I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF IT.

[escksu]

You were the one who brought it up. Figured where you were going with it in any case.

Whatever rocks your boat.... I don't care.

 

[JSmith]

wire fetish

Best not to consume them though;

The measurements prove it.

Please explain and show data on how the cables measured differently... oh that's right, you didn't measure the cables or even A/B them in any meaningful way.



JSmith

 

[escksu]

Best not to consume them though;

View attachment 145711

View attachment 145710


Please explain and show data on how the cables measured differently... oh that's right, you didn't measure the cables or even A/B them in any meaningful way.



JSmith

I don't think it is a good idea to post this. Someone may interpret this is as sexism or perhaps materials that are derogatory towards women.

 

[Doodski]

I don't think it is a good idea to post this. Someone may interpret this is as sexism or perhaps materials that are derogatory towards women.

Oh come on that's just silly. Women have a great sense of humour when it comes to men too.

 

[IronPyrite]

This help? https://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/skin-effect-relevance-in-speaker-cables

Thanks for the link @Chrispy this brings back memories of shopping cables back in the summer of 2006!!

@drplinker as it turns out, you're correct about skin affect only affecting AC. Counterintuitively, we can consider speaker cables having AC applied to them, no? The speaker is a coil, and the cone oscillates with the magnetic field of the coil due to alternating voltage potentials applied against the coil (otherwise, the speaker cone wouldn't move).

Audioholics provided a worse case example of 1.34x resistive factor at 20kHz for a solid 12 gauge cable, but then goes on to wave it off as being issue due to most cables being stranded. It would have been also helpful if there were calculated and measured comparisons of 20kHz resistivity for various stranding sizes (although this was an awesome contribution, to an otherwise vacuum of scientific literature out there on the topic), but what we can say based on what was presented, is:

1. Skin effect is present in speaker cables
2. Skin effect is probably negligible, provided the strands aren't too large.**

** "Large" is a subjective term here, and others will apply their own cognitive bias until we get a nice apples-to-apples plot of [x strands of 27 ga. wire with an equivalent 12 ga. cross section], [y strands of n gauge wire with 12 ga. equivalent] ... [12 ga solid wire]

 

[JSmith]

Skin effect is probably negligible

Yep...

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...cle-does-audio-cable-skin-effect-matter.7157/



JSmith

 

[escksu]

You're really working overtime to be antagonistic, dismissive and play the passive-aggressive role. Any particular reason? Jim

Well, it happens that I am currently pretty free.. You don't have to like what I said, feel free to ignore it.

 

[IronPyrite]

@Jim Taylor if you find out where a certain person is getting all this overtime (now double-overtime), let me know. ;-)

 

[mononoaware]

I don't think it is a good idea to post this. Someone may interpret this is as sexism or perhaps materials that are derogatory towards women.

I understand the increased amount of political correctness these days but. . .

I think the pictures are fine and actually quite a gentle attempt at humour.
Maybe you are looking into it too deeply?

I understand it could be turned into something more if it was posted by a certain public figure, but this is just on a forum among strangers on the internet.

Just my opinion. . .

 

[David Harper]

You would have experienced the same difference if you had replaced your old wires with new 16 ga. speaker wire from Home Depot.
For about twenty bucks.

 

[David Harper]

Dear Penthouse Forum....

I used to get my wife to read that in order to get her turned on. Worked pretty good.

 

[Chluke]

I get the feeling that the OP just wants to tell their story and won’t be particularly interested in attempts to explain their new found belief.

I don't know if I'll ever bet around to posting Part II but it's more of the same. Long held unscientific beliefs experienced first hand. Too many to be a coincidence.

You write of my "new found belief." But I don't have one. That's the problem. I used to have beliefs, probably many that you share. Now first hand experience is telling me something else. And, like the title says, I don't know what to make of it. I'm lost, clinging to an iceberg far from either shore.

I have no doubt that many people on this site will be able to explain the phenomena quite quickly. They'd say that I'm not perceiving things correctly, that I'm not taking this or that psychological bias into account. And maybe they're right. If so, however, the misperceptions I've experienced over the last six months in regard to this stereo outnumber the misperceptions of the previous 50 years.

Still, I don't believe in this shit. Cable burn-in? Is that a joke?

 

[David Harper]

Were your old wires connected for 10 years? If so maybe just the act of disconnecting them and reconnecting new wires is what caused the difference? Maybe the old connections had become poor over time.

 

[MarcT]

Were your old wires connected for 10 years? If so maybe just the act of disconnecting them and reconnecting new wires is what caused the difference? Maybe the old connections had become poor over time.

Yes. I've found that even after six months to a year, if I remove and reconnect them, the highs are a bit more clear.

 

[Mart68]

I don't know if I'll ever bet around to posting Part II but it's more of the same. Long held unscientific beliefs experienced first hand. Too many to be a coincidence.

You write of my "new found belief." But I don't have one. That's the problem. I used to have beliefs, probably many that you share. Now first hand experience is telling me something else. And, like the title says, I don't know what to make of it. I'm lost, clinging to an iceberg far from either shore.

