which people generally tend to be pretty passionate about. I don't think there will ever be a consensus. I respect anyone's point-of-view, (as long as they formed their own opinion) so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
Thatch_Ear said:
I refresh the question for you, then; how thick should a speaker cable be to fit my needs? I believe i have a way of making things more complicated than they should be.- And the 'gas' cable has been dumped for now. The reason is there is no airflow in the tubing, so only the ends will be tarnished anyways. I read something about it here:
http://www.laventure.net/tourist/cables.htm
I have a coupple of spols of copper 'transformer winding' wire left over from one of my previous hobbies: making small 12 vDC and AC motors. Could these be used to form a litz (or any other geometry) cable?
Btw: I'm an apprentice at the local electrician, so trying the telephone cable wouldn't cost me 0.00001$. 😀
<b>seangoesbonk</b> sez
I agree with you 100% here, we might as well try to decide on the "One True Faith" 😀
Personally, I straddle the fence, with a foot in both camps. My engineering background views the many outrageous claims for cable sonics with amusement, but listening to different cables produces effects to my ears that are not accounted for by simple lumped LCR parameters. I enjoy the journey of discovery, and so have done lots of experiments with cables (materials,size,geometry,construction) over the years. I'm happy to spend the time and money making a different cable to try it, and just as happy to reject it if it doesn't work as accept it if it does. Personally I find zip cord generally to have poor sonics and not even a good performance/dollar ratio, but of course YMMV. If it works for you, more power to you.
With this in mind, I have often looked for 'technical' reasons to explain what I hear. That's why I was so pleased to discover Dr Hawksford's paper on cable performance I mentioned above. <a href="http://www.essex.ac.uk/ese/research/audio_lab/people_malcolm.html">Dr Hawksford</a>, Director of Centre for Audio Research and Engineering, Essex University, Colchester, Essex, UK is a widely <a href="http://www.essex.ac.uk/ese/research/audio_lab/malcolms_publications.html#General">published</a> author and academic, yet his analysis shows there are affects beyond LCR. But what would he know.
I will email Dr Hawksford and ask if there is a way of obtaining his paper, and posting/linking it as a basis for discussion. The only copy I have now is in Allen Wright's cookbook, but IIRC, it was also published in HNF/RR and/or EW&WW magazines about a decade ago.
I agree with you 100% here, we might as well try to decide on the "One True Faith" 😀
Personally, I straddle the fence, with a foot in both camps. My engineering background views the many outrageous claims for cable sonics with amusement, but listening to different cables produces effects to my ears that are not accounted for by simple lumped LCR parameters. I enjoy the journey of discovery, and so have done lots of experiments with cables (materials,size,geometry,construction) over the years. I'm happy to spend the time and money making a different cable to try it, and just as happy to reject it if it doesn't work as accept it if it does. Personally I find zip cord generally to have poor sonics and not even a good performance/dollar ratio, but of course YMMV. If it works for you, more power to you.
With this in mind, I have often looked for 'technical' reasons to explain what I hear. That's why I was so pleased to discover Dr Hawksford's paper on cable performance I mentioned above. <a href="http://www.essex.ac.uk/ese/research/audio_lab/people_malcolm.html">Dr Hawksford</a>, Director of Centre for Audio Research and Engineering, Essex University, Colchester, Essex, UK is a widely <a href="http://www.essex.ac.uk/ese/research/audio_lab/malcolms_publications.html#General">published</a> author and academic, yet his analysis shows there are affects beyond LCR. But what would he know.
I will email Dr Hawksford and ask if there is a way of obtaining his paper, and posting/linking it as a basis for discussion. The only copy I have now is in Allen Wright's cookbook, but IIRC, it was also published in HNF/RR and/or EW&WW magazines about a decade ago.
Thomas, Zip cord is what you use for lamps and is just a cheaper thinner version of what the average multy strand cable is like. Bill, like I said I am not an EE. As far as inductance goes anything that can alter the signal will. Inductance changes what bandwidth will go through . That is the reason inductors are used in crossovers. You want to use zip cord for your speakers fine. Anytime you want to argue about if you can't measure it it can't be true just read your history books. I am not laying claims to absolutes but you seem to be. Always something new coming down the Pike. 100 years ago radio was confined to Morse code and man had not flown a controlled, powered aircraft. EEs designed the crap that was being touted as the best and newest stereo equipment in the 60s with the introduction of silicone to the general consumer.Ever wonder why audiophiles have gone back to vacuum tubes? EEs knew that PP was better than SE because it supplied more power. How is it that SETs are the standard against which HiFi is graded today? Ever heard of tunnel vision Bill? I think you tunnel travells with you, get a Glassectomy.
