cable burning


After you've stopped laughing, maybe somebody has an answer for this. I have Transparent speaker cables. At the amp end of this cable there is a black plastic cover. This is where the cable is seperated into two connecting ends....about 5" or so. I recently bought new amps and the posts are at each end of the amp. The cables didn't have enuff spread to reach. My local audio dealer said he could have the cables sent to Transparent and for a cost they would extend the ends to what ever I needed. Where I work, we make some cables for barcode reading guns. Thinking I could save a few $ I brought mine in thinking we could take those plastic boxes off and recover the cables with some sheathing and it would give me the extra length I need to reach the posts. We had a little trouble with a resister that was glued into that plastic box but we were able to make it work. I had just barely enuff length to make the connection. I have Mag 3.7 speakers and they are fairly new....about 120 hours on them now. So, I havn't been playing anything to loudly, till the other night. I decided to crank it up some. All was well until, here it comes....I see smoke comming up from behind one of the amps. A thin line like from a cigarette left burning in an ashtray. At the same time I smelled it. I hit the off button on the CD and dived to the off buttons on the amps. Upon further review I could see that the speaker cable right where we had covered that resister was melting. After waiting for it to cool off, I covered it with some electrical tape and turned it back on just to see if it would still play. No problems Sounds fine. My intention now is to do what I should've done and send them in to be fixed professionally. Seeing as how I have very little knowledge of all things electrical, anybody want to try and explain what happened?
mrschret
Hi Kijanki,

Your comments are well founded, IMO, and I completely agree with them. I have no particular knowledge of the specific 1 MHz corner frequency, but I assume your information about that is good.

There is a "network" near both ends of the cable, as well as a physically larger one that is not located near an end. See these pictures for example. I suppose it can be presumed that the network at both ends is just a resistor, as MrSchret found to be the case at the one end.

Will any of that result in an audibly significant benefit in any given system? IMO it's speculative at best, as I had said. Even if the cable is determined to sound better in a given system than other cables that it may be compared to, that doesn't necessarily mean that the "networks" are the reason.

Best regards,
-- Al
Thanks Al. I found 1.3MHz frequency on the second page of the article but forgot to look at the picture. I wonder what is inside of this big box in the center.
Well, I've already made a mistake by mess'n with the little plastic cover. I have no intention of doing the same with the big box in the middle. Again, when these go in to be repaired properly I'll question what goes on in those enclosures. Something tells me you won't need an answer cause you'll have it figured out before then.
no, I really think we won't Mrschret! Personally I think the 1.3Mhz stuff is hooey but the stated "reason" whey some products work often has nothing to do with if they actually work or not. My favorite is the speaker cable conditioned with many gillions of volts in a carefully controlled process that looks like a static discharge device. May sound devine but nothin about that is controlled and the work carefully is not even in the same area code. Luck with your cables.