Fearing to tread into this again but....

[Benedict_Arnold]

Was researching something else entirely the other day and I came across a link to the "Telegraphers Equations" on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegrapher%27s_equations

My rudimentary electrical engineering (i got me a dugrea in mekanicual injunearing from Brunel after all - and that was 30 years ago) is far too weak to do the sums, but it does go some way into explaining why not all cables are created equal.

It notes that:

- a cable acts as a resistor so you get a straight Ohm's law loss;

- the cable also acts as an inductor or coil ("self inductance"), so currents are sluggish to change for example

- that there is a capacitor effect caused by the two cores separated by an insulator and the effect the insulator has on that too;

- and that the electrical insulation between the cores (which is not, despite what youmight think, infinite) also plays a part.

Interesting read.

I also read, which is what I was looking up, that the first transatlantic telegraph cable could only carry one character (in Morse code) took two minutes to travel the length of the cable. Most people think electricity travels at the speed of light, which is 299,792,458 meters per second, so, if you accept that, to travel the roughly 4,000 km (4 million metres) along the cable should have taken about 13 milliseconds.

 

[Gray]

Do you know what it was that caused it to take 2 minutes in the Transatlantic cable Benedict?

 

[newlash09]

Nice to see you on this side in the hifi section

I recently bought a 3 MTR pair of unidirectional speakers cables called ' highend master class'. These are supposedly hand made in Germany.

When I plugged them in, in place of my supra ply. The difference was really huge. But after settling in for a few days, and trying to realise what they were doing differently. I realised that they had increased the treble to increase the sense of clarity. Maybe the background is more quiet too, but that might be just psychoacoustics.

So iam firmly entrenched in the 'use digital eq' to tune your systems sound than use cables. As advocated by Insider9

 

[Blacksabbath25]

Was researching something else entirely the other day and I came across a link to the "Telegraphers Equations" on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegrapher%27s_equations

My rudimentary electrical engineering (i got me a dugrea in mekanicual injunearing from Brunel after all - and that was 30 years ago) is far too weak to do the sums, but it does go some way into explaining why not all cables are created equal.

It notes that:

- a cable acts as a resistor so you get a straight Ohm's law loss;

- the cable also acts as an inductor or coil ("self inductance"), so currents are sluggish to change for example

- that there is a capacitor effect caused by the two cores separated by an insulator and the effect the insulator has on that too;

- and that the electrical insulation between the cores (which is not, despite what youmight think, infinite) also plays a part.

Interesting read.

I also read, which is what I was looking up, that the first transatlantic telegraph cable could only carry one character (in Morse code) took two minutes to travel the length of the cable. Most people think electricity travels at the speed of light, which is 299,792,458 meters per second, so, if you accept that, to travel the roughly 4,000 km (4 million metres) along the cable should have taken about 13 milliseconds.

I remember that you took an oath *smile* that you would never talk about cables again so help me god *blum3* what happened ? *mail1*

 

[abacus]

If you go into even entry level electrical/electronic education the effects cables have (The items you mentioned in the first post) on electrical signals is one of the first things you are taught, you also learn about inductance, capacitance & resistance etc. and when you put it into practice, you soon realise what a load of cobblers Hi-Fi cable manufactures spout out. (Hence they are nothing but con artists sticking a fancy name on a cheap cable, adding in some gobbledegook and charging a fortune for it)

Cables are passive and can only take information away, they cannot add anything, (Hence when users say the system became brighter after changing cables, they are just deluding themselves, the only thing they can do is reduce the bass or treble)

A correctly designed cable will not take anything away (It can never add anything) therefore the only thing you have to worry about is resistance, which has to be low enough so as not to reduce the flow of electricity for the required distance.

Bill

 

[andyjm]

Was researching something else entirely the other day and I came across a link to the "Telegraphers Equations" on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegrapher%27s_equations

My rudimentary electrical engineering (i got me a dugrea in mekanicual injunearing from Brunel after all - and that was 30 years ago) is far too weak to do the sums, but it does go some way into explaining why not all cables are created equal.