For Thomas
As you said you are an apprentice electrician, please do try Eric's suggestion for phone cable. It will only cost you some time, and irrespective of how it works in your system, you might well learn something from the process (I mean please don't let anyone tell you, you MUST do it this way or that way ONLY).
Something else you might like to try, that's also cheap and you should have around is Cat5, both for interconnects and speaker cables. Ypu can keep it as simple as one pair for i/c's or s/c's, or braid it into larger cables. Many people (myself included) have had very good results from it, and mine was free. The teflon insulated is the best, and I've also heard reports of successful experiments with Cat6. Please beware, especially with multiple braided cables, it can be very capacitive, though it's L and R are respectably low. Some amps, like Naims and many AV receivers and low cost Japanese amps can oscillate with it. Watch the heat!
Also, depending on how much power you actually need, and the length of cable, single strand (or Litz) speaker cables are great. I have 104dB efficient speakers and < 1.5m runs, and this is the best in my system to date.
Here are some links. Good luck.
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/index2.htm
- Jon is a speaker designer and engineer with Peavey, and there are several other interesting recipes on his site for acoustic treatments etc.
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/diycables.html
http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html
http://www.meta-gizmo.com/Tri/Dancing/DrG_silverT.html
That should keep you busy for a while 😀
As you said you are an apprentice electrician, please do try Eric's suggestion for phone cable. It will only cost you some time, and irrespective of how it works in your system, you might well learn something from the process (I mean please don't let anyone tell you, you MUST do it this way or that way ONLY).
Something else you might like to try, that's also cheap and you should have around is Cat5, both for interconnects and speaker cables. Ypu can keep it as simple as one pair for i/c's or s/c's, or braid it into larger cables. Many people (myself included) have had very good results from it, and mine was free. The teflon insulated is the best, and I've also heard reports of successful experiments with Cat6. Please beware, especially with multiple braided cables, it can be very capacitive, though it's L and R are respectably low. Some amps, like Naims and many AV receivers and low cost Japanese amps can oscillate with it. Watch the heat!
Also, depending on how much power you actually need, and the length of cable, single strand (or Litz) speaker cables are great. I have 104dB efficient speakers and < 1.5m runs, and this is the best in my system to date.
Here are some links. Good luck.
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/index2.htm
- Jon is a speaker designer and engineer with Peavey, and there are several other interesting recipes on his site for acoustic treatments etc.
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/diycables.html
http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html
http://www.meta-gizmo.com/Tri/Dancing/DrG_silverT.html
That should keep you busy for a while 😀
for a brief while I owned 2 identical Rega Planet 1999's. I had one of them hooked up with Nordost Red Dawn 1m interconnects ($399), and the other with Kimber Kable Hero 1m interconnects ($150). I listened to these cables for a while, knowing and having let myself be convinced by electrical engineers that they would sound the same. They did not. I figured that this might be because of some kind of psychoacoustic affect that I might have been prejudicial towards the more expensive interconnect, so I invited friends over constantly to listen to the same short clips of songs played one after the other between the 2 players. Even my friends who only listen to rap said that the transparency through the higher registers was more pronounced on the Red Dawn. I switched cabling between the 2 Rega's, thinking that there might be a difference because of past histories, and ran the tests again.....same effect. My roommate who is an EE spent soo much time telling me that it couldn't be better, that when he heard the difference, he wanted to get up and run around the room. He even made be put a couple of cheap pairs of interconnects on the system to do the same test, but the difference there on my system was night and day, not the sublte detail differences between the "component priced" cables. Yes, he and many other of my EE friends have heard the difference too. I did the same test again with the pair of Red Dawn's after I bought them, and also a pair of Siltech SQ-28 G3 interconnects ($600). Same thing. It doesn't have an explanation yet, but does that mean an explanation is forthcoming sometime in the future. Science is a process of discovery and healty scepticism, not denial of what is there. The sonic psychoacoustical improvement is there. We don't know why. We should find out why.
"Yes, he and many other of my EE friends have heard the difference too. I did the same test again with the pair of Red Dawn's after I bought them, and also a pair of Siltech SQ-28 G3 interconnects ($600)."
