[Audio Empire]

Last night, I and my little "ad hoc" group of audiophile buds (there are
about 10 of us on-and-off) held a shoot-out of three different (semi)
high-end speaker cables because there were still those among us who believed
that cables make a difference.

One of us brought a 15 ft pair of Kimber 12TC (over $1000). Another brought a
12 ft pair of Audioquest "Rocket 44" speaker cables (circa $1000) and
another brought a 15 ft pair of Monster M2.2s ( around $700). We also went
out and bought a 50 ft shop-style "drop cord" which was comprised of 12
gauge copper wire. We cut the plug and socket off of the cable (buying a
prepared shop extension cord from Harbor Freight, was actually cheaper than
buying 30 ft of regular 12 ga bulk wire at the hardware store), and cut the
cable into two 15 ft lengths. We then terminated the ends with some
gold-plated solder-on banana plugs ordered for the occasion on the internet.
All the cables were terminated with bananas (one pair came so terminated, the
other were terminated in spade lugs which we connected to a set of Monster
dual-banana adapters). All terminations were treated with Stabilant 22
(Tweek).

A home-made comparator employing high-current silver contact, vacuum-sealed
mil-spec relays (this comparator was last used by this same group to switch a
pair of speakers between two different amplifiers) was used to switch between
the two different sets of speaker cables.

The object here was not to pit these three commercial pairs of speaker cables
against each other, but rather to pit each pair, in turn, against the cheap
12 ga Harbor-Freight purchased, orange colored, shop AC extension cable.

After two hours of listening to all types of music from both LP and CD as
well as some of my own recordings on 24-bit/192 KHz DVD-As, The overwhelming
result was that nobody could hear or in any other way, detect, any difference
whatsoever between the sound of any of the three cables and the cable made
from the extension cord. The doubting Thomases doubt no more.

[dave a]

On 8/29/2010 7:25 AM, Audio Empire wrote:
Last night, I and my little "ad hoc" group of audiophile buds (there are
about 10 of us on-and-off) held a shoot-out of three different (semi)
high-end speaker cables because there were still those among us who believed
that cables make a difference.

[ snip ]

After two hours of listening to all types of music from both LP and CD as
well as some of my own recordings on 24-bit/192 KHz DVD-As, The overwhelming
result was that nobody could hear or in any other way, detect, any difference
whatsoever between the sound of any of the three cables and the cable made
from the extension cord. The doubting Thomases doubt no more.


You have one again proved the obvious, there is no aural difference
using different cables. But, is that the entire experience? Did the
purchasers of the expensive cables get some inner satisfaction from the
experience that blends over to their listening experience. Does knowing
that you have spent $1K for a short piece of wire add to the listening
experience in ways that you didn't measure? Clearly there is more work
to do.

[Audio Empire]

On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:29:24 -0700, dave a wrote
(in article ):

On 8/29/2010 7:25 AM, Audio Empire wrote:
Last night, I and my little "ad hoc" group of audiophile buds (there are
about 10 of us on-and-off) held a shoot-out of three different (semi)
high-end speaker cables because there were still those among us who believed
that cables make a difference.

[ snip ]

After two hours of listening to all types of music from both LP and CD as
well as some of my own recordings on 24-bit/192 KHz DVD-As, The overwhelming
result was that nobody could hear or in any other way, detect, any
difference
whatsoever between the sound of any of the three cables and the cable made
from the extension cord. The doubting Thomases doubt no more.


You have one again proved the obvious, there is no aural difference
using different cables. But, is that the entire experience? Did the
purchasers of the expensive cables get some inner satisfaction from the
experience that blends over to their listening experience. Does knowing
that you have spent $1K for a short piece of wire add to the listening
experience in ways that you didn't measure? Clearly there is more work
to do.

Some folks don't believe in reading for content, I guess. That "there were
still those among us who believed that cables make a difference" was the
reason for the test. And I know that there are people here on this NG with
the same uninformed opinion.

Whether the purchasers derived some "inner satisfaction" or not from knowing
that they have uselessly spent a grand or more on something that does nothing
is beside the point. Their contention was that they could clearly hear the
"improvement" in their system's resolution after fitting these expensive
cables. The contention of the rest of us was that they could not hear what
isn't there. This led to Thursday night's test.

