By the way, i'm not saying "Nordost is the best", i'm simply saying that i think it provides a very audible contrast to the sonics of zip cord. Sean
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Sean...Thanks. I hope I get to try them. The Maggie MG1.6 crossover is about as simple as it gets. Low pass is 12 dB and high pass is 6 dB. I replaced the inductor with AWG10 air coil, and the capacitors with Hovlands. Three meters is long enough, as I will throw together a special hookup (amps and wires on the floor) for the test. I will drive the Maggies full range, using my Kenwood LO7M amps, which are spec'd flat from DC to 150,000KHz +0 and -1.5 dB. Bananas would work. For the record...I am a skeptic because the "scientific" explanations don't impress me, but on the other hand I have not listened and heard nothing and thereby formed a firm opinion. |
Objective laboratory analysis of different cable materials and not existing commercial cables would be an appropriate starting point. Defining constants, testing and publishing the results would generate an empirical baseline. The additional analysis of configuration, cover material and conductor mix would be invaluable when selecting a cable "family" for listening evaluations. The audio market place is ridden with tweaks and methods that each developer feels enhances the aural product. Some product developers will use confirmatiom bias to capriciously select isolated test values that "confirm" their beliefs and bolster their claims. The determinants for product purchase will continue to be inviolate...did I spend as much or as little as possible (bragging rights), is the appearance right (looks great on and off) or is the sound what I want (subjective perogative)? I will personally buy or make new IC's and speaker cables in the next 2 months. The search continues for a flat response, broad bandwidth wire and connector combo that doesn't require robbing a bank. |
El: You can try them one way or the other. The only variable is when that will occur. Even if Rsbeck responds and says "yes", so long as he wants spades, i can send the bananas to you. As a side note, take a look at the Nordost version of banana plugs ( Z plugs ) as found in the picture near the bottom of the page to see if you think they will work okay for you. Out of curiosity, what speaker cables are you using now? If you tell me reasonably heavy zip cord, i'll be somewhat elated : ) Deckhous: You can find a multitude of posts about speaker cable bandwidth, linearity, power transfer characteristics, transient response, etc... in the AA and Agon archives. Interconnects are somewhat different as the input and output impedances between the mating gear can vary quite drastically. As such, the design parameters for interconnects are a little more less specific depending on the circumstances involved. The use of high quality materials is always of benefit though. Sean > |
Sean...They look a little strange, but if they fit in banana sockets they will work. At present I am biwired with 12 AWG for the woofer and 18 AWG for the tweeter. (The lighter tweeter wire started out at 24 AWG so as to serve as a tweeter padding resistor, but one of those wires developed a short and were scrapped). The present wire is "sourced" from Home Depot (sorry about that). It is "speaker wire" not "zip cord" and the conductors are further apart which likely results in lower capacitance. |
El: It doesn't look like Rsbeck is going to accept my invitation to put his own theories to the test and provide us with his own unbiased testimony as to the outcome. As such, i can send you both sets of cabling, which would allow you to continue to bi-wire the system as you are now. Only thing is, one set would have spades and the other would have bananas. Would this work with your specific amplifier and speaker connections? Sean > |
Sean...I think I will skip the biwire thing for this test. Let's minimize the number of variables. I don't think that spades work with Maggies. (I am actually a "bare wire" guy, so I'm not up on all the various terminations). In addition to the Maggies, I will try the wires with my Madisound Odin speakers, which have more extended high end. Ed. . |
>>i'm simply saying that i think it provides a very audible contrast to the sonics of zip cord.<< That isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not .1 dB down at 20Khz or .25dB down at 22 Khz is audible. You claim it is -- that if one has good ears, one can hear this. I say that if you can pass such a test, you can make a lot of money on the county fair circuit. Nordost and Zip Cord may or may not sound different, but what would that prove? This is a ridiculous way to test to see whether or not you -- SEAN -- can really hear .1dB down at 20Khz and .25 dB down at 22 Khz. It seems obvious to me that you are trying to pull a switch -- trying to get others to take an irrelevant test -- because you know that you can do no such thing. In any case, I think it would at least be more responsible if you gave out complete information and let people know that when you are talking about this "roll-off" you are talking about .1dB down at 20Khz. I trust that few will remain interested in your allegations if you give this information -- and I also suspect this is why you leave this information out. Now, if you want to compare Nordost and Zip Cord. What are you