Roger Russell of McIntosh's view on speaker wire

[telemike]

Speaker Wire

I think Roger would have been fond of ASR based on reading his thoughts on speaker wire. I'm coming off the unicorns and rainbows cable journey and just going back to basics that work

 

[radix]

Thanks for sharing that link. It was a fun read.

 

[seiran]

such an impressive piece of work, it is what I'm looking for. Thx dude

 

[antcollinet]

Well that is useful. Not for anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together. But as a counter to audio woo.

 

[Jim Shaw]

<chuckle> Where has this paper been all of my previous life?

Roger Russell: "...Dissimilar metals can also promote corrosion with action like a battery when they are in a humid environment. This eventually causes not only higher resistance but also clearly audible distortion as if a diode were inserted in series with the speaker and amplifier."

The junction performance of dissimilar metals in speaker connections is a thing. It is significant. Bring this up in an audiophile forum arguing 'unobtanium' cables if you want to quickly hear the sound of mumbling in the comments. "Galvanic what?" "Dissimilar metals?" "Doesn't gold solve that?"

Most audiophiles will spend their life in the hobby trying to prove to everyone that their tinkerer's knowledge is better than engineering training. "I've heard two hundred speakers and I know what I'm talking about!"

Not if you don't understand audio frequency AC transfer functions, you don't. Russell's paper is more than moderately priceless.

-Just one man's engineer's view.

 

[poxymoron]

Classic Roger

 

[FrantzM]

Hi
The kind of links worth clicking into.
I wonder if this is Mac Intosh's corporate philosophy. High End Audio companies typically espouse audio cable myths. Sadly ROger passed away last year.

A thought, for Mac Intosh to milk the HEA crowd even more. Team up with MIT Cables, they of the $40,000 speaker cables, and produce something like this:

Peace.

 

[telemike]

My vintage McIntosh 4300V

V

 

[mhardy6647]

Hi
The kind of links worth clicking into.
I wonder if this is Mac Intosh's corporate philosophy. High End Audio companies typically espouse audio cable myths. Sadly ROger passed away last year.

A thought, for Mac Intosh to milk the HEA crowd even more. Team up with MIT Cables, they of the $40,000 speaker cables, and produce something like this:
View attachment 200950


Peace.

Please don't give the current Mac-management any ideas...

 

[SimpleTheater]

Speaker Wire

I think Roger would have been fond of ASR based on reading his thoughts on speaker wire. I'm coming off the unicorns and rainbows cable journey and just going back to basics that work

Now that I can save $thousands in speaker wire, I can put that money towards my interconnecting cables. Thanks!

 

[Angsty]

Deleted a post I made earlier - I had been fooled into thinking that the Photoshop-ed Mac/MIT abomination was the real thing!

 

[antcollinet]

Deleted a post I made earlier - I had been fooled into thinking that the Photoshop-ed Mac/MIT abomination was the real thing!

That's Poes law that is. People need to leave clues.

 

[Jim Shaw]

Now that I can save $thousands in speaker wire, I can put that money towards my interconnecting cables. Thanks!

Nah. Invest it in new psychorevelutionarist magnetostrictive, predictive negative endpoint impedance and with total phase coherence power cables of long-fiber diamond alloy -- and a better power company. PSAudio will take your money and deliver something very satisfyingly heavy -- with an all-important meter.

Nice big meters make for slim wallets. We are audiophiles; we need meters.
[head down for incoming]

 

[FrantzM]

Deleted a post I made earlier - I had been fooled into thinking that the Photoshop-ed Mac/MIT abomination was the real thing!

 

[AudiOhm]

Roger Russell

You can view his site with many other bits of information.

Ohms

 

[Angsty]

I remember buying a pair of "fancy" Audioquest speaker cables several years ago, before ASR and before I read RR. I think they made the speakers sound worse, whatever they were doing electrically. I went back to 12 gauge clear-plastic insulated zip cord and never left. My other system uses 16 gauge, red and black "speaker wire" in 6 foot lengths. Could not be happier with them.

 

[ryanosaur]

We’ve been passing this around on AH for years! I even made it a part of the “drinking game” I wrote up over there.

The Official _/Unofficial/_ AH Drinking Game!

I've been joking about this for far, far too long. It started up as an idea in my head after AH was inundated with people buying lower-tier B&W Speakers and coming on the Forum to find out why they sounded like @$$ once they set them up in their home. :) After that, there were... other topics of...

forums.audioholics.com

 

[Angsty]

That's Poes law that is. People need to leave clues.

Not the poster's fault - reading is fundamental and I didn't do a good job! Only caught it after I expanded the photo to get a better look. Jaggies.

 

[Vacceo]

It must be hard to work today at McIntosh keeping the legacy of Gordon Gow, who basically stated the same as the posted article, with the appeal to audio fetish inherent to the brand.

At least their amps perform quite well...

 

[Angsty]

It must be hard to work today at McIntosh keeping the legacy of Gordon Gow, who basically stated the same as the posted article, with the appeal to audio fetish inherent to the brand.

At least their amps perform quite well...

McIntosh has become more of a luxury nostalgia brand versus a high-performance brand. Their latest amps are 2x the price of the last generation, but I don't see a comparable performance boost. They look more sexy, though. They are still selling 100 lb autotransformer amps when lightweight Class D is setting new heights of power output and SINAD.