Equal length wiring

Some have claimed that the speed of electricity is quite slow and varies with the frequency of the alternating current. The disconnect seems to be with the definition of "electricity."

We know from years of talking on wired telephones and using a synchronized power grid, that DC, 50/60 Hz, audio, and radio frequency signals flow through a wire at 50 to 90% of light speed. The frequency of the signal does not appear to be a major factor in this speed. In some instances very high frequencies (several GHz) may be slightly slower than audio due to a lossy medium being used as the insulator, not the conductor.

As I stated previously that if the wire was long enough an individual electron may never make it out the other end, just be pushed back and forth. If it is somewhat shorter than this critical length an electron may get smacked back and forth a zillion times but moves a very tiny distance forward with each smack, making it's apparent movement quite slow. Repeat the smacking more often (raise the frequency) and this movement will appear to speed up.

Place all of the billiard balls against the rail along one side of the table. Drive the cue ball into one end of this row, and the last ball will pop out from the end. All the balls in the middle will move a tiny amount. The ball that left the end will be moving at the same speed as the cue (minus frictional losses) but those in the middle move in small quanta. This makes the apparent movement of the stack rather slow, and dependent on several variables.
 
When we sat in the nineties in Hifi House in Bangkok, there were guys who could hear out what kind of CAPS were used in AMPLIFIER. What Kind of Cables between the devices.
I very much doubt those distinguished Gentlemen could repeat the feat in a proper double blind experiment.
I was there and have seen it.
Seeing and believing does not make something true.
John Edward reading - YouTube

Measuring distortion while testing an amplifier Ciruit. and just because that pair of speaker had not exactly 8 Ohms.
NO speaker has exactly 8 ohms, except by chance and only at a single frequency or two, if that were a problem,*all* amps would distort all the time.
then Exchanging Cable to a shorter one removed the problem.
Not sure why this relates to speakers having exact 8 ohm or not, or distortion.

And we had always problems when connecting Speaker cables with more lenght than 5 Meters. ..... But again shorter Cable did not Oscillate. Ripping the cables apart did not solve the problem, but shortening the cables down to 1.5 meter and all Oscillation was gone.
So please forgive me, I stand up that length matters.
We are talking Equal length wiring, not short/long same length in this thread :confused:

[/QUOTE]:where is the problem to desing something evenly, that whatsoever no chances are taken that because of not distribuiting Current Voltage, energy evenly, will bring up problems. Even if don't matter as you guys write, OK with me, but I do not like to TAKE CHANCES and then to find out, why afterwards instead of listening and enjoy music which is played, sound is like a trash can.!.. [/QUOTE]
Such GROSS deficiencies do not come from different length wiring in any normal installation or build. Search for other motives.

I have seen to many examples where cables and wire were the culprit.!
Maybe, but because way too much inductance, capacitance, poor layout or grounding, not because of "different length" or 1.5 meter vs 5 meter length.

So is the disconnect here that if we wait for that first electron to come out the end (traverse all 100 atoms) we are in the 3m/s range? Still seems a little slow...
But in 3 meters wen have a Trillion Billion Zillion Atoms, not just "100"
 
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Even if we focus on the movement of one electron, there is no guarantee that after it moves it will move again, a different electron from the next atom may move instead.

And if it is AC, the current reverses from time to time, the electrons will ping pong and most likely never traverse the entire lenth of wire, as tubelab says.

Also we are ignoring the fact that the wire whose length you want to match may be exposed to differing interference or noise if you make it a matched length, proving to be detriment over nonmatching lengths that are separately and independently routed carefully to avoid noise or inference pickup.
 
If we try to follow one electron through a wire it takes a relatively long time. But current is not a bunch of electrons entering one end of a wire and traversing it. If we bang one electron into one end of a wire, a different electron pops out the other end, the distance covered at close to the speed of light.
 
Back in the day of RGB video we would have to match cable length within a quarter of an inch between each RGB coax. Longer than that would screw up the timing and colors would look like the tiktok logo, offset. That was at MHz frequencies. At audio frequencies several inches will not cause enough delay to be audible. There are much more important things to worry about in life and in amplifiers.
 
There might be some misunderstanding what with the MEANING Of electricity is meant.
So, not to being stubborn, or likewise, 3.2M/Second is the fastest they move. I think the article I place that link from wiki. Is real clear.

If I search the German sites, then it's even worse because there this would advance a half Centimeter/Second.. In favor for the community, and all relevants here
Yes you are right, and I know that, Voltage Travels about the Speed of light, but voltage alone will not shot any Goal..and I'm not in here to Question your thoughts.
But build on these statements, you can find on Wikipedia, because these are real relevant sources there, the Economy is build and many businesses function because on that knowledge.