Now, If someone KNOWS that cables have no effect on the sound and wants to
spend the big bucks anyway for the "bling" factor, I have no problem with
that attitude. What I do have a problem with is the snake-oil aspect of the
whole cable question. These cable manufacturers are selling these cables at
high and sometimes exorbitant prices to people who believe that they make a
difference. Think about how many CDs or LPs could be purchased with the money
these people waste on expensive cables! For the price of some cables, the
purchaser could have bought better speakers, perhaps. The bottom line here is
that it's your money, spend it how you will, even waste it. But one should do
so knowing that what they are spending their money on gives them value either
real, or not. Jewelry, for instance, serves no useful purpose, but at least
buyers of jewelry KNOW that it's mere decoration, and don't expect it to
improve their health, make them beautiful or handsome. It makes them feel
better to wear it and that's fine. But most purchasers of expensive speaker
cables buy them with the expectation that these cables will improve the sound
of their systems, and it won't. Buyers, not all of whom have any technical
savvy, should be made aware of that. The magazines certainly don't do it, and
in fact they are part of the problem. They actually foster the myth of cable
sound and the wary fall prey to their pandering to their cable advertisers.

I have two 15 ft pairs of Monster M1 cables myself and I use them to connect
my speakers. I didn't buy them, they were supplied to me by Monster many
years ago when I wrote for a particular major Hi-Fi magazine. They are well
made and properly terminated and do the job. Would I have spent my OWN money
on them. Absolutely NOT! But I have them, they work fine, and I use them. I
still write for an audio magazine, but I will not "review" cables, and in
fact, have turned down cable reviewing assignments and my editor doesn't even
ask me any more. He sends them to someone else - along with a big swig of
snake oil.

[David[_20_]]

2010-08-29 16:25, Audio Empire skrev:
After two hours of listening to all types of music from both LP and CD as
well as some of my own recordings on 24-bit/192 KHz DVD-As, The overwhelming
result was that nobody could hear or in any other way, detect, any difference
whatsoever between the sound of any of the three cables and the cable made
from the extension cord. The doubting Thomases doubt no more.

What was your setup (source, amplification, speakers etc.)?


August

[August Karlstrom]

2010-08-29 16:25, Audio Empire skrev:
After two hours of listening to all types of music from both LP and CD as
well as some of my own recordings on 24-bit/192 KHz DVD-As, The overwhelming
result was that nobody could hear or in any other way, detect, any difference
whatsoever between the sound of any of the three cables and the cable made
from the extension cord. The doubting Thomases doubt no more.

What was your setup (source, amplification, speakers etc.)?

August

[Audio Empire]

On Fri, 3 Sep 2010 09:49:08 -0700, August Karlstrom wrote
(in article ):

2010-08-29 16:25, Audio Empire skrev:
After two hours of listening to all types of music from both LP and CD as
well as some of my own recordings on 24-bit/192 KHz DVD-As, The overwhelming
result was that nobody could hear or in any other way, detect, any
difference
whatsoever between the sound of any of the three cables and the cable made
from the extension cord. The doubting Thomases doubt no more.

What was your setup (source, amplification, speakers etc.)?

August

Sources we some high-end Marantz SACD/CD player (not mine, didn't catch
the model -just the price $6000), A Denon DVD-758 (for the DVD-As - I
contributed that), and a Michele Orb 'table, an SME arm (don't know the
model, not my equipment, etc.) and a Grado Reference 1 cartridge.

Amp and Pre-amp were the latest John Curl preamp (JC2) and amps (2 X JC1)
from Parasound with a Lehmann 'Black Cube' phono preamp.

Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

Interconnects? Don't know, didn't ask, don't care, wire-is-wire at audio
frequencies, etc.

[August Karlstrom]

On 2010-09-04 18:38, Audio Empire wrote:
Sources we some high-end Marantz SACD/CD player (not mine, didn't catch
the model -just the price$6000), A Denon DVD-758 (for the DVD-As - I
contributed that), and a Michele Orb 'table, an SME arm (don't know the
model, not my equipment, etc.) and a Grado Reference 1 cartridge.

Amp and Pre-amp were the latest John Curl preamp (JC2) and amps (2 X JC1)
from Parasound with a Lehmann 'Black Cube' phono preamp.

Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

Interconnects? Don't know, didn't ask, don't care, wire-is-wire at audio
frequencies, etc.

I have a different experience when it comes to loudspeaker cable. When I
moved to a new apartment I needed some speaker cable. Being a
"non-believer" I bought some metres of inexpensive Supra Ply 3.4s for my
two-channel system. With this cable, though, the treble was overly soft.
This made me try a couple of other cables and I finally settled for a
pair of Kimber 8PR (pre-terminated with Kimber's own banana plugs) which
sounded more balanced. Maybe it's more difficult to hear a difference
between the really expensive cables, I don't know. Anyway, the
difference between Supra Ply 3.4s and Kimber 8PR is instantly audible in
my system.