comparing? Where are the frequency response charts for the Nordost cables? RLC? Are we assuming the Nordost yield a perfectly flat response? Based on what? If they don't yield a perfectly flat response, then how is it relevant? It isn't. If you want to see if you can hear .1 db down, you need to measure it against flat, you need exact level matching and you need to do it double-blind for it to carry any weight. Too many studies have shown that sighted tests are unreliable because of the placebo effect. Any test that doesn't rule out the placebo effect carries no weight. Similarly, anecdotal testimony carries no weight. Conducting a sighted comparison against a cable with unknown measurements without exact level matching and claiming it is a test to see whether .1dB down at 20Khz is audible not only carries no weight, it is pointless and silly. |
Rsbeck: You aren't looking at the big picture and apparently refuse to do so. The amplifier is not driving the speaker cables independently of the loudspeaker load, it is driving / responding to the complex impedance that each individual cable / speaker combo presents to the amp on the whole. This is why there are sonic differences in cabling i.e. the complex impedances vary with frequency and each amp responds accordingly to that load. Based upon how stable the amp is into various loads, not only can frequency response be altered, but so can transient response, distortion characteristics, etc... Nelson Pass has had all of this data publicly available and documented for appr 27 years now. Then again, i guess it takes a long time for news to go from one corner of the flat earth over to the other corner. As such, i will not waste any more of your or my time debating our very different points of view. You are obviously stuck in one mode of operation and afraid to think for yourself beyond what someone else has told you to be the "truth". Studying something as simple as Thevenin's Theory might be to your benefit in the long run though. The fact that the nominal impedance of speaker cabling can vary from a few Ohm's to well beyond 100 Ohm's should be enough to make one wonder how they could perform equivalently in a very low impedance circuit. Such silly things as voltage to current ratios might explain a few things too. Then again, that was alluded to in the 27 year old article that Pass published too. El: Sorry for not contacting you sooner, but as noted elsewhere, i was having major computer problems and decided to enjoy the nice weather rather than try and fix the computer. Drop me an email with your mailing address. Sorry for the delay, but i probably won't get these out until Tuesday morning. Sean > |
The characteristic impedance of a cable is Z=sqr(L/C). The propagation velocity is V=1/sqr(LC), and also V=speed of light/sqr(epsilon times mu). Massaging of the equations of a coaxial run provide us the relation: L times C = 1034 times the dielectric coefficient. The coaxial run is the most efficient use of the structure, anything else will not provide velocities as high..this is because the inductance of non coaxial runs is higher as a result of failure to confine the mag fields to within the structure. It is useful to calculate the LC product, divide by 1034, to determine the EFFECTIVE dielectric coefficient of the wire system, as this is a direct measure of both the speed of propagation along the wire, and the actual line storage. Note that if that product is less than 1, the L and C data are in error...less than 1 indicates faster than light prop...a no no.. L in nH per foot, and C in pf per foot, of course.. As it turns out, the point of minimal line storage occurs when the characteristic impedance of the cable matches the load..so, in theory, an 8 ohm speaker would work best with an 8 ohm cable impedance..this of course, is not because of reflections per se, but rather, just simply from the calculations of inductive and capacitive storage... E = 1/2 L I squared, and E= 1/2 C V squared. As it turns out, this energy storage is a lagging one for both the inductance and the capacitance..meaning, the energy delivered to the speaker will be slightly shifted lagging. At 10 Khz, this storage minima is actually about 4% of the delivered power. And, this 4% is delivered to the load 90 degrees out of phase with the primary signal current.. For audio, given the power slew rates at the output terminals and the wire lengths involved, reflections are of no concern. One would be better off examining human localization capabilities with respect to wires, as 20 Khz isn't enough, one must look for time shifts on the order of 10 uSec, as that is well within our ability to hear... Grain boundaries within the metal do not cause reflections...at any frequency..all they can do is add to the dissipation along the conductor. Since the mean free path of electrons is 3 times 10 (-8) meters (wish I could do exponents on this forum), adding a coupla more relatively speaking, does nothing to anything..can one hear say, 1000 more collisions on a meter of wire, when the electron collisions are 30 million per meter?..and the noise is entirely uncorrelated? When the surface texture of the conductor approaches the wavelength of the signal, then problems arise..but at audio, nada.. As for dielectrics, the secondary parasitics within the insulations are very significant when one is hi-potting a large capacitance, or making a sample and hold circuit..but, for speaker wires, I'd have to see the parasitic numbers, to figure out energy balance, and level of effect.. As for listening..don't bother with the standard 20 to 20K JND numbers...unless of course, your intent is to establish differences with only one channel playing. For stereo, there is just a tad more at play here.. While I remain open to either possibility, I would insist on realistic scientific explanations... Cheers, John |