I have no doubt that many people on this site will be able to explain the phenomena quite quickly. They'd say that I'm not perceiving things correctly, that I'm not taking this or that psychological bias into account. And maybe they're right. If so, however, the misperceptions I've experienced over the last six months in regard to this stereo outnumber the misperceptions of the previous 50 years.

Still, I don't believe in this shit. Cable burn-in? Is that a joke?

There's really only 3 possible explanations
1) The cables really do vary in LCR characteristics enough to be audible, either because of a fault (corrosion, dodgy connection) or they were made that way
2) They are identical and your perception that they are not is a product of the way the brain processes sound - you need to blind test.
3) Basic electrical theory is wrong - not impossible but if you reckon that explore further, a Nobel Prize awaits!

 

[Pennyless Audiophile]

The audibility of cables being highly controversial, I'd rather not give out any names besides my own. To allege that so-and-so "said they heard a difference" between cables would not be doing them a favor around here. I am free to tarnish my own reputation, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.

We were setting up a system in a hotel room the day before an audio show. There were four people in the room, myself and two electronics manufacturers, one of whom also manufactured cables, plus a mutual friend who did not own any of our products. There was another cable company who had offered to let us use their products, but they were not actually helping to pay for the room (unlike the aforementioned electronics manufacturer). This second cable company had not arrived at the show by the time we were ready to hook everything up so we used the electronics manufacturer's cables.

Then later that evening someone from the second cable company stopped by the room and dropped off a large cardboard box full of cables, saying we were welcome to use whatever we wanted, or to use none of them, whatever. Very low-key. Then they left, and we didn't see them again until the next day.

The two electronics manufacturers decided that the thing to do was to listen and change one cable at a time and listen again to see which sounded better. This was all of course sighted, but we did not have the time nor necessary tools to do a series of controlled blind listening tests. Being a) skeptical and b) mistrustful of my ears' ability to hear the kinds of differences a cabling change might make even if they did exist, I sat in the back of the room with my mouth shut while the others slowly went through the system, changing one cable at a time (well two at a time, one for each channel), and listening to the same pieces of music over and over to decide which sounded best.

Each time a change was made I'd mistrust my own opinion and not say anything but the other three all seemed to agree. And each time they preferred the new cables. (Sometimes I thought I heard a difference and agreed with them, and sometimes I did not think I heard a difference). In particular if anyone had a dog in the fight, it was the electronics + cable manufacturer whose money was invested in the room.

The final cable change was by far the most interesting. The speakers we were using had two sets of inputs, one feeding a forward-facing array of drivers, and the other feeding a rear-facing array. The rear-facing array's net contribution to the sound pressure level at the listening position was very small, less than .2 (point two) decibels. The speaker cables feeding the rear-facing array were the last to be changed. I thought it was really stupid to change these cables because the net contribution of the rear-facing array was so small, but the two electronics manufacturers were so into what they were doing that I said nothing. But I knew this final cable change could not possibly make any remotely audible difference - any difference would have to be imaginary, and I quietly rolled my eyes that this wasn't obvious in advance to both of them.

Dammit. I could hear a difference, again an improvement. I heard it right away, long before they were finished listening. Not sure whether this was the biggest audible difference of the night, but it was certainly the most impossible. And everyone else in the room heard it too.

I could not keep my mouth shut any longer. I said (to no one in particular), "How is that possible? The contribution of those rear-firing drivers is tiny!" The other electronics manufacturer (the one who did not make cables, and who might be described as "way, way out on the tail end of the bell curve") gave his analysis. It was an explanation that I had never heard before (and have never heard since), and which I will not repeat because it would reveal what I believe to be a trade secret of the cable manufacturer. But it actually sounded plausible to me.

By the end of the show, the electronics/cabling manufacturer I was sharing the room with had started making arrangements to become a dealer for the other cable company, which he followed through on, and is no longer a cable manufacturer. The company that makes the preferred cabling is Clarity Cable of Wichita, Kansas.

Everything was clearly just in your brain

 

[Chluke]

Yes. I've found that even after six months to a year, if I remove and reconnect them, the highs are a bit more clear.

Maybe. But I don't think—and I'm just guessing—that the hardcore science guys would allow for your experience or the one that I might have had.

 

[Chluke]

Well, this post certainly has generated a lot of comment. Enough to spur me on to post Part II. (A chorus of groans suddenly fills the air.)

In case it got lost, let me draw your attention to a previous post. The title "I Don't Know What To Make Of It" is sincere. I'm genuinely perplexed. I used to know what side of the fence I was on, but—to quote myself—I cling to an iceberg drifting between two shores.

 

[MarcT]

Maybe. But I don't think—and I'm just guessing—that the hardcore science guys would allow for your experience or the one that I might have had.

Well, I guess it depends on how quickly some oxidation can occur in the contact surfaces of banana plugs and the terminals.

 

[escksu]

Somewhat like an executioner telling a condemned prisoner, "If you don't like being beheaded, feel free to ignore it."

Fine with me if you think it that way. Continue.....