The Great Cable Debate

[aliEnRIK]

Anton90125:I am not sure what this person "claims" actually makes sense? Mr Townshend was doing test on loadspeakers cables and with a tone generator. If "and I say a big IF" this extra long mains cable had any bearing on the oscilloscope display, this would be constant between all the cables being used. What Max successfully demonstrated was that transmission line properties can be found at audio frequencies and that these properties will effect the frequency characteristics of the cable from just being a simple resistance driven conductor to that of an active component in your signal chain. The cleaver bit was he did it without resorting to any subjective standpoints. You can easily reproduce this experiment yourself and always get the same result. To make the experiment more airtight (naysayers comments), he should have repeated the experiment with many lenghts of cable and coiled them and uncoiled them, even going to the point of actually distorying one of his Isolda cable to change the geometry and thus show the negative effects. I got the Isolda (SH from Ebay) and the difference is so black and white. All I can suggest is get some one to demo it for you. Most naysayer will not demo a cable on principle (a principle that not very scientific ie text book is right why should I do an experiment to prove otherwise)

My apologies Anton, I meant speaker cable, not mains lead

 

[Anton90125]

If its speaker length, then this person is one of the naysayers who work from text books. I believe he is refering to the DC resistance of the cable which varies with length. The fact the DC resistance is very low in the first place seems to have eluded is reasoning process. Signals that are sent between the amp and speakers are in fact AC and are a superposition of all the harmonics present in the sound. Because of this we need to look at the cable imediance which can vary with frequency. Max brought in a measured property called "characteristic impedance" (CI) which is an important specification when describing transmission lines (high power high frequency). The problem is all the text books say that the CI only applies to high frequency situation in the MHz end of things not at the audio end which is quite low frequency (20-20KHz). In the video Max has proven quite conclusively that CI is also important at the audio end. A big unfair DC resitance (as suggested by that person) would have shown it's self as steps in the difference beam of the oscilloscope. Do you know if that person chalenged Max at the show? It would have been interesting to hear Max's reply.

I DO believe that there is alot more physics involved in the workings of speaker cable then detailed in the textbooks. Remember that most of these formula are idealized to make the maths easier. There is also alot of noise out there with manufacters claiming this and that about their cables making it a naysayrs paradise. I did see an interesting video on youtube concerning sheilding which maybe another factor that needs investigating (though this more an interconect video).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uhobsHs-_o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yaOUrULYP4&feature=related

 

[aliEnRIK]

Im not agreeing or disagreeing with you Anton

But if you watch that video, you can clearly see HIS cable is pretty short, whilst the 'stock' is offscreen (And clearly longer from what can be seen)

The guy I was on about said it was on an entire spool (minimum of 50m from what I gathered)

No he never challenged him. But I sent Townshend an email asking for an explanation. I never got one.

 

[the record spot]

This is my opinion, mine and not indicative of fact in general on a wider scale.

Tried various cables, one mains conditioner and for the cables, there was no difference between the current Computergear RCA phono and those from QED, Monster (a recent freebie, in the Interlink 300), van den Hul and Audioquest. So, from £7 to £65. All copper, all shielded and all doing the same job.

For the mains, there was a BT Mains Conditioning Unit, 3 point, and a bog standard four pin block. No difference again.

Trying some twin 2.5mm 79 strand next. Ordered 10m for a fiver off Ebay, includes delivery. Will be interested to hear how that goes as it'll be a damn sight easier getting that in the Sansui spring clips...!