My setup:

Source: Mac Mini
DAC: Benchmark DAC1 USB
Interconnect: van den Hul D-102 MK III
Integrated Amplifier: Creek Destiny
Speaker Cable: Kimber 8PR
Speakers: Amphion Helium II

Regards,

August

[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 6 Sep 2010 14:25:22 -0700, August Karlstrom wrote
(in article ):

On 2010-09-04 18:38, Audio Empire wrote:
Sources we some high-end Marantz SACD/CD player (not mine, didn't catch
the model -just the price$6000), A Denon DVD-758 (for the DVD-As - I
contributed that), and a Michele Orb 'table, an SME arm (don't know the
model, not my equipment, etc.) and a Grado Reference 1 cartridge.

Amp and Pre-amp were the latest John Curl preamp (JC2) and amps (2 X JC1)
from Parasound with a Lehmann 'Black Cube' phono preamp.

Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

Interconnects? Don't know, didn't ask, don't care, wire-is-wire at audio
frequencies, etc.

I have a different experience when it comes to loudspeaker cable. When I
moved to a new apartment I needed some speaker cable. Being a
"non-believer" I bought some metres of inexpensive Supra Ply 3.4s for my
two-channel system. With this cable, though, the treble was overly soft.
This made me try a couple of other cables and I finally settled for a
pair of Kimber 8PR (pre-terminated with Kimber's own banana plugs) which
sounded more balanced. Maybe it's more difficult to hear a difference
between the really expensive cables, I don't know. Anyway, the
difference between Supra Ply 3.4s and Kimber 8PR is instantly audible in
my system.

My setup:

Source: Mac Mini
DAC: Benchmark DAC1 USB
Interconnect: van den Hul D-102 MK III
Integrated Amplifier: Creek Destiny
Speaker Cable: Kimber 8PR
Speakers: Amphion Helium II

Regards,

August

What you have just related is simply NOT possible. Speaker cables are merely
conductors. They have a small amount of resistance per foot, and a tiny,
insignificant amount of capacitance and inductance per foot (at audio
frequencies). If one cable were 50 ft long, and the other brand was 8 ft
long, PERHAPS, you would be able to measure a small drop in amplitude at 20
KHz with the 50 ft pair vis-a-vis the 8 ft pair, but you likely wouldn't be
able to hear it.

What you experienced was expectational bias. You EXPECTED the Kimber to give
you an improvement, so it did.


Don't believe me? Answer this. How did you know before buying the Kimber that
it would mitigate your "soft treble" problem? If cable works as you suggest,
it could have just as easily made the problem worse. Notice there are no
"specs" for cable that would indicate to anyone what the results of using
that cable would be. The Kimber didn't come with a guarantee that it would
"make your treble sound better", now did it? Truth is that the cable will do
whatever you NEED for it to do because you EXPECT it to do so.

Kimber makes no guarantees, but I will. If you did a double-blind test
between the Supra Ply 3.4 and the Kimber cable, you will be totally unable to
discern which is which even on your OWN system.

[Ed Seedhouse[_2_]]

On Sep 6, 2:25=A0pm, August Karlstrom wrote:
On 2010-09-04 18:38, Audio Empire wrote:
I have a different experience when it comes to loudspeaker cable. When I
moved to a new apartment I needed some speaker cable. Being a
"non-believer" I bought some metres of inexpensive Supra Ply 3.4s for my
two-channel system. With this cable, though, the treble was overly soft.

If the tests were not blinded you have no basis for saying this. The
most you can rationally claim is that they "seemed to you" to have
overly soft treble.

This made me try a couple of other cables and I finally settled for a
pair of Kimber 8PR (pre-terminated with Kimber's own banana plugs) which
sounded more balanced. Maybe it's more difficult to hear a difference
between the really expensive cables, I don't know. Anyway, the
difference between Supra Ply 3.4s and Kimber 8PR is instantly audible in
my system.

You provide no evidence to suggest that this is actually so. A non
blinded and uncontrolled test does such as you describe simply not
provide any evidence. The test that started this thread appears to
provide good evidence that there was no audible difference, and what
we know about cables and the limits of human hearing make any claims
of an obvious difference extremely unlikely, extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence, and you have provided no actual
evidence at all.

You will not do your credibility any good by making such anecdote
based claims based on no controls and no blinding. If you believe
that your experience as describe proves anything then I am sorry, but
it does not.

[August Karlstrom]

On 2010-09-07 02:24, Ed Seedhouse wrote:
If the tests were not blinded you have no basis for saying this. The
most you can rationally claim is that they "seemed to you" to have
overly soft treble.

In a typical review the author doesn't start every sentence with "it
seemed to me that" or "I might be wrong but"; it's understood that it is
his or her own subjective impressions.

You provide no evidence to suggest that this is actually so. A non
blinded and uncontrolled test does such as you describe simply not
provide any evidence. The test that started this thread appears to
provide good evidence that there was no audible difference, and what
we know about cables and the limits of human hearing make any claims
of an obvious difference extremely unlikely, extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence, and you have provided no actual
evidence at all.

