Fake Oil...

[TrevC]

He could tell the fakes sounded cr*p easy enough and they made a connection ok

He said he did. Didn't really.

All of the physics points towards interconnects having properties which can effect the sound produced. Your knowledge base is (I think) in electronics and refers only to the conductive/resistive properties of metals. The rest of the scientific picture (dielectrics etc.) you don't really seem to understand.

I'm happy to be educated. Go ahead. How can the insulation used in an interconnect affect sound quality?

 

[TrevC]

No but if you wanted an honest will this make a difference or will I be wasting my money if I buy one opinion based on a "blind" listening Test you setup her ears might make a good candidate for your test. Obviously TrevC will say it's all a waste of money but the result was the result luck or truth whatever.

Your ears have led you up the garden path again. It's luck and expectation bias. Of course USB cables can't sound different, they aren't carrying an analogue signal.

 

[Gazzip]

He could tell the fakes sounded cr*p easy enough and they made a connection ok

He said he did. Didn't really.

All of the physics points towards interconnects having properties which can effect the sound produced. Your knowledge base is (I think) in electronics and refers only to the conductive/resistive properties of metals. The rest of the scientific picture (dielectrics etc.) you don't really seem to understand.

I'm happy to be educated. Go ahead. How can the insulation used in an interconnect affect sound quality?

Happy to oblige old boy.

A perfect dielectric is a material with zero electrical conductivity, thus exhibiting only a displacement current, therefore it stores and returns electrical energy as if it were an ideal capacitor. (I copied that bit off the internet).

Unfortunately many materials used in interconnect and speaker cable manufacture are not very good dielectrics. The use of insulating materials with poor dielectric qualities, PVC for example which is used a lot in cable construction at the cheaper end of the market, can lead to an increase in cable capacitance. This can in turn induce a first order roll-off affecting frequency response, ergo the sound.

In the DC interconnect world this is bad enough, but in the AC world of the speaker cable you can throw the skin effect in to the mix which can induce further capacitance within the poor quality insulators, further altering frequency response. The skin effect is the tendency for AC currents to "gather" and distribute across the outer surface or "skin" of a conductor. Put this in to proximity with a poor dielectric insulator and you have a bigger problem.

Use of good dielectric materials (air, teflon, polyethelene) in cables can assist the signal in passing through unaltered. So some cables are indeed better than others based upon the dielectric properties of their insulators.

 

[ellisdj]

No but if you wanted an honest will this make a difference or will I be wasting my money if I buy one opinion based on a "blind" listening Test you setup her ears might make a good candidate for your test. Obviously TrevC will say it's all a waste of money but the result was the result luck or truth whatever.

Your ears have led you up the garden path again. It's luck and expectation bias. Of course USB cables can't sound different, they aren't carrying an analogue signal.

You have shown you have not read the content and just posted a TrevC text book answer. It wasnt my ears and if the ears that were doing the test was that lucky they would be millionaires ears by now.

 

[TrevC]

No but if you wanted an honest will this make a difference or will I be wasting my money if I buy one opinion based on a "blind" listening Test you setup her ears might make a good candidate for your test. Obviously TrevC will say it's all a waste of money but the result was the result luck or truth whatever.

Your ears have led you up the garden path again. It's luck and expectation bias. Of course USB cables can't sound different, they aren't carrying an analogue signal.

You have shown you have not read the content and just posted a TrevC text book answer. It wasnt my ears and if the ears that were doing the test was that lucky they would be millionaires ears by now.

OK, you were unlucky. Have it your way.

 

[TrevC]

He could tell the fakes sounded cr*p easy enough and they made a connection ok

He said he did. Didn't really.

All of the physics points towards interconnects having properties which can effect the sound produced. Your knowledge base is (I think) in electronics and refers only to the conductive/resistive properties of metals. The rest of the scientific picture (dielectrics etc.) you don't really seem to understand.

I'm happy to be educated. Go ahead. How can the insulation used in an interconnect affect sound quality?

Happy to oblige old boy.

A perfect dielectric is a material with zero electrical conductivity, thus exhibiting only a displacement current, therefore it stores and returns electrical energy as if it were an ideal capacitor. (I copied that bit off the internet).

Unfortunately many materials used in interconnect and speaker cable manufacture are not very good dielectrics. The use of insulating materials with poor dielectric qualities, PVC for example which is used a lot in cable construction at the cheaper end of the market, can lead to an increase in cable capacitance. This can in turn induce a first order roll-off affecting frequency response, ergo the sound.

In the DC interconnect world this is bad enough, but in the AC world of the speaker cable you can throw the skin effect in to the mix which can induce further capacitance within the poor quality insulators, further altering frequency response. The skin effect is the tendency for AC currents to "gather" and distribute across the outer surface or "skin" of a conductor. Put this in to proximity with a poor dielectric insulator and you have a bigger problem.

Use of good dielectric materials (air, teflon, polyethelene) in cables can assist the signal in passing through unaltered. So some cables are indeed better than others based upon the dielectric properties of their insulators.

