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 1 response by erik_squires

While I believe that cables matter, skin effect is the biggest piece of hogwash ever.

A more likely explanation for cables sounding different, based on what I've heard, is that the amp and speakers are more sensitive to the miniscule LC and R values than the math would have us believe. Perhaps feedback also plays some role here, but 100% of every cable effect I've ever heard can be explained purely in the frequency domain. Oversensitivity to basic cable measurements could explain it.

Also, most cables are way pricier than the apparent changes they produce.