It notes that:

- a cable acts as a resistor so you get a straight Ohm's law loss;

- the cable also acts as an inductor or coil ("self inductance"), so currents are sluggish to change for example

- that there is a capacitor effect caused by the two cores separated by an insulator and the effect the insulator has on that too;

- and that the electrical insulation between the cores (which is not, despite what youmight think, infinite) also plays a part.

...moving on sharply from the 19th century, this field of study is now known as 'transmission line theory'

All of the basic circuit theory you did in your degree would be using a 'lumped parameter model'. All of the capacitace was in one place in the capacitor, all of the resistance was in one place in the resistor and all of the inductance was in one place in the inductor. A moments thought would indicate that isn't true for a cable. All of the inductance, resisitance and capacitance is spread throughout the cable - you need to use a 'distributed parameter model' which takes this all this into account.

The maths is pretty heavy duty, but one of the interesting outputs is 'characteristic impedance' - that's why aerial lead is referred to as 75ohms when no amount of measuring a bit of cable with a multimeter ever results in anything that looks like 75ohms.

The good news for HiFi enthusiasts is that transmission line effects only become significant when the length of the cable is comparable to the wavelength of the signal. If my back of the envelope maths is up to it, a 20kHz signal has a 15km wavelength. You would need a very big house to have to worry about this.

Even ignoring transmission line effects, the basic lumped parameter model of a cable can't be viewed in isolation - you have to consider the circuit it is being used in. A usual amp->cable->speaker circuit has a very low source impedance (the amp) and a very low sink impedance (the speaker). A bit of very basic ohms law indicates that for a typical home speaker set up with typical speaker cable, the capacitance and inductance of the cable can be ignored - the only parameter that makes any difference is resistance.

Resistance is a function of cable thickness, and low resistance is good, so try to use short thick cables - and that is all there is to speaker cables.

 

[insider9]

- that there is a capacitor effect caused by the two cores separated by an insulator and the effect the insulator has on that too;

- and that the electrical insulation between the cores (which is not, despite what youmight think, infinite) also plays a part.

Interesting read.

I guess this is cables in general, not just speaker cables.

I'd be very interested to discuss insulation and its effects. I also had an interersting thread in mind, but that can wait for another time.

When discussing cables no one ever mentiones insulation. Effects of proper shielding, impact of EMI/RFI. Oh and the terminations. Most discussion treat it almost as if they are not connected.

 

[CnoEvil]

I'd be very interested to discuss insulation and its effects. I also had an interersting thread in mind, but that can wait for another time.

When discussing cables no one ever mentiones insulation. Effects of proper shielding, impact of EMI/RFI. Oh and the terminations. Most discussion treat it almost as if they are not connected.

All I can tell you, is that I have tried this in the past.....and it will get you precisely nowhere.....just a polemic argument, where Snake Oil, Placebo, Blind Test, Audiophoolery and Gullible always make an appearance.

 

[insider9]

I was't entirely serious I thought this would give it away...

Oh and the terminations. Most discussion treat it almost as if they are not connected.

But being serious for a moment. Has anyone in history improved anything without asking stupid questions? If one's looking for an improvement however small surely even cables make a difference.

 

[CnoEvil]

I was't entirely serious I thought this would give it away...

Oh and the terminations. Most discussion treat it almost as if they are not connected.

But being serious for a moment. Has anyone in history improved anything without asking stupid questions? If one's looking for an improvement however small surely even cables make a difference.

Apologies for skimming through your post and not picking up on that.

There is a fair amount of technical info, or Snake Oil, depending on your perspective, on sites like Atlas, Cardas and Audioquest.

If you can get yourself some TQ Black stuff to try - Mains Cable; I/C and S/C - and post what you hear (and hopefully measure). I will eat my dirty socks in an omlette, if you don't hear a (perceived?) difference.

I was the first person to mention TQ on here, when it first came out.....and every single person who has tried it, said they could hear a difference. Most liked that difference and a few didn't....but they all (think?) they heard it. TQ have since improved the Black.