I don't claim to have proven anything.

You will not do your credibility any good by making such anecdote
based claims based on no controls and no blinding. If you believe
that your experience as describe proves anything then I am sorry, but
it does not.

It is unfortunate that no hifi magazines/reviewers I know rely on double
blind tests. As you say, this is the *only* credible way to review the
sound of a component.


/August

[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 6 Sep 2010 17:24:06 -0700, Ed Seedhouse wrote
(in article ):

On Sep 6, 2:25=A0pm, August Karlstrom wrote:
On 2010-09-04 18:38, Audio Empire wrote:
I have a different experience when it comes to loudspeaker cable. When I
moved to a new apartment I needed some speaker cable. Being a
"non-believer" I bought some metres of inexpensive Supra Ply 3.4s for my
two-channel system. With this cable, though, the treble was overly soft.

If the tests were not blinded you have no basis for saying this. The
most you can rationally claim is that they "seemed to you" to have
overly soft treble.

Exactly. And this "Seems to me" phenomenon is the ENTIRE basis of the whole
audio cable/interconnect industry. If humans weren't so susceptible to
sighted and expectational bias, there would be no high-end cable business.

[August Karlstrom]

On 2010-09-07 02:00, Audio Empire wrote:
What you have just related is simply NOT possible. Speaker cables are merely
conductors. They have a small amount of resistance per foot, and a tiny,
insignificant amount of capacitance and inductance per foot (at audio
frequencies). If one cable were 50 ft long, and the other brand was 8 ft
long, PERHAPS, you would be able to measure a small drop in amplitude at 20
KHz with the 50 ft pair vis-a-vis the 8 ft pair, but you likely wouldn't be
able to hear it.

Even if two cables measure the same as conductors I suspect that the the
way it is connected (bare wire/banana etc.) may have an influence on the
signal and possibly on the sound.

What you experienced was expectational bias. You EXPECTED the Kimber to give
you an improvement, so it did.

I also expected an improvement from the other cables I tried before the
Kimber, so your psychological reasoning is not quite that simple.

Don't believe me? Answer this. How did you know before buying the Kimber that
it would mitigate your "soft treble" problem?

Well, I tried it at home before buying it. On the other hand I bought
the Supra cable untested as the dealer wouldn't let be try it before
buying it. So, I wanted to like the Supra.

If cable works as you suggest,
it could have just as easily made the problem worse.

Correct.

Truth is that the cable will do
whatever you NEED for it to do because you EXPECT it to do so.

Not true, as I wanted e.g. the QED cable, the Chord Company cable and
the van den Hul cable I tried before the Kimber to sound good but in my
system those cables couldn't match the Kimber cable.

Kimber makes no guarantees, but I will. If you did a double-blind test
between the Supra Ply 3.4 and the Kimber cable, you will be totally unable to
discern which is which even on your OWN system.

You may be right. My subjective claims are not scientific in any way. It
would be interesting to do a double blind test. Unfortunately it is a
bit complicated to set up and requires some assistance.


/August

[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 7 Sep 2010 09:55:33 -0700, August Karlstrom wrote
(in article ):

On 2010-09-07 02:00, Audio Empire wrote:
What you have just related is simply NOT possible. Speaker cables are merely
conductors. They have a small amount of resistance per foot, and a tiny,
insignificant amount of capacitance and inductance per foot (at audio
frequencies). If one cable were 50 ft long, and the other brand was 8 ft
long, PERHAPS, you would be able to measure a small drop in amplitude at 20
KHz with the 50 ft pair vis-a-vis the 8 ft pair, but you likely wouldn't be
able to hear it.

Even if two cables measure the same as conductors I suspect that the the
way it is connected (bare wire/banana etc.) may have an influence on the
signal and possibly on the sound.

Not unless the connection was REALLY poor or corroded.

[Trevor Wilson[_3_]]

Audio Empire wrote:


Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to resistive)
and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding on speaker cable
geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the impedance charateristic
(particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be expected to
elicit quite marked differences between different cable geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker cable test
(unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use them).


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

[Trevor Wilson[_3_]]

Audio Empire wrote:
Last night, I and my little "ad hoc" group of audiophile buds (there
are about 10 of us on-and-off) held a shoot-out of three different
(semi) high-end speaker cables because there were still those among
us who believed that cables make a difference.


**The critical factors when testing speaker cables a

* The impedance curve of the speakers.
* The length of the cables.

Speakers which exhibit a 'difficult' impedance characteristic at HF will
benefit from certain cable constructions (low resistance and low
inductance). Cable runs that are long will provide better results when
certain cable constructions are used. An example of the above might be:

A pair of ESLs connected via 10 Metres of cable. Such a system may exhibit
significant audible problems with regular ('zip' type) speaker cables.

