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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 tgrisham

tgrisham
1,291 posts
 
Arthur, thanks. You have made my day!
tgrisham
1,291 posts
 
I gather from the article several points. Correct me if I am wrong.

1. Amps, speakers and cables all interact and therefore the amps and speakers will change the characteristics of the cables. Cables will potentially sound different in different systems.
2. The longer the cable, the more it picks up interference, especially RFI.
3. The configuration of the cable, coax or parallel, will show measurable change in the level of interference measured.

If I am summarizing several of the many points correctly, then I propose that:

1. Reviews of cables are meaningless because they are not using the equipment that you will be using.
2. If you have long runs, you may need shielding to prevent the pickup of RFI, and maybe EMI.
3. Metal content, physical configuration, dialectric and length will all contribute to measurable differences in cables, and may give them different sounds. Therefore all cables can potentially act as tone controls, some more than others.

Did I understand the article? Did anyone else come to the same conclusions?
tgrisham
1,291 posts
 
Not being an EE I don't know if I really grasped the article, but I wonder if this research and argument supports the use of magnet wire (Speltz, et al.): no dialectric, short wires from mono amps close to the speakers, wires separated from each other in space? Also, he tested coax type speaker wire. Who makes coax style speaker wires? I see lots of ICs with this configuration, but don't recall SCs. Thanks again for the info. It is lots of fun to explore deeper into the science of music reproduction.
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