Certainly then, you should be able to demonstrate this in a controlled testing environment, with witnesses. You should be proud too then, for YOU would be the first to be able to show such repeatable conclusive results under CONTROLLED testing.
-Chris
Certainly then, you should be able to demonstrate this in a controlled testing environment, with witnesses. You should be proud too then, for YOU would be the first to be able to show such repeatable conclusive results under CONTROLLED testing.
-Chris
interesting.
hmmm....well the setup was with Creek OBH-11SE (solid state) and Melos SHA-Gold Reference (tube) heaphone amps, and also a Creek 5350SE Integrated Amp. The headphones were Beyerdynamic DT-931's, Sennheiser HD 545's, and Grado RS-1's. My female friends who think I'm crazy even told me the same thing. Might be an interesting experiement to see if I have possessed friends. Yeah psychoacoutic research.
hmmm....well the setup was with Creek OBH-11SE (solid state) and Melos SHA-Gold Reference (tube) heaphone amps, and also a Creek 5350SE Integrated Amp. The headphones were Beyerdynamic DT-931's, Sennheiser HD 545's, and Grado RS-1's. My female friends who think I'm crazy even told me the same thing. Might be an interesting experiement to see if I have possessed friends. Yeah psychoacoutic research.
gsattler said:
😛 Now we know he's lying!!! Rappers talking about "higher registers being more pronounced"!!!
Redman: this s***'s f***ed up, man! Like, check the clarity and micro-dynamics on diz cable, yo!
Methodman: word! the soundstage is blown wide open!!! F***!!!these got mad articulation in the mid-bass!!!
Otherman: these spizzle cabizzles are just what the dizzle ordizzled!!! Detroit What!!!
😛 Just kidding, I don't have my hate on for all the rappers out there... shout me a holler dog...
Re: For Thomas
Thanks Brett, your information has been most helpfull. I allready tried the cat5 cables. In fact, i'm running on cat5 ic's and sc's right now. 😀 I will try the telephone cable against my cat5's next week.
I think you are right about trying things out, as no one holds the 'real' answer. (yet) 🙂
Brett said:
Thanks Brett, your information has been most helpfull. I allready tried the cat5 cables. In fact, i'm running on cat5 ic's and sc's right now. 😀 I will try the telephone cable against my cat5's next week.
I think you are right about trying things out, as no one holds the 'real' answer. (yet) 🙂
Sound of Moonshine
Jocko, you forgot to add the moonshine.
Anything, even Willie Nelson, can sound acceptable, on any system with a belly full of that stuff.
Eric.
Jocko, you forgot to add the moonshine.
Anything, even Willie Nelson, can sound acceptable, on any system with a belly full of that stuff.
Eric.
Sound Of Zip
Hello, Bill Fitzpatrick and all,
Ok, to be reasonably precise..
As I understand it speaker cable series inductance in itself causes distortion, and according to a Doug Self article.
Inductance means stored energy, in the form of a magnetic field.
An audio system comprises typically a loop NFB load dependant amplifier and a reactive loudspeaker, coupled by a reactive cable.
Because of magnetically stored energy and reflection in cable and speaker, this gives opportunity for setup of electrical resonances, because the amplifier feedback loop is not infinitely fast, nor perfectly correcting.
IME the sonics manifestation of inductive cable in shorter lengths is a fatigueing hardness in the overall sound, with lows not happening properly, mids and vocals having a zzzzedding character, particularly female vocals, and highs that have a smashing glass scatter.
In long lengths, a similar character but worse, and dulled down a bit, ala Muzak.
IME I find low series inductance cables to give a more friendly immediacy, with lows bigger, stronger, louder and cleaner, sweeter and more real female vocals, and highs that extend higher and without clanging or tizzzzing or tissssing.
Monster cable, for example is a nicely presented over-size zip cord, and conforms with electric theory in having a relatively high loop inductance, which is a function of the conductor diameters and conductors spacing.
Listening tests immediately confirm this inductive characteristic.
A further point worth noting is that this low inductance cable characteristic allows a system to go much harder, before 'bad' distortion is evident, and then still does not get nasty sounding.
Also less resistive power is dissipated in both the amplifier and the speaker drivers, particularly in system over-drive condition - this is significant.
Another EW/WW article (Feb 95 - Ivor Brown) analysed amplifiers with zobel output networks connected to a simulated loudspeaker load, and concluded that because of the rising impedence inductive characteristic of a typical loudspeaker, an element of amplifier capacitive loading is required.