Sean -- You're like some guy on the internet claiming he can bench press 10,000 pounds. The idea that I question your claims because I cannot think for myself is rather humorous. Your answer to the challenge to prove your super human ability is to go all diffuse. I don't blame you. Any time you want to prove you can hear the difference between flat and .1db down at 20Khz, you'll have something and we'll book that tour of county fairs. |
Rsbeck: I'm not claiming anything regarding facts and figures. I'm asking you to put your own listening skills and system to the test and tell me the results. If the cables sound different and YOU can identify these differences, yet those that you trust can't explain those differences scientifically, who are you going to believe? Will it be your ears and brain or their flawed testing procedures? Unfortunately, you refuse to do something simple to test your own beliefs within the confines of your own system and listening methodology in order to either confirm or deny those beliefs. I'm not the one with something to hide, hence my offer to you to provide the necessary materials to conduct the testing as you see fit in an environment that you think is suitable for such things. The fact that you continue to babble on about my so called listening abilities when you won't even put yours to the test using your own system that you are familiar with only demonstrates why discussing this subject in public is near useless. That is, those that run their mouth the most don't even use what they tell others to, nor will they put their beliefs to the test. I said i was done here, yet you feel the need to keep egging things on. In case anyone was wondering, i'm not the one running away from a simple listening test as conducted under a no-stress scenario. That privilege belongs to Rsbeck. JNeutron: What's the matter, got an "audiophile jones" for a forum to expound all the "facts & figures"? AA down again??? : ) Other than that, Nordost claims a velocity of propogation higher than i've ever seen for ANY coaxial type cable. They claim 94%, which is a phenomenally high figure. Most coaxial designs range from appr 66% ( poly & teflon ) up to 78% ( foam ) on average. Those utilizing a higher percentage of "air dielectric" can range up to appr 84% from what i've seen as used in a coaxial form. Given that a coaxial design requires more dielectric involvement and a contained field, i can see how things would slow down compared to an openly spaced design conducting within free space and / or minimal dielectric involvement. As to your comment "As it turns out, the point of minimal line storage occurs when the characteristic impedance of the cable matches the load..so, in theory, an 8 ohm speaker would work best with an 8 ohm cable impedance", I agree. Not only does it work best in theory, but also in reality. That's why i've been "preaching" the use of impedance matched cabling for years now. It is also why i've stressed that one should select their loudspeaker cabling prior to any other cabling in the system as we already know what the specific impedance ratios are that we'll be working with. Given the varying input / output impedances of some components, selecting the proper impedance for an interconnect becomes a crap-shoot. Sean > |
Sean: Yah, got the jones bad...AA's been toast last coupla days... Actually, "facts and figures" is my primary language..english, unfortunately is a distant second one..:-) Prop vel is very simple to calc...just measure cap and inductance..no sweat with capacitance, but quite a few people measure inductance incorrectly. It's so darn hard to do it right when it's in the tens of nanohenry range..the HP unit I use doesn't even have the test leads right, even though the manual very clearly explains all the issues.. I always marvel at how just inductance and capacitance work to set the prop velocity. I cannot vouch for 8 ohm speaker cables as being the best in reality..my system is not good enough to even consider trying to evaluate different speaker wires..my statement is just based on the math.. it was a suprise to me to see the storage energy minima at load Z. Cheers, John PS...does the moderator review every post prior to posting? |
Jneutron: Yes, most all of the posts are moderated prior to posting. There are a select few that bypass this part of posting though. I used to be one of those, but i've raised too much hell in the past to be fully trusted anymore : ) As to AA, hopefully Rod has gotten things straightened out over there. I can't believe how much time, effort and energy that he personally devotes to keeping that forum running. He deserves more than a pat on the back for what he does and i hope his efforts don't go unrewarded forever. Sean > |
