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Speaker Cables Really Don't Make That Much of a Difference?
- Thread starter VintageFlanker
- Start date
AC resistance? He means "Impedance". What he is plotting is the natural impedance of the cable, and that includes the 'inductive rise' that happens with increasing frequency- This first plot shown is NOT a skin effect plot. It rises just like that of a dynamic loudspeaker woofer or tweeter.
More inductance can rolloff the top-end, this is true as he says.
The reason the Kimber is more capacitive is that it has more spaced conductors, individually insulated, and braided. For this same reason, Nordost is also highly capacitive, as well as others of this same variety of multiple spaced conductors. This however is not necessarily a GOOD thing.
More capacitance can make poorer or unstable amplifiers oscillate. He is right in this statement. Like higher L values rolling off the treble, higher C values can also rolloff the bass.
Of course the balance of the C/L cable components are inversely proportional.
For the most part- I agree with what he is saying; That wire is wire, and the performance of most wire will be close barring DCR or insertion loss via higher resistance cables. Since that usually is the case, I like making my own, and how I want them to look, albeit inexpensively. A good 2/12 from Canare, Carol SJ/SO, Belden Brilliance, or even more expensive Mogami should make just about anyone in this hobby quite happy. Dress it as you like! Avoid CCA wire, and go with copper.
I will also add that when I was 25 in 2003 at Dayton DIY(43 now), I took a controlled audibility test for speaker cables involving what used to be known as cheap SoundKing speaker cable (from MCM or PE) and the (funny enough) Kimber 8C cable. Bob Cordell conducted the test with his developed gear on a pair of tower speakers called 'Moxy' built by a guy of the name Peter. Towers used Vifa XT25 tweeters and M series Vifa woofers, but I digress... I was instructed to position myself in the front row, and they gave me a relay box with a switch, and told me to listen briefly and see if I could discern any differences. I didn't even know what we were doing yet. After my time, I had to relinquish control of said box and let someone else do the (rapid-fire) switching behind me out of view. There was no way I could count the flips as operated.
It was either 7 or 10 trials, I can't recall for sure, but I was able to accurately guess the cable playing the signal in all of those trials. For me, a piece of music containing a saxophone was what I settled on during my control period. The test was conducted with this music portion piece while I took the test. I know it's cliche, but it did sound like a 'veil was lifted' going from the KK to the Soundking, even if minutely so. Like listening to removal of grill cloth from a speaker. Shocked, the rest of the guys present tried to duplicate my result, supposedly hearing no difference. I was the youngest guy there.
Just make them flexible, heavy enough, and preferenced as your own eye-candy. Also try to keep the number of conductors per connection to as few as possible. This keeps the C lower.
More inductance can rolloff the top-end, this is true as he says.
The reason the Kimber is more capacitive is that it has more spaced conductors, individually insulated, and braided. For this same reason, Nordost is also highly capacitive, as well as others of this same variety of multiple spaced conductors. This however is not necessarily a GOOD thing.
More capacitance can make poorer or unstable amplifiers oscillate. He is right in this statement. Like higher L values rolling off the treble, higher C values can also rolloff the bass.
Of course the balance of the C/L cable components are inversely proportional.
For the most part- I agree with what he is saying; That wire is wire, and the performance of most wire will be close barring DCR or insertion loss via higher resistance cables. Since that usually is the case, I like making my own, and how I want them to look, albeit inexpensively. A good 2/12 from Canare, Carol SJ/SO, Belden Brilliance, or even more expensive Mogami should make just about anyone in this hobby quite happy. Dress it as you like! Avoid CCA wire, and go with copper.
I will also add that when I was 25 in 2003 at Dayton DIY(43 now), I took a controlled audibility test for speaker cables involving what used to be known as cheap SoundKing speaker cable (from MCM or PE) and the (funny enough) Kimber 8C cable. Bob Cordell conducted the test with his developed gear on a pair of tower speakers called 'Moxy' built by a guy of the name Peter. Towers used Vifa XT25 tweeters and M series Vifa woofers, but I digress... I was instructed to position myself in the front row, and they gave me a relay box with a switch, and told me to listen briefly and see if I could discern any differences. I didn't even know what we were doing yet. After my time, I had to relinquish control of said box and let someone else do the (rapid-fire) switching behind me out of view. There was no way I could count the flips as operated.
It was either 7 or 10 trials, I can't recall for sure, but I was able to accurately guess the cable playing the signal in all of those trials. For me, a piece of music containing a saxophone was what I settled on during my control period. The test was conducted with this music portion piece while I took the test. I know it's cliche, but it did sound like a 'veil was lifted' going from the KK to the Soundking, even if minutely so. Like listening to removal of grill cloth from a speaker. Shocked, the rest of the guys present tried to duplicate my result, supposedly hearing no difference. I was the youngest guy there.
Just make them flexible, heavy enough, and preferenced as your own eye-candy. Also try to keep the number of conductors per connection to as few as possible. This keeps the C lower.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #4
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2019
- Messages
- 3,843
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- 3,790
I dunno what happened to his T-shirt, but despite his lack of knowledge of terminology here on Earth, yes - speaker cables can "make a [hearable] difference in the sound, depending on the speaker's impedance.
That doesn't mean that you need to oddball expensive cable to 'tune' your speaker with.
That doesn't mean that you need to oddball expensive cable to 'tune' your speaker with.
Speedskater
Major Contributor
There is such a thing as "AC Resistance". It's the "R" part of the RLC in impedance.
If you are measuring resistance magnitude over a frequency range, this is then AC inherent, and you are plotting impedance- not AC resistance. You can't remove the inherent L or C swings from the measurement.
Such as?
solderdude
Grand Contributor
To put the 'skin effect' thing into perspective:
2.2mohm/ft to 3mohm/ft for a 3meter cable with a tweeter/speaker having an impedance of 4ohm comes down to a treble roll-off at 20kHz of a whopping 0.02dB... yeah that's going to be audible.
2.2mohm/ft to 3mohm/ft for a 3meter cable with a tweeter/speaker having an impedance of 4ohm comes down to a treble roll-off at 20kHz of a whopping 0.02dB... yeah that's going to be audible.
JSmith
Master Contributor
Speedskater
Major Contributor
In the chart in post #4 and at about 5 minutes into the video, The label should be "Impedance" (not 'AC Resistance').
But for reasonable speaker cables at audio frequencies, the major part of their Impedance is AC Resistance. In that chart, you can see Inductive reactance coming into play at high frequencies.
But for reasonable speaker cables at audio frequencies, the major part of their Impedance is AC Resistance. In that chart, you can see Inductive reactance coming into play at high frequencies.
kristiansen
Member
Do you believe that capacitors can sound different, you must see the cable as an elongated capacitor where both conductor and dialectric / insulation are important for the sound. Do you not believe there is any difference in the sound of passive components such as resistors, capacitors and coils limit the considerations to a suitable square that matches the current to be transmitted.
Can his fine instruments also hear?. What is his goal in continuing to spread simplistic misinformation, which has been available for more than 30 years, but people still hear difference in speaker cables because there are sound differences in cables in a transparent system with the right music.
REPLY
Can his fine instruments also hear?. What is his goal in continuing to spread simplistic misinformation, which has been available for more than 30 years, but people still hear difference in speaker cables because there are sound differences in cables in a transparent system with the right music.
REPLY
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Speedskater
Major Contributor
In some hand held microphone cables and some musical instrument cables both capacitance and insulation can be an important factors. But speaker cables and interconnect cables are different ball games.
Ok, I'll bite: what should be measured?