I find that the somewhat capacitive loading characteristic of 25 pairs telephone cable in combination with its very low loop inductance to be entirely beneficial, except for the case of Naim amplifiers, but these are a special case very wide bandwidth amplifier, that because of loop NFB margins relies on an relatively highly inductive load to prevent instability.
The Naim specified cable is like over-sized 300 ohms Tv aerial ribbon cable.
Naims ideology is that distributed loading is better.
The 25 pairs telephone cable also provides this.
Oh, and then there are the subjects of dielectric absorbtion, conductor directionality and conductor material to add extra variables, all causes of stored energy spectral storage and return bias and noise spectrum.
Bill, over to you,
Regards, Eric.
Hello, Bill Fitzpatrick and all,
Ok, to be reasonably precise..
As I understand it speaker cable series inductance in itself causes distortion, and according to a Doug Self article.
Inductance means stored energy, in the form of a magnetic field.
An audio system comprises typically a loop NFB load dependant amplifier and a reactive loudspeaker, coupled by a reactive cable.
Because of magnetically stored energy and reflection in cable and speaker, this gives opportunity for setup of electrical resonances, because the amplifier feedback loop is not infinitely fast, nor perfectly correcting.
IME the sonics manifestation of inductive cable in shorter lengths is a fatigueing hardness in the overall sound, with lows not happening properly, mids and vocals having a zzzzedding character, particularly female vocals, and highs that have a smashing glass scatter.
In long lengths, a similar character but worse, and dulled down a bit, ala Muzak.
IME I find low series inductance cables to give a more friendly immediacy, with lows bigger, stronger, louder and cleaner, sweeter and more real female vocals, and highs that extend higher and without clanging or tizzzzing or tissssing.
Monster cable, for example is a nicely presented over-size zip cord, and conforms with electric theory in having a relatively high loop inductance, which is a function of the conductor diameters and conductors spacing.
Listening tests immediately confirm this inductive characteristic.
A further point worth noting is that this low inductance cable characteristic allows a system to go much harder, before 'bad' distortion is evident, and then still does not get nasty sounding.
Also less resistive power is dissipated in both the amplifier and the speaker drivers, particularly in system over-drive condition - this is significant.
Another EW/WW article (Feb 95 - Ivor Brown) analysed amplifiers with zobel output networks connected to a simulated loudspeaker load, and concluded that because of the rising impedence inductive characteristic of a typical loudspeaker, an element of amplifier capacitive loading is required.
I find that the somewhat capacitive loading characteristic of 25 pairs telephone cable in combination with its very low loop inductance to be entirely beneficial, except for the case of Naim amplifiers, but these are a special case very wide bandwidth amplifier, that because of loop NFB margins relies on an relatively highly inductive load to prevent instability.
The Naim specified cable is like over-sized 300 ohms Tv aerial ribbon cable.
Naims ideology is that distributed loading is better.
The 25 pairs telephone cable also provides this.
Oh, and then there are the subjects of dielectric absorbtion, conductor directionality and conductor material to add extra variables, all causes of stored energy spectral storage and return bias and noise spectrum.
Bill, over to you,
Regards, Eric.
Cannot find it back right away, but there has been an article in the JAES (must be '92 or '93) where different cables were first measured for RLC, and then a test was done where the total tranfert function of amp/cable/speaker was measured and compared to the same with a very short cable. The correlation between RLC and total transfer was very great. 2 cables with same RLC had the same influence and the low inductance/high capacitance came out best. I was reminded of it by mrfeedback and his overpriced zip. This was indeed what was measured, Monster cable had the same impedance as zip with a correlation factor over 0.999.
Best cable were:
1: computer flat 64 wires
2: heavy duty coax
3: computer flat 32 wires
4: litz
Best cable were:
1: computer flat 64 wires
2: heavy duty coax
3: computer flat 32 wires
4: litz
Only experience is with Kimber(Litz) that was made with teflon insulated stranded silver plated copper, Monster cable, 16 Guage stranded OFC HT cable, the ones I made out of the antique telephone celonese covered copper and the OFC 25.5 guage magnet wire Litz, and a few $10k sets of unknown origin. The big bucks looked like most of the $$ went into sheilding. The ones I know the best are the celonese covered ones I made, and I did a blind and unknown test with about 20 Bottleheads that showed they were better than the ribbon cables. I thought the Kimber were below average but better than the HT cable. Monster that is used as long as mine is is good, but not great. I thought that the whole $30K to $100K systems themselves were in question and will not guess at what impact the cabling might have had. From experience and listening to a number of systems the cables that you can do your self sound as good as any. AS FAR AS I CAN TELL. I listen to tubes and the good cables are on the 300B SET. Who really knows, but one thing I do want to say is that the Letz seem to provide their own sheilding. The price of the wire and the time to braid it is your basic cost. Extra sheilding is a waste of time and money. I look foreward to hearing from other DIYers after they have tried this.