PVC insulated cable is fine at room temperature. The insulation is to stop the cable shorting. As long it does that it will work just fine. In order to be audible at line levels the capacitance would have to be extraordinarily high, far higher than any normal screened cable that I have ever encountered. The insulation material used has no effect on capacitance anyway.

Skin effect? On an audio cable? It's only important at radio frequencies.

 

[ellisdj]

OK, you were unlucky. Have it your way.

Doh ! *shok*

 

[shadders]

He could tell the fakes sounded cr*p easy enough and they made a connection ok

He said he did. Didn't really.

All of the physics points towards interconnects having properties which can effect the sound produced. Your knowledge base is (I think) in electronics and refers only to the conductive/resistive properties of metals. The rest of the scientific picture (dielectrics etc.) you don't really seem to understand.

I'm happy to be educated. Go ahead. How can the insulation used in an interconnect affect sound quality?

Happy to oblige old boy.

A perfect dielectric is a material with zero electrical conductivity, thus exhibiting only a displacement current, therefore it stores and returns electrical energy as if it were an ideal capacitor. (I copied that bit off the internet).

Unfortunately many materials used in interconnect and speaker cable manufacture are not very good dielectrics. The use of insulating materials with poor dielectric qualities, PVC for example which is used a lot in cable construction at the cheaper end of the market, can lead to an increase in cable capacitance. This can in turn induce a first order roll-off affecting frequency response, ergo the sound.

In the DC interconnect world this is bad enough, but in the AC world of the speaker cable you can throw the skin effect in to the mix which can induce further capacitance within the poor quality insulators, further altering frequency response. The skin effect is the tendency for AC currents to "gather" and distribute across the outer surface or "skin" of a conductor. Put this in to proximity with a poor dielectric insulator and you have a bigger problem.

Use of good dielectric materials (air, teflon, polyethelene) in cables can assist the signal in passing through unaltered. So some cables are indeed better than others based upon the dielectric properties of their insulators.

PVC insulated cable is fine at room temperature. The insulation is to stop the cable shorting. As long it does that it will work just fine. In order to be audible at line levels the capacitance would have to be extraordinarily high, far higher than any normal screened cable that I have ever encountered. The insulation material used has no effect on capacitance anyway.

Skin effect? On an audio cable? It's only important at radio frequencies.

Hi,

The capacitance of a cable is determined by the dielectric.

Skin effect is based on a cables self inductance. In general, using 79 strand means that each core is sufficiently small cross sectional diameter that the skin depth is higher than the radius of the wire at audio frequencies.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

[TrevC]

He could tell the fakes sounded cr*p easy enough and they made a connection ok

He said he did. Didn't really.

All of the physics points towards interconnects having properties which can effect the sound produced. Your knowledge base is (I think) in electronics and refers only to the conductive/resistive properties of metals. The rest of the scientific picture (dielectrics etc.) you don't really seem to understand.

I'm happy to be educated. Go ahead. How can the insulation used in an interconnect affect sound quality?

Happy to oblige old boy.

A perfect dielectric is a material with zero electrical conductivity, thus exhibiting only a displacement current, therefore it stores and returns electrical energy as if it were an ideal capacitor. (I copied that bit off the internet).

Unfortunately many materials used in interconnect and speaker cable manufacture are not very good dielectrics. The use of insulating materials with poor dielectric qualities, PVC for example which is used a lot in cable construction at the cheaper end of the market, can lead to an increase in cable capacitance. This can in turn induce a first order roll-off affecting frequency response, ergo the sound.

In the DC interconnect world this is bad enough, but in the AC world of the speaker cable you can throw the skin effect in to the mix which can induce further capacitance within the poor quality insulators, further altering frequency response. The skin effect is the tendency for AC currents to "gather" and distribute across the outer surface or "skin" of a conductor. Put this in to proximity with a poor dielectric insulator and you have a bigger problem.

Use of good dielectric materials (air, teflon, polyethelene) in cables can assist the signal in passing through unaltered. So some cables are indeed better than others based upon the dielectric properties of their insulators.

PVC insulated cable is fine at room temperature. The insulation is to stop the cable shorting. As long it does that it will work just fine. In order to be audible at line levels the capacitance would have to be extraordinarily high, far higher than any normal screened cable that I have ever encountered. The insulation material used has no effect on capacitance anyway.

Skin effect? On an audio cable? It's only important at radio frequencies.

Hi,

The capacitance of a cable is determined by the dielectric.

Skin effect is based on a cables self inductance. In general, using 79 strand means that each core is sufficiently small cross sectional diameter that the skin depth is higher than the radius of the wire at audio frequencies.

Regards,

Shadders.

Capacitance in a cable is determined mainly by the size and proximity of the conductors. The capacitance values found in a standard red and black freebie interconnect (about 150pF) will have zero audible effect on a lowish impedance line level signal. The main reason to use multistranded cable on speakers isn't skin effect, it's flexibility of a large conductor.

http://www.belden.com/blog/broadcastav/understanding-skin-effect-and-frequency.cfm