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Math + Logic + Science = something completely mad...

So, I've done a metric fuckton of research, notwithstanding the clear bias the man who designed and built my Belles has against esoteric cabling.  And here's the conclusion to which I arrived. 

My monoblocks are sitting on top of the speakers.  The distance from the amp to the speaker is barely a foot, which is exactly how long a run of wire I intend to use.  Goal is to minimize the effect the wire has on the sound.  

According to the calculations I've seen and done, the skin effect depth on copper wire at 20Khz is 461 micrometers.  Meaning a 19-gauge copper wire (911 mics diameter) would reduce skin effect to zero.  As in no impact whatsoever on the signal. 
 
Of course, it's actually very difficult to find 19-gauge wire.  18-gauge (1024 mics) is much easier, and the skin effect is near zero, but not quite zero.  Seems to be an acceptable compromise. Could go down to 20-gauge and eliminate skin effect entirely.  If I could find insulated aluminum wire, 18-gauge would eliminate skin effect entirely, because skin effect depth on aluminum at 20khz is 580 mics.  

12 inches of 18-gauge wire produces 0.006 ohms of additional resistance.  20-gauge = 0.01 ohms.  

Frankly, I don't see the value in spending big bucks on esoteric, heavy-gauge wire for this application.  I'd rather make the bigger investment in the 2m runs from the preamp to the blocks, because that's where the wire's going to have a hell of a lot more of an effect on the sound.  

Stepping back to allow you all the opportunity to punch holes in my thought process here. 
jerkface

Showing 2 responses by bruce19

bruce19
286 posts
 
Ohm said:
“Yes and if you can manage, cold press the ends, no solder. Treat the bare wire before you install it into the bore with a good enhancer. Graphite dust works great. If you have to solder, use GREAT solder, that is another boo boo, people make. They solder ends instead of tinning and using and enhancer with a cold press or HEAVY hammer strikes will work. 20-30 tons with 2 of my hammer strikes..”

My question is how does that square with the fact the inside every component are hundreds of solder points. Why would a couple more on the ends of the connecting wires make any difference?
bruce19
286 posts
 
@dletch2 this has been a great discussion and as a technically conversant DIYer I learned a lot. In particular this statement of yours:
“We end up where we started R, L, C. Take a cable with low R and high L, and it will sound warm, the bass even muddy as it is too loud. Take a cord with high R, and high L, and the mids and vocals will pop out and be emphasized. Take a cord with high R, but low L, and the cable will come across comparatively bright. Have a high enough C, and some amps will be unstable and can come across as bright, potentially distorted.”

...was just the kind of distillation a relevant information that I have been looking for. Could you just go a few steps further and Define what you mean by high and low with regard to R,L and C.
I have a Proster BM4070 LCR meter and I’ve actually been measuring some of the cables that I own to see if I can correlate numbers to sound and your statement helps tremendously in setting up a model of what to expect. The Proster was not an expensive instrument, about $40, do you think it is sufficiently accurate to make the kind of measurements we are talking about here?
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