>>I'm asking you to put your own listening skills and system to the test and tell me the results.<< You cannot test anyone's listening skills until you have proven there is something to hear. You don't have such proof. Instead, you have an unproven claim. You claimed you could hear .1 db down at 20Khz. Your idea of how to test this is to send ME cables? That's like sending me 10,000 pounds to see if YOU can lift it. >>If the cables sound different and YOU<< I could listen to those cables, fall on my knees and say, "wow -- these cables sure do sound different!" And it won't do anything to help you back up your claim that you can hear .1db down at 20Khz. If you want to prove you can hear .1db down at 20Khz, it would be easy to design a test, but YOU would obviously be the one taking it -- since YOU made the claim. Dude -- this is all just basic logic. We're not debating whether cables can sound DIFFERENT. We're debating whether you can hear .1db down at 20 Khz. We both know you cannot. It was a ridiculous claim. Since you cannot hear .1db down at 20Khz, any theory based on this premise is obviously flawed and must be revised because -- obviously -- the building blocks of your theory must be provable or else you have nothing. Back to the drawing board. We've beaten this to death. That's it for me. Thanks for the chat. |
Rsbeck: If the cables measure the same, they'll sound the same. If they sound different, and you are honest about hearing a difference, then there must be some way to quantify what you hear. It is that simple and my method keeps it simple. Your method introduces other variables such as some type of a switchbox and additional cabling necessary to perform such a task into the equation. Not only can this taint the results due to "contaminating" the circuit, it alters the impedance and current distribution along the signal path. Since cabling does introduce distributed electrical characteristics along the conducting path, adding a switchbox and a different type of cable before the switchbox into the listening path DEFINITELY changes what one would measure and potentially hear without such variables into the signal path. That's because the switchbox and connecting cable will all introduce their unique impedances and multiple additional connections into the equation whereas they wouldn't be there normally. All of this is verifiable and measurable IF you have the right equipment( Time Domain Reflectometer ). Obviously, the people believing that an ABX box introduces no variables into such a situation are lacking the proper test equipment and knowledge to verify such things and / or have been lying to the general public on purpose about such things. Swapping cables manually at the amp one at a time definitely keeps the path "purer" for such a comparison with the only variable being one's own listening skills, auditory memory and level of integrity. As mentioned above, i'm willing to trust your listening skills and integrity under the conditions that YOU choose to make when conducting such a test using equipment that you are very familiar with in a room that you are very familiar with using a recording that you are familiar with. Sean > |
In fact, there IS a very simple cable wire experiment. Take an appropriate length of enameled pure copper wire (~16g), cut into four identical pieces, scrape off enamel at the 8 ends, and use that wire to connect amp->spkrs. There should be a perceptible sonic difference if you're now using multistrand wire. You can even connect these wires in the direction they come off the spool, or cross, or whatever floats one's boat:)! |
I posted that question hoping to draw some of the snipers in the thread. In reality the acoustic characteristics of the canal vary widely and the artifacts of residual cerumen do alter the mechanical feed to the tympanic membranes. The membrane and 3 bones(incus,stapes and malleus) send the vibrations to the hair cells of the cochlea. At this point the mechanical energy is converted to electrical impulses that the cochlear nerve supplies to the brain(Broca's area). What arrives at the brain is influenced at each of these junctures. Do clean ears optimize sound... I think yes! Should your audio system be tuned to compensate for inconsistencies in tympanic output(confirmed by audiogram)...I don't know. Would any of this standardize the listening experience? Tweaks for rooms, cables, electronics and speakers are de riguer. Should we tweak the organic end of the system as well? Next week, sound modeling in the middle and inner ear and do the Eustachian Tubes control porting in your head. |
Sam here and if the sound of warm analog tone is your pleasure than you need to make a set of cables out of shungite and 100% solid african mahogany wood. The wood must be soaked for 24 hours in distilled shungite water and then dried in the sun for several days. Shungite rock is a natural conductor of electricity and combined with the dried wood creates a tone that can’t be touched by other sunstances although cornflake saphire powder comes damn close. |
Resurrecting another dead thread? Yes, the materials used in any cable’s (or PCB laminate’s) dielectrics affect signal transmission speeds, according to the Dielectric Coefficient (Dk) of the material. ie: https://www.edn.com/rule-of-thumb-3-signal-speed-on-an-interconnect/ and:
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/494977/signal-velocity-in-pcb-traces Feel free to argue (with those established facts). |