FWIW: The best, most economical speaker cable is RG213/U high power coax. It
exhibits respectably low resistance and very low inductance. Provide the
amplifier is not faulty (ie: a Naim) then the high capacitance of such
cables with be inconsequential.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

[Audio Empire]

On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:


Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to resistive)
and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding on speaker cable
geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the impedance charateristic
(particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be expected to
elicit quite marked differences between different cable geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker cable test
(unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use them).




That's irrelevant. Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has resistance (very
little) capacitance and inductance which, at audio frequencies, is of NO
consequence for runs less than 50 ft.

Stereophile, as well as other audio magazines ought to be ashamed of
themselves for perpetuating this speaker cable nonsense. I don't care if they
do get advertising money from cable manufacturers. This is a product area of
the business that the audio community can do well without!

[Arny Krueger]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message

On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:


Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve
(close to resistive) and, therefore, can be expected to
be far less demanding on speaker cable geometry than
almost any other speaker. Note the impedance
charateristic (particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

If there wasn't a crossover and if the tweeter didn't have a slightly
different basic impedance than the woofer, the Maggie's impedance curve
would be pretty close to a straight line.

Normally, there are also signficant rises at high frequencies, around the
crossover frequency, and those related to the bass resonance of the
driver/box and port (if any).

Agreed, the Maggie is a very atypical speaker load and it should be
relatively insensitive to things like different wire gauges of speaker cable
over an unusually wide range.


Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers
which can be expected to elicit quite marked differences
between different cable geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12

These speakers have such atypically wild impedance curves that they raise
questions about their designer's skill at creating speakers that will work
well with a reasonably variety of amplifiers.

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a
speaker cable test (unless, of course, everyone on the
planet happens to use them).

Agreed.

That's irrelevant. Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has
resistance (very little) capacitance and inductance
which, at audio frequencies, is of NO consequence for
runs less than 50 ft.

Stereophile, as well as other audio magazines ought to be
ashamed of themselves for perpetuating this speaker cable
nonsense. I don't care if they do get advertising money
from cable manufacturers. This is a product area of the
business that the audio community can do well without!

It is not the least bit unusual for a well-designed speaker to have an
impedance curve that varies from just under 4 ohms to 40 ohms and above. A
50 foot piece of 12 gauge cable will have a resistance of 0.158 ohms, which
will cause a negligable loss with a typical speaker. A 22 gauge 50 foot
speaker cable will have a resistance of 1.6 ohms which will cause more than
2 dB loss at the frequencies where the speaker has its minimum impedance.
Electronics stores are well known for selling "speaker cable" of up to 24
gauge.

[Audio Empire]

On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 20:21:47 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:
Last night, I and my little "ad hoc" group of audiophile buds (there
are about 10 of us on-and-off) held a shoot-out of three different
(semi) high-end speaker cables because there were still those among
us who believed that cables make a difference.


**The critical factors when testing speaker cables a

* The impedance curve of the speakers.

All things considered, the speaker's impedance curve is totally irrelevant as
far as the wire used to connect it to the amp is concerned for any
installations using normal domestic runs of 8 - 15 ft.


* The length of the cables.

Relevant, but not for the average domestic runs (do the math). Besides all of
the cables in this test were more-or-less the same length. And it wouldn't
matter anyway. Whether the cable was some $500/foot boutique product that
looks more like fire hose than it does speaker cable or a run of 14 AWG zip
cord, the results, in a double-blind test will be the same. There is NO
statistical difference.

Speakers which exhibit a 'difficult' impedance characteristic at HF will
benefit from certain cable constructions (low resistance and low
inductance).

Nonsense. ANY non-coaxial cable having sufficient current-carrying capability
for the amp being used is sufficiently low in both resistance and inductance
(as well as capacitance) as to be totally irrelevant (again assuming average
domestic runs).


Cable runs that are long will provide better results when
certain cable constructions are used. An example of the above might be:

A pair of ESLs connected via 10 Metres of cable. Such a system may exhibit
significant audible problems with regular ('zip' type) speaker cables.

Not 10 meters it won't. Maybe one COULD possibly MEASURE a slight roll-off
(say 1 dB or so) of extreme highs (above 15 KHz) with runs greater than 20
meters, but unless you have the hearing extension of a 12-year old girl, I'll
guarantee you that you won't be able to hear it - even in a DBT. Again, DO
THE MATH. There is nothing magic about audio or conductors. Audio is a
signal. The pass-band is either being conducted without significant (read
that "audible") loss by the chosen conductor, or it isn't. All of these
parameters are measurable and when the measurements are plugged into the
impedance formula for a 20 KHz signal, the results are INSIGNIFICANT amounts
of any parameter which could alter the sound of the speakers in any way.