 

[Vladimir]

I tried last year to intentionally voice my speakers with inadequately gauged cables and I failed. Turns out I need to have a full sized roll to get any discernable effects, not just the small gauge at few feet.

But I also have a 4ft. solid core cable (primary use for mains power from electric poll to house) that throws most amps into oscilation or overheating. Most of the music top end and liveliness becomes dull and slightly veiled. I'm thinking it would pair well with old Naim amps.

I've built DIY cables from braided CAT wire and the sound was always worse.

Audioquest solid core always lacked bass extension and fullness.

Conclusion, it's difficult to mess up with a normal speaker cable, but not so difficult with special audiophile cables. It's interesting to experiment though.

 

[insider9]

If you can get yourself some TQ Black stuff to try - Mains Cable; I/C and S/C - and post what you hear (and hopefully measure). I will eat my dirty socks in an omlette, if you don't hear a (perceived?) difference.

I was the first person to mention TQ on here, when it first came out.....and every single person who has tried it, said they could hear a difference. Most liked that difference and a few didn't....but they all (think?) they heard it. TQ have since improved the Black.

This thread just got more entertaining. Does TQ Silver count? I've had it in my system for over a week. No significant measureable differences. Any favourite socks you have there?

 

[Vladimir]

If you can get yourself some TQ Black stuff to try - Mains Cable; I/C and S/C - and post what you hear (and hopefully measure). I will eat my dirty socks in an omlette, if you don't hear a (perceived?) difference.

I was the first person to mention TQ on here, when it first came out.....and every single person who has tried it, said they could hear a difference. Most liked that difference and a few didn't....but they all (think?) they heard it. TQ have since improved the Black.

This thread just got more entertaining. Does TQ Silver count? I've had it in my system for over a week. No significant measureable differences. Any favourite socks you have there?

Your system isn't resolving enough to show the true potential of that brilliant wire.

 

[Vladimir]

Y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶i̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶l̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶n̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶b̶r̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶r̶e̶.̶

Your skepticism makes your hearing null the differences. It's the objectivist placebo effect™.

 

[CnoEvil]

Y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶i̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶l̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶n̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶b̶r̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶r̶e̶.̶

Your skepticism makes your hearing null the differences. It's the objectivist placebo effect™.

I would say his system is resolving enough to justify even more expensive wire. *diablo*

 

[CnoEvil]

TQ Silver certainly counts - did you notice a perceived difference?....I would be surprised if you didn't.

My sock eating only happens if a Full Loom produces no audible effects (the measuring was simply hopeful thinking and not a deal breaker). *angel*

 

[insider9]

Your system isn't resolving enough to show the true potential of that brilliant wire.

How can it be? I found the review below. So I decided to try it with a 20 000 GBP system...
HiFi Voice
“Recommended” award for the price / performance ratio. It just works right and it doesn´t feel bad even with 20 000 GBP setup. The overall transparency, relaxed sound and naturalness are awesome for this category”

 

[insider9]

I have noticed a difference even if I couldn't measure one. Done some AB testing, bloody Katy Perry... (Thanks again Vlad)

Cables arrived the same day as Esoteric but didn't go in the system till 3 days later. I have no doubt what contributed to sound improvement in a significant way. Big test will be after I switch back in a month or so, maybe later. I really don't like AB testing. Perceived difference? Yes. Is it bias? Not yet sure. I've never claimed there isn't a diffrence but opposed to a few things.

It says "Designed to combat phase distortion" on the box... maybe I measured the wrong thing. Or maybe they tried and failed.

 

[insider9]

Y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶i̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶l̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶n̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶b̶r̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶r̶e̶.̶

Your skepticism makes your hearing null the differences. It's the objectivist placebo effect™.

Where can I buy some objectivist placebo effect™ ?

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Do you know what it was that caused it to take 2 minutes in the Transatlantic cable Benedict?

Nope. I believe the wiki article implied it was to do with transmission theory and something to do with how quickly the cable would actually transfer the low to high voltage spike assocated with the dots and dashes, not arthritis in the telegrapher's hand

 

[Vladimir]

Y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶i̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶l̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶n̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶b̶r̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶r̶e̶.̶

Your skepticism makes your hearing null the differences. It's the objectivist placebo effect™.

