andyjm said:
i believe the amount of wire that is able to be attached to a bananaplug/spade would limit the amount of cable/diameter used.
maybe the manufacturers should redesign the sockets used on amplifeirs/speakers.
i believe the amount of wire that is able to be attached to a bananaplug/spade would limit the amount of cable/diameter used.
maybe the manufacturers should redesign the sockets used on amplifeirs/speakers.
mikefarrow said:
Mike, one of the challenges for those new to design engineering is to know when to stop. The premise 'speaker cables should have low resistance' is all well and good, but do you really want to be topping up your superconducting cables with liquid helium every morning, or climbing over the welded lengths of railtrack running around your room?
The best speaker cable is no speaker cable, which is one of the reasons why active 'amps in the speaker cabinet' solutions are attractive. Another solution would be to include the speaker cables in a feedback loop, so that any losses or non linearities are compensated for. You could include the speaker voicecoil in the loop as well, and have servo control of the cone....but thats another story.
In the real world, a sensibly chosen, adequately thick copper cable is all that is needed. A rule of thumb often quoted is that the loop resistance (there and back again) of the speaker cable should be less than 5% of the resistance of the voicecoil.
As ever, the excellent Wikipedia has a sensible, well written article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_wire
andyjm said:
It's been done. By Philips in their motional feedback speakers. The woofers had an extra winding on the voicecoil that was used for exactly that.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=philips+motional+feedback+speakers&oq=philips+motional+&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.11631j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8
TrevC said:
Yep, I remember them well. Servo cone control is still widespread in high output subwoofers - I am surprised it isn't more common in domestic active speakers.
andyjm said:
lads you have lost me ! what hardware/cables/equipment supports do you think they used to test these.
mikefarrow said:
Mike, the big secret about interconnects and mains cables is that there isnt any secret. Two properly specified cables (be they mains, speaker or signal) will perform and sound the same. There isn't any need for 'industry standard', as any properly specified cable will do.
From your posting history, it is clear that you have a good deal of enthusiasm for the hobby, and that is great. Rather than searching for the greater truth on a forum such as this, can I recommend you read a couple of excellent articles on the web:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_wire
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
andyjm said:
thanks for your reply. will read the links. cables aside, what about equipment supports ?
mikefarrow said:
In the good old days of valves, equipment was highly microphonic. Tap a valve early on in the signal chain and a resounding 'boing' would come out of the speakers. At least part of the 'Marshall Sound' was from having the valve amps resting on the speaker stack and the resulting vibrational feedback.
Resistors, capacitors and inductors can all change value when physically stressed, so in principle, semiconductor amplifiers could be sensitve to vibration. These days however with surface mount components so small you can barely see them, systems are far less sensitive.
It is easy to test. Volume up full, ear near the speaker, tap the amp (or CD player or whatever) with a pencil - any sound out of speaker the device is microphonic, no sound then it isnt.
If it is microphonic, the you don't want sound from the speakers being picked up by the amp. You need to establish if vibration is finding its way to the amp through the support (in which case you need to isolate the amp with squidgy feet) or if it is coming through the air (in which case you need to couple the amp with pointy, sticky or solid feet).
Buying a 'cure all' magic stand is unlikley to lead to an improvement.
Greetings, Flew in from LA yesterday, on an A380 for the first time. A 'fly by wire' system of course, wonder what cables they use?
Anyway, I'm surprised no one has come up with the obvious answer to the original question.
Which is of course that most hardware companies choose their ancilliaries (cables, supports etc) for entirely commercial reasons.
If they make their own they will of course recommend those, if not than someone in the same group of companies. This is particularly noticeable among importers and distributors, who will tell you, often at great length, how the best performance can really only be obtained by using a particular brand of cable that, surprisingly, they also supply.
The rest of the hardware companies will, mostly, use whatever ancilliaries they can get for free, usually in return for a name check or some other form of recomendation, there is rarely more in it than that.
Anyway, I'm surprised no one has come up with the obvious answer to the original question.
Which is of course that most hardware companies choose their ancilliaries (cables, supports etc) for entirely commercial reasons.