FWIW: The best, most economical speaker cable is RG213/U high power coax. It
exhibits respectably low resistance and very low inductance. Provide the
amplifier is not faulty (ie: a Naim) then the high capacitance of such
cables with be inconsequential.

No need to use that, and keep in mind that some SS amps "might" even become
unstable driving coax (although that doesn't seem to be anywhere near the
problem it was in the early days of SS amplifiers. Still, there could be one
or two designs out there which might still take umbrage at driving coax). An
average (8-15 ft) 14 AWG run of zip cord, or, if you must, the cheap Monster
"Clear-Jacket" cable at less than $2.00/ft will be indistinguishable from the
largest, most expensive speaker cable that money can buy in ANY DBT, on ANY
speaker you can name. It's been done so many times that it shouldn't be news
or even a surprise to anyone.

[Audio Empire]

On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:


Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to resistive)
and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding on speaker cable
geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the impedance charateristic
(particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be expected to
elicit quite marked differences between different cable geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12


Well, yes, Trevor, most electrostatics exhibit an impedance that drops to an
ohm or so at some high frequency. My Martin Logans, for instance, drop to
about 1 ohm at 20 Khz. But the speaker cable doesn't care, and in fact, most
speaker cables (unless they are too small of a gauge to do the job)
contribute FAR less than 1 ohm to the total impedance of any speaker load, at
any audio frequency.

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker cable test
(unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use them).

Nonsense. The speaker is irrelevant. DO THE MATH.

I see "True Believers" try to find fault with tests that show that there is
no difference between interconnects and/or speaker cables all the time. All I
can say to answer that is that no one can argue with religion. And that's
what this cable nonsense boils down to. The math says that there is NO
difference, the double-blind tests show that there is NO difference, yet none
of this matters to the true believer. His expectational and sighted bias
tells him that he can hear a difference between speaker cables and/or
interconnects and will repudiate any information that says otherwise.
Religions are like that.

And shame on Stereophile et al for perpetuating this mythology. I understand
that they get big advertising bucks from cable manufacturers, but that kind
of snake-oil gives the audio hobby a bad name and makes those of us
interested in sound reproduction look like a bunch of fools for believing
such utter nonsense.

[Trevor Wilson[_3_]]

Audio Empire wrote:
On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:


Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to
resistive) and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding
on speaker cable geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the
impedance charateristic (particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be
expected to elicit quite marked differences between different cable
geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker
cable test (unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use
them).




That's irrelevant.

**Incorrect. It is very relevant. Do the math. Use either of the two curves
in my last cite.

Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has resistance
(very little) capacitance and inductance which, at audio frequencies,
is of NO consequence for runs less than 50 ft.

**Again. Incorrect. Standard 'zip' type speaker cables (which is 99.999% of
all speaker cables) exhibits inductance figures of approximately 1uH/Metre.
An exotic speaker cable, such as Goertz MI-1 exhibits an inductance of
approximately 0.012uH/Metre. My favourite cable (RG213/U) exhibits an
inductance of around 0.25uH/Metre. Zip type cables (Monster et al) will be
close to the 1uH/Metre, whilst other constructions generally lie between the
extremely low figure of the Goertz and zip cable. One standout, is Naim
cable, which has an extremely high (and undesirable) inductance figure.

Taking the example of the electrostatic speaker in my second cite, you will
note an impedance of approximately 0.55 Ohms at 16kHz.

Feeding in your example of a 15 Metre speaker cable run, you will note
(resistive effects will be ignored, though they will be potentially
audible):

Cable L (zip): 15 X 1 X 10^-6 H = 15 X 10^-6 H
Cable L (Goertz): 15 X 0.012 X 10^-6 H = 1.8 X 10^-7 H
Cable L (RG213/U): 15 X 0.25 X 10^-6H = 3.75 X 10^-6 H

Cable XL @ 16kHz (zip): 1.5 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (Goertz): 0.018 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (RG213/U): 0.38 Ohms

Plugging those numbers into the above, reveals substantial and potentially
audible effects when using the zip cable and the RG213/U with the speaker
cited.

Attenuation @ 16kHz (zip): -13.1dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (Goertz): -0.282dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (RG213/U): -4.6dB


Stereophile, as well as other audio magazines ought to be ashamed of
themselves for perpetuating this speaker cable nonsense.

**Your opinion is duly noted. OTOH, I note that Stereophile, whilst
employing a good deal of 'flowery' language to describe products, go to
quite substantial lengths to publish measured characteristics of products
under test. In fact, I cited one of their tests to show just what a poor
choice Maggies are to delineate differences in speaker cables.