Where can I buy some objectivist placebo effect™ ?

Hydrogen Audio forums. It's in their forum rules not to write subjective impressions about sound or else you'll get banned. It's a lovely forum.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

I remember that you took an oath *smile* that you would never talk about cables again so help me god *blum3* what happened ? *mail1*

Taking a leaf out of the Donald Trump book of political speak, what I said yesterday...

No, seriously. I just found it interesting and thought I'd share, not to provoke another ound of "my speaker cable's better than your speaker cable" or "use flat twin and earth or old coat hangers, anything else is a waste of money" debate.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

If you go into even entry level electrical/electronic education the effects cables have (The items you mentioned in the first post) on electrical signals is one of the first things you are taught, you also learn about inductance, capacitance & resistance etc. and when you put it into practice, you soon realise what a load of cobblers Hi-Fi cable manufactures spout out. (Hence they are nothing but con artists sticking a fancy name on a cheap cable, adding in some gobbledegook and charging a fortune for it)

Cables are passive and can only take information away, they cannot add anything, (Hence when users say the system became brighter after changing cables, they are just deluding themselves, the only thing they can do is reduce the bass or treble)

A correctly designed cable will not take anything away (It can never add anything) therefore the only thing you have to worry about is resistance, which has to be low enough so as not to reduce the flow of electricity for the required distance.

Bill

First of all, liek I said, my dugrea is in mekanicual injunearing, not elektricual. We only got as far as basic power theory as needed to feed, say, an electricual moter to drive one of our masheens. So I'm open to discussion and edjewmakhayshun.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

...moving on sharply from the 19th century, this field of study is now known as 'transmission line theory'

<Snip>

The good news for HiFi enthusiasts is that transmission line effects only become significant when the length of the cable is comparable to the wavelength of the signal. If my back of the envelope maths is up to it, a 20kHz signal has a 15km wavelength. You would need a very big house to have to worry about this.

Didn't know that. Explains why a 4000 km cable has problems and a 6 foot one doesn't.

As far as "lumping" the values into one, I think it's more analagous to, say, calculating flow in a gas pipeline. You could lump all the resistance to flow at one end, but gas properties change with pressures and temperatures, do you have to divvy up the pipeline into lots of little segments and calculate the properties at the start and end of each segment, then calcuate the pressure and temperature changes, then recalculate the gas properties, then go onto the next segment.....

Even ignoring transmission line effects, the basic lumped parameter model of a cable can't be viewed in isolation - you have to consider the circuit it is being used in. A usual amp->cable->speaker circuit has a very low source impedance (the amp) and a very low sink impedance (the speaker). A bit of very basic ohms law indicates that for a typical home speaker set up with typical speaker cable, the capacitance and inductance of the cable can be ignored - the only parameter that makes any difference is resistance.

Agreed, maybe, not sure 'cos like I said I'm not an elektricual injunear. Also on the effects of the cable to amp and cable to speaker connections, often overlooked IMHO.

Resistance is a function of cable thickness, and low resistance is good, so try to use short thick cables - and that is all there is to speaker cables.

So why don't straightened out coathangers work well? Or is it a case of the ones from the high street dry cleaners don't work as well as those from Harrods or Audioquest, Chord, etc. or that Russ Abbot or whatever his name is chap?

 

[CnoEvil]

My very personal opinion, is that a decent Mains Cable makes a significant difference, especially if connected to the Amp...that might even be measureable. I also think some Sources can benefit....but the difference isn't as significant and the cable doesn't need to be as expensive.

I don't expect anyone to believe me, or take my word for anything. In your case, I think you will bring a reasonably objective approach to all this. You will be reasonably immune to Snake Oil, or Subjectivists like me....but on the other hand, you won't dissmiss what you hear out of hand, on the grounds that it's impossible.

I apologise to the OP for the hijack. I'm sure you will post your findings on a thread, so I'll comment there.