If they make their own they will of course recommend those, if not than someone in the same group of companies. This is particularly noticeable among importers and distributors, who will tell you, often at great length, how the best performance can really only be obtained by using a particular brand of cable that, surprisingly, they also supply.
The rest of the hardware companies will, mostly, use whatever ancilliaries they can get for free, usually in return for a name check or some other form of recomendation, there is rarely more in it than that.
Monitor Audio make their own speaker cable, "Pureflow". They use this to wire internally, so if it's good enough for them etc. etc. 
davedotco said:
Impressive aircraft isn't it? Personally, I think they're all in the wake of the 747, but that's just my taste. The A380 is incredible. See this demonstration flight at an airshow last year. This is what happens when you put a couple of military pilots at the helm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJxnwF-MPi0
I'll bet the alarms in the cockpit ran out of steam by the time it landed!
As for the cables, I imagine it uses cables designed for Airbus' (and also Boeing for their aircraft, McDonnel Douglas for theirs, etc, etc.) like these in this link:-
http://www.nexans.com/France/publication/img/Airbus_Eurocopter.pdf
andyjm said:
once again thanks for detailed reply. final question, when a company tests a cd player, what procedure do they use to confirm it is an improvement on a previous model ? what i mean is, i presume they plug the player into some sort of a measuring device (correct ?) hence what reading(s) would confirm that the new design is better than a previous model ? i presume the player would be on a "lab bench" plus the cables used would be chosen based on some "scientific" not "sales pitch" design (eg hence my term industry standard). or do all designs, eventually, have to pass a listening test ?
the record spot said:
I saw a A3XX (380 prototype) at Farnborough some 10-12 years ago, seeing it do those kind of stunts, including near vertical turns and controlled stalls, in real life and just a few hundred feet over the runway was fantastic, even more impressive tham the full aerobatic display from a then very new Sukhoi Su 27 air superiority fighter we saw a few miniutes earlier.
It is a seriously big and powerful aircraft, we picked up the gulfstream over the Dakotas and rode it to the southern tip of Greenland, groundspeed was close to 700 mph, at a fraction under 40,000ft, superb.
Flew out on a 747-400, thought that was pretty good till we got the A380 back. Only downside was that the A380 was 'too big' for the normal gates at LAX, we had to be 'bused' out to it, tedious. It is not that much bigger than a Jumbo overall, some NIH syndrome at work I think.
mikefarrow said:
Mike, I think you are reading far to much into this.
Manufacturers produce product they think they can sell, nothing else much matters. Competent manufacturers will look for some measure of improvement, be it listening or specs, but that's about it.
The rest is down to the marketing guys, I know, I used to be one.......
davedotco said:mikefarrow said:
Mike, I think you are reading far to much into this.
Manufacturers produce product they think they can sell, nothing else much matters. Competent manufacturers will look for some measure of improvement, be it listening or specs, but that's about it.
The rest is down to the marketing guys, I know, I used to be one.......
thanks for input. so if a companies new model can often offer no improvement over the model it replaces, how do you go about upgrading ?
(apologies if i'm dragging this one on a bit now, but if companies provided a bit more set system up info..............)
davedotco said:mikefarrow said:
Mike, I think you are reading far to much into this.
Manufacturers produce product they think they can sell, nothing else much matters. Competent manufacturers will look for some measure of improvement, be it listening or specs, but that's about it.
The rest is down to the marketing guys, I know, I used to be one.......
thanks for input. so if a companies new model can often offer no improvement over the model it replaces, how do you go about upgrading ?
(apologies if i'm dragging this one on a bit now, but if companies provided a bit more system set up info..............)
It is kind of being dragged out Mike. Companies will issue a new product line at periodic intervals of varying duration. Not every one of those new lines that replace the outgoing one will improve on the predecessor in real terms (my Onkyo amp is a good example; the 828 is not what the 818 is). Depends on what you want to upgrade, what expectation you have of upgrading and what upgrading means for you. After that, an upgrade might not be what the same manufacturer delivers, it might be sourced through another provider or it might be that you've plateaud out and a realistic improvement isn't achieveable (that's in line with your expectation / ambition / etc).
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