Sound advice for beginners

[wilro15]

Found this on an aussie hifi shop site. Sound advice for beginners to hifi. Even dispels many hifi myths, which is refreshing for a dealer! Read to the end to spot a dig to a certain "pommie" hi-fi magazine (I wonder which one that could be?)

 

[lindsayt]

It would appear that he is factually incorrect on skin effect, according to this calculator:

http://circuitcalculator.com/wordpress/2007/06/18/skin-effect-calculator/

EG Skin depth at 10000 hz is 0.76 mm.

 

[Covenanter]

It would appear that he is factually incorrect on skin effect, according to this calculator:

http://circuitcalculator.com/wordpress/2007/06/18/skin-effect-calculator/

EG Skin depth at 10000 hz is 0.76 mm.

You are misunderstanding this! The higher the frequency the shallower the skin depth, i.e. the more of the current is near the skin.

Chris

 

[SteveR750]

It might all indeed be true, but I would not buy from such a patronising git. I got bored after the second paragraph and walked out of his shop.

FWIW, all of the shops I demoed kit in the last 3 months pretty much laughed at speaker cables, so he's hardly a pioneer,

 

[lindsayt]

No I'm not!

The aussie shop person said:

Thin wires for high frequency's and thicker wire for the low's - give me a break! The "skin effect", which is the name given to the phenomenon of high frequency AC signals traveling only on the outer skin of the conductors, only occurs to any significant effect in the megahertz region (just a tad higher than the 20kHz of standard CD's or even 192kHz DVD- A/SACD/Whatnext Formats

This is clearly nonsense, according to the calculator I linked to. For example at 10khz - still within the audible frequencies the skin depth is 0.76mm. If you're using thick speaker cable with a diameter of 4mm, the central 2.5mm's won't be conducting much of the 10khz signal.

Therefore skin effect is significant at audio frequncies. Especially in the treble region.

Now, Covenanter, can you please explian to me what on Earth I have misunderstood?

 

[Thompsonuxb]

He contradicts himself ref bi-wiring in his first paragraph.

He sells hifi?