Speaker cable geometry question

Cables don't directly change midrange only, but moving speakers to change wires often does.

Speakers are in the exactly same marked location, angle etc.  Nothing changed in the room.

But the cables don’t carry the audio waveform. They carry alternating voltage and current, neither of which are related to frequency. So as far as the skin effect being used in any theory of cable construction pro or con I frankly don’t get it. I do understand why AudioQuest highly polishes the surface of wires and honors the inherent directionality of wire. That makes sense.

Long time ago I read FAQ by Audioquest on the subject of speaker cable geometry.  They claim that  skin effect, that starts (copper at 20kHz) at gauge 18, affects the sound.  Using multiple insulated strands helps a little, but strands are still in magnetic field of each other.  Better solution is to arrange strands in a tape fashion, so that magnetic field of each strand would affect only neighboring strands.  Better yet is to lightly twist this tape on a round hollow core.  Twisting reduces pickup from electric and electromagnetic fields.  That is how my Acoustic Zen Satori cable is constructed.  The problem is that this hollow core design makes this cable over 1" in diameter (and I have shotgun cable = 2x1").

I'm surprised that they consider skin effects in audio.  Perhaps it slightly affects harmonics at 20kHz (that I cannot hear anyway).  Also, any increase in cable impedance at 20kHz is probably much less than increase in cable's inductive impedance, not to mention that speaker is most likely "inductive" at high frequencies increasing its impedance (less of the load).

We can always find some plausible explanation for any cable construction, but is it audible?  The more I try to understand it the more it is magic to me.  Long time ago I had inexpensive Audioquest Indigo.  It was OK, but sounded a little thin in the lower midrange.  Acoustic Zen Satori lower midrange is much more pronounced.  Male voices have more "chestiness", cello has deeper/fuller  sound etc.  Cable is a filter (like everything else in audio system), but I cannot imagine what kind of filter would improve lower midrange only.  Voice have some added smoothness/silkiness to it - how can I express cable "silkiness" as LCR?

This s a good cable for audio. If you notice it doesn't show any drop off until well out of audible range.

http://www.canare.com/ProductItemDisplay.aspx?productItemID=65

drblank"A cable is an LRC filter or "network" "

That is true, valid, and verifiable provided the cable is defective, deficient, or improperly specified and also provided we are talking about cables for use in a traditional Music Reproduction System. A properly designed, specified, manufactured, and installed audio cable is not a "LRC filter or network."

A cable is an LRC filter or "network" as the resistance is from the wires, the Inductance is from how the wires are twisted, and the C is from from dielectrics used.   LRC measurements do change when the cable is loaded vs unloaded.  But a cable, if you think about, is a filter much like a EQ is a filter.  The only problem is to change how the cable filters the signal you have to change the cable geometries and materials. But MIT adds additional LRC networks wired in parallel to improve how the cable is filtered to achieve a more linear cable that gives proper texture, note and instrument separation, detail without fatigue, etc. etc.

If you read and watch various interviews and explanation of what MIT Cables has found out is that when they do their "articulation" measurements which is looking at the rise time (attack), settling time (decay) and amplitude of various frequencies in audio, the differences in the cable will yield a different "articulation" curve.  They also look at phase angles, noise, etc.  They are adapting articulation measurements developed by Bells Labs and applying it to audio cables.   So depending on the cable, it will produce a different tonal quality and some cables sound bright, edgy, etc., some sound more neutral, some sound more bass heavy. So it's just a matter of picking the right cable geometries, along with using a variety of different gauge strands of wire, shape of the wire (some use flat, some use thin round, etc.) and they are just playing around with cables to sound a certain way.  The thing to realize is that people prefer a different type of sound and everyone's equipment is different and it's a matter of matching the cables to one's equipment to one's preference.  Some people are very sensitive to high frequencies and they don't want an edgy sounding cable, but some people do.

MIT and others like Transparent, for example, simply design LCR networks, they wire in parallel to achieve a more flat "articulation" curve with as much texture.  They can achieve it a lot easier in that they have more control over the design of the LCR circuits, how many to add, and what frequencies to tailor them around.  But some people don't like the boxes as they can be a little difficult to deal with. 

But those that don't use those network boxes have to achieve a desired sound by changing the cable geometries, and materials.

If you watch the video from MIT, called What's inside the box, it talks about this as it applies to cables in general and then they explain what they do.  So it's a part marketing and part technical explanation for the average consumer to learn from. I think it's also used in their dealership training.


I hope this helps. 

Thanks Shadorne, I've read stuff like that basically and on this page in particular, Fig 11 shows no more than a 0.025 dB drop at 25 kHz for the largest spacing of that particular example.  Fig 13 shows with the largest wire a difference of around 0.01 dB for increasing the wire spacing from 9mm to 12mm.  And figure 14 shows a differnce of 50 nanoseconds (0.000000005 seconds).  Further it comments that " In practice it is questionable whether delays of the magnitudes shown would ever be audible. "

Now, as an example, Nordost Tyr has 26 conductors of 22awg for a total of approx  8 awg wire.  Jena has some of variation on this type of geometry as well in separate + and - runs.  Not sure what's inside separate Purist audio runs but wonder what if any advantage or disadvantage using separate + and - is apparent or even perceptible.  

nutella, I can't add any additional comments as kijanki and shadorne's comments are spot on.
If you should be in the market for speaker cables I would most highly recommend you take a look at the Cerious Technologies Graphene speaker cables, huge giant killers at a very fair price, and a fraction of the cost as the speaker cables you mentioned.

+1 what Kijanki said

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/audio/skineffect/page5.html

Spacing wires apart will obviously reduce wire-to-wire capacitance with some increase of the wire inductance (that is more important IMHO).  In addition electrical noise pickup is proportional to the area between wires.  It might not  seem important (since it is output), but output, in most cases in an input to NFB.  There is no right or wrong here.  It all depends on your system, your location etc.