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A hard look at the effect of cables

Hey guys
A fellow EE audionut directed me to these articles and I thought some of you might be very interested to read them too. Two arguably qualified engineers went through the pains to take high quality measurements of the effect of cables and their interation with a complex electrical load, such as a full range loudspeaker, and with a complex signal, such as music. The link below is to the final installment but be sure to also read parts 4 and 5 very carefully. Part 5's Figures 6.8 and 6.9 are really amazing. I had never seen such measurements and they definitely seem to correlate with what we hear. The cables lengths are longer than normal but I think the point is well made. Hope you enjoy this read as much as I did.

http://www.planetanalog.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202102592

Arthur
aball

Showing 3 responses by gregm

gregm
3,411 posts
 
Psacanli, btw,
I guess this is why Spectral had MIT design some cables for them.
Reportedly, no. The spectral amps are wide-bandwidth devices (up to ~1MHz), so the wire must protect against picking up hi freq noise. Other amps are bandwidth limited so the matter is moot. Cheers
gregm
3,411 posts
 
Ps: Actually there are a few manufacturers who offer wide-bandwidth amplification devices. Amazongly, there has been little marketing bull about this, so as you imply "however much the marketing bull* there's always room left for more".
Watch out for the next big thing in audio: GHz reproduction!
gregm
3,411 posts
 
Is it really that difficult for a cable to carry a full range signal? I don't know much, but this is the first I"ve heard of this.
Of course not. The problem (if problem there is) is in the way that wire carries a wide-band signal; i.e. there may be attenuations & small phase anomalies in parts of the bandwidth...

But then, you can get similar anomalies just by using a single channel to amplify from dc to daylight AND expect a pair of passive boxes (speakers) to produce sound, accordingly from dc to daylight -- all of this in totally linear fashion. A tall order.
Just think about it! :)
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