I don't care
if they do get advertising money from cable manufacturers. This is a
product area of the business that the audio community can do well
without!

**Actually, it is an area that many people should educate themselves in.
I've just shown that, under certain conditions, there will be very audible
differences in speaker cables. I've also shown why Maggies are a poor choice
of loudspeaker to judge speaker cables with.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:06:56 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:


Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.

**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to resistive)
and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding on speaker cable
geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the impedance charateristic
(particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be expected
to
elicit quite marked differences between different cable geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12


Well, yes, Trevor, most electrostatics exhibit an impedance that drops to
an
ohm or so at some high frequency. My Martin Logans, for instance, drop to
about 1 ohm at 20 Khz. But the speaker cable doesn't care, and in fact,
most
speaker cables (unless they are too small of a gauge to do the job)
contribute FAR less than 1 ohm to the total impedance of any speaker load,
at
any audio frequency.

**Not so. Using your previously cited 15 Metre cable run, a 1 Ohm HF
impedance fall and regular 'zip' type cable we have (again, ignoring
resistive effects for simplicity):

Cable L (zip): 15 X 10^-6 H
Cable L (Goertz): 1.8 X 10^-7 H

Cable XL @ 20kHz (zip): 1.8 Ohms
Cable XL @ 20kHz (Goertz): 0.023 Ohms

A young, undamaged, trained pair of ears will hear this difference.

I said FIFTEEN FEET, not 15 meters. 15 meters is nearly 50 FEET, definitely
not an "average domestic speaker run" Anyone who has a 50 ft run from their
amplifiers to their speakers needs to rethink their system, IMHO.



IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker cable
test
(unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use them).

Nonsense. The speaker is irrelevant. DO THE MATH.

**Not only have I done the math, I have presented it to you.

Erroneously, yes (by citing unrealistically long speaker cable runs of 50 ft
in order to make your point) and by drawing conclusions from the results that
you have failed to correlate with actual real-world hearing situations or
DBTs. Sure. If you make long enough runs of any cable you are going to
measure some high-frequency loss, and at some point you will even start to
hear it. But average speaker runs are between 2.5 and 5 meters, not 15
meters. and with average runs, all speaker cables sound identical. This has
been proven time and time again.


I see "True Believers" try to find fault with tests that show that there
is
no difference between interconnects and/or speaker cables all the time.

**The fault is using speakers which are almost immune to speaker cable
differences. If you want to find differences, use speakers which can show up
those differences.

All speakers are immune to cable differences UNLESS you choose a cable that
that has wire too small to carry the current required by the speaker. That
is easily fixed by increasing the size of the wire.

All I
can say to answer that is that no one can argue with religion.

**Which is why I cited mathematics. You can't argue the maths.

And that's
what this cable nonsense boils down to. The math says that there is NO
difference,

**Not any math I am familiar with. Unless you happen to be using the most
cable INsensitive speaker available of course. Maggies fit that bill very
nicely. Set up a test which is designed to show a null result and you will
acheive a null result.


the double-blind tests show that there is NO difference, yet none
of this matters to the true believer.

**Again, the maths prove you wrong.

The math merely shows that different cables of different wire gauges have
slightly different electrical characteristics. The math makes NO predictions
about how these different electrical characteristics will be perceived by the
listener, and you have made no correlation to show that ANY DBT has ever been
able to show a difference between any two adequately sized runs of speaker
cable on ANY speaker.

His expectational and sighted bias
tells him that he can hear a difference between speaker cables and/or
interconnects and will repudiate any information that says otherwise.
Religions are like that.

**They are indeed. Same as those religious believers who don't accept
mathematical proof.

I accept mathematical proof. The math tells anyone with any engineering
background that unless the runs are very long, 14 gauge zip cord will be
indistinguishable from any speaker cable of the same gauge or larger. And
even on longer runs (up to a point) any attenuation of extreme
high-frequencies can be ameliorated by simply going to a larger wire size.


And shame on Stereophile et al for perpetuating this mythology.

**Stereophile, to their credit, publish comprehensive specs on most (all?)
of the products they test. I applaud them for this.

I understand
that they get big advertising bucks from cable manufacturers, but that
kind
of snake-oil gives the audio hobby a bad name and makes those of us
interested in sound reproduction look like a bunch of fools for believing
such utter nonsense.