I respect your aspects, I respect you as the person I see here, and I do not in anyway say that your wrong.

Just this. Each Cable has a resistance, right?

Each material in a cable has a resistance, right?
Do you think, increasing the length of that material would increase resistance?
I give you a link where you can see this in FACTS.

Damping Factor with Calculator
Then scroll down until you can see that picture I send with this
Then change the to three to following 1 1 4 100 24
24 is the gauge of a Tweeter Wire for about 25 Watts..
hit "Go figure and read the outcome" Now change the length of Speaker wire to .5 and look whats happen. And read all these Parameters, it might be interesting for you. it is certainly for me.

This will show you that length matters.
May you like to read about AWG some to compare with resistance. If there is a change in resistance for 1meter the change will be there for 1cm as well this is 1/100 of a meter.
AWG Wire Gauges Current Ratings
If the length of the cable differs and the diameter does NOT differ, also then Length matters.
I do not have more or better examples than this. So, Thank you for this interesting communication.

BTW I didn't write this what you can read in all these links, I just pasted them for you.
To accept or not accept that is up to you, and not all what one reads on sites needs to be true. This also counts for myself. But I did measurements, and I have to equipment todo so here at home.. and if wouldn't had run into problems, then I would not write here.
But may I'm completely wrong. That's another possibility. So,no offence meant..
Have a nice sunday.
Respect Regards
Chris Hess

"Electricity" doesn't move. Electrons and EM waves move. We used to make 5000 mile phone calls over copper cables. If you can't come to a logical conclusion from that theres no hope.
 
"3.1m/s. As a consequence of Snell's Law and the extremely low speed, electromagnetic waves always enter good conductors in a direction that is within a milliradian of normal to the surface, regardless of the angle of incidence. This velocity is the speed with which electromagnetic waves penetrate into the conductor and is not the drift velocity of the conduction electrons."

This is the speed the EM waves enter the conductor. (no EM waves in a perfect conductor, the electrons move to cancel it) and I think the skin depth is how far they penetrate. The speed of the EM waves outside the conductor is near the speed of light. The copper carries the electrons the dielectric carries most of the EM field.
 
From Poynting vector - Wikipedia
Coaxial cable

Poynting vector in a coaxial cable, shown in red.
For example, the Poynting vector within the dielectric insulator of a coaxial cable is nearly parallel to the wire axis (assuming no fields outside the cable and a wavelength longer than the diameter of the cable, including DC). Electrical energy delivered to the load is flowing entirely through the dielectric between the conductors. Very little energy flows in the conductors themselves, since the electric field strength is nearly zero. The energy flowing in the conductors flows radially into the conductors and accounts for energy lost to resistive heating of the conductor. No energy flows outside the cable either, since there the magnetic fields of inner and outer conductors cancel to zero.

Counter intuitive but most of the power delivered by cables doesn't run thru the conductors.
 
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Even if we focus on the movement of one electron, there is no guarantee that after it moves it will move again, a different electron from the next atom may move instead.

In a metal the electrons all move (or rather drift) in concert - as shown by the lack of shot-noise in metalic conductors. Basically they are all working together bound by the electric field within the metal. The drift that forms the macroscopic current is superimposed on the thermal jigging of the electrons.

Typical speeds in a copper wire:

electric field propagation along the conductor - close to 300,000,000m/s
typical electron drift speed at moderate current densities ~ 0.0001m/s
thermal jigging at room temp - 1,600,000m/s (more properly the Fermi velocity)

Number of free electrons in 1mm cube of copper: 85,000,000,000,000,000,000
(or ~14 coulombs)


I'm avoiding scientific notation to highlight the vast numbers and different scales involved...
 
Come on guys - in the double blind test the blind guy is going to trip over the longer wire and sue you, then you wife is going to get pissed cause she can see it, and the cat will play with it and bite it. Wire is just a pain - it tangles, causes arguments, and wrecks marriages.

Bill
 
In my day, I did some lossless line RF measurements. If you match the Rload and the amp o/p impedance load along the best cable you can get. If there are any load mismatches the reflections & timing delays are really noticeable. i.e. the amplitude of the reflection is subtracted from the main output level.

Therefore with audio lines, I'll let you slug it out as I haven't tried the lossless method yet.
 
In my day, I did some lossless line RF measurements. If you match the Rload and the amp o/p impedance load along the best cable you can get. If there are any load mismatches the reflections & timing delays are really noticeable. i.e. the amplitude of the reflection is subtracted from the main output level.

Therefore with audio lines, I'll let you slug it out as I haven't tried the lossless method yet.

Audio is not RF and impedance matching does nothing.