Interesting that Doug Self's name comes up. A review of chapter 1 of his book discloses that he believes that this debate over cables is pretty much a waste of time. He dismisses out of hand the idea that cables have directionality and states that inductance can be responsible for a mere fraction of a db in frequency response and not at all responsible for distortion of any kind.
Frank VanAlstine, ceratinly an outspoken critic in the cable debate arena, makes similar assertions.
I recently read an article where a group of "golden ears" were put to the test. The testor claimed to be switching cables when in fact he wasn't. The testees could hear a difference. Clearly the testees were influenced by their own expectations and not by real world events.
Not by a long shot am I an expert in transmission lines but I don't see how a few microhenries of inductance can have such a gross effect, as some claim, when down the length of the cable at the speaker end sits several much larger inductances as part of the crossover network.
I have never heard about or read anything which suggests that speaker cables are a culprit in bad sound except where it was obvious hype intended to sell expensive wire to the unsuspecting and gullible consumer.
When I was in the retail business we had our sound rooms wired with #12TW. This is the same solid electrical wire that is used for house wiring. We were always happy to listen to the latest and greatest speaker cable and never once were motivation to change our wiring.
I will happily keep my 12ga. zip cord and I'm not even going to bother to elevate it with those little ceramic cones some are marketing. Neither am I going to buy a Tice product or a green magic marker for my CDs.
I am now involved in the design and manufacture of electronic crossover networks. At the onset, we debated the use of op-amps. Why, we concluded, should we worry about a couple of quality opamps when the signal has likely passed through possibly hundreds of 5532s in the recording and mixdown consoles? End of debate.
Just don't ask me to give up my Tarot deck. 🙂
Frank VanAlstine, ceratinly an outspoken critic in the cable debate arena, makes similar assertions.
I recently read an article where a group of "golden ears" were put to the test. The testor claimed to be switching cables when in fact he wasn't. The testees could hear a difference. Clearly the testees were influenced by their own expectations and not by real world events.
Not by a long shot am I an expert in transmission lines but I don't see how a few microhenries of inductance can have such a gross effect, as some claim, when down the length of the cable at the speaker end sits several much larger inductances as part of the crossover network.
I have never heard about or read anything which suggests that speaker cables are a culprit in bad sound except where it was obvious hype intended to sell expensive wire to the unsuspecting and gullible consumer.
When I was in the retail business we had our sound rooms wired with #12TW. This is the same solid electrical wire that is used for house wiring. We were always happy to listen to the latest and greatest speaker cable and never once were motivation to change our wiring.
I will happily keep my 12ga. zip cord and I'm not even going to bother to elevate it with those little ceramic cones some are marketing. Neither am I going to buy a Tice product or a green magic marker for my CDs.
I am now involved in the design and manufacture of electronic crossover networks. At the onset, we debated the use of op-amps. Why, we concluded, should we worry about a couple of quality opamps when the signal has likely passed through possibly hundreds of 5532s in the recording and mixdown consoles? End of debate.
Just don't ask me to give up my Tarot deck. 🙂
Hi Bill,
Might be wrong about Doug Self - might be Ben Duncan - my memory fails - but it was in EW/WW mag sometime.
From another current thread..
If you believe in Tarot, then you ought to believe the Tice dogma - both are similarly irrational IMO.
Regards, Eric.
Might be wrong about Doug Self - might be Ben Duncan - my memory fails - but it was in EW/WW mag sometime.
From another current thread..
Thats why I said "loop NFB amplifiers" !
There are electrical resonances throughout a typical audio system, and cables are one of the resonance exciting causes.
Much too power hungry - I've never seen a desk full of 5532's - more usual is TL072 or 4558, and maybe 5532 on final outputs.
If you believe in Tarot, then you ought to believe the Tice dogma - both are similarly irrational IMO.
Regards, Eric.
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