**What? Like mathematics?

Those of us who understand the mathematics of electrical engineering know
that the small differences in the resistance, capacitive reactance and
inductive reactance of any parallel pair of cables (such as zip cord) when
compared to other cables of the same size or larger have no audible effect on
the audio signals passing through them below about 20 Khz as long as the runs
aren't excessive and the wire gauge is sufficient to carry the required
current. In 99% of all domestic audio systems. This means, as I've said until
I'm blue in the face,with average domestic runs of 2.5 to 5 meters ,14 gauge
zip cord is sufficient and that replacing that zip cord with the same length
runs of (for instance) 12TC Kimber cable (at about $75/foot) or Audioquest
CV-8 (about $100/ft) or Nordost Odin Supreme at about $25,000/ for a 5 meter
pair will result in NO improvement in sound, or, in fact, any discernible
difference in any DBT test under any circumstances or with any speakers.
Cables this short, working at these low frequencies are simply irrelevant to
the sound of any system.

That's my final word on the subject. There is no room for debating facts. and
no matter how fancy or how plain, how expensive or how cheap, a speaker cable
either does its job or it doesn't and the only way that it won't do its job
is if it's too small for the current its asked to carry.

[Arny Krueger]

"Sebastian Kaliszewski"
wrote in message

In fact a speaker marketed as
4 Ohm which has impedance dip down to 0.55 Ohm is simply
*not* 4 Ohm speaker to begin with.

Totally agreed. Usually the rated impedance is within approximately (+/-
20%) of the lowest impedance.

A speaker that has an non-trivial impedance dip within the 20-20 KHz range
that goes down to 0.55 ohm is begging to be known as a 0.6 ohm speaker.

[Sebastian Kaliszewski]

Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
Well, yes, Trevor, most electrostatics exhibit an impedance that drops to
an
ohm or so at some high frequency. My Martin Logans, for instance, drop to
about 1 ohm at 20 Khz. But the speaker cable doesn't care, and in fact,
most
speaker cables (unless they are too small of a gauge to do the job)
contribute FAR less than 1 ohm to the total impedance of any speaker load,
at
any audio frequency.

**Not so. Using your previously cited 15 Metre cable run, a 1 Ohm HF
impedance fall and regular 'zip' type cable we have (again, ignoring
resistive effects for simplicity):

Cable L (zip): 15 X 10^-6 H
Cable L (Goertz): 1.8 X 10^-7 H

Cable XL @ 20kHz (zip): 1.8 Ohms
Cable XL @ 20kHz (Goertz): 0.023 Ohms

A young, undamaged, trained pair of ears will hear this difference.

The only problem with that (1ohm speakers at 20KHz) is that even young
undamaged & trained ears will not hear the difference at 20Khz. As even
young undamaged & trained ears both overall sensitivity as well as level
difference sensitivity is many times worse than at 2KHz around where
sensitivity peak lies.

Then for a typical 16-2 zip cord the inductance figure is rather rabout
0.7uH/m than 1uH/m, so 15m strip will have ~1.3 Ohms and total
attenuation will be not ~4.7dB but ~3.6dB -- anyway both are below
hearing treshold for detectable differences at the extreme of the
hearing range (AFAIR level resolution of healthy human drops to ~4dB
around 13kHz).

rgds
\SK
--
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang
--
http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels)

[Sebastian Kaliszewski]

Trevor Wilson wrote:
Audio Empire wrote:
On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:

Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.
**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to
resistive) and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding
on speaker cable geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the
impedance charateristic (particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be
expected to elicit quite marked differences between different cable
geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker
cable test (unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use
them).



That's irrelevant.

**Incorrect. It is very relevant. Do the math. Use either of the two curves
in my last cite.

But doing the math do it properly, using proper logarithm function (see
below).


Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has resistance
(very little) capacitance and inductance which, at audio frequencies,
is of NO consequence for runs less than 50 ft.

**Again. Incorrect. Standard 'zip' type speaker cables (which is 99.999% of
all speaker cables) exhibits inductance figures of approximately 1uH/Metre.

IMHO 0.7 is more realistic.

An exotic speaker cable, such as Goertz MI-1 exhibits an inductance of
approximately 0.012uH/Metre. My favourite cable (RG213/U) exhibits an
inductance of around 0.25uH/Metre. Zip type cables (Monster et al) will be
close to the 1uH/Metre, whilst other constructions generally lie between the
extremely low figure of the Goertz and zip cable. One standout, is Naim
cable, which has an extremely high (and undesirable) inductance figure.

Taking the example of the electrostatic speaker in my second cite, you will
note an impedance of approximately 0.55 Ohms at 16kHz.

Use of broken design speakers noted...

Those speakers could trip protection circuits in many amplifiers
(especially those with another dip in mid-bass range).


Feeding in your example of a 15 Metre speaker cable run, you will note
(resistive effects will be ignored, though they will be potentially
audible):

Cable L (zip): 15 X 1 X 10^-6 H = 15 X 10^-6 H
Cable L (Goertz): 15 X 0.012 X 10^-6 H = 1.8 X 10^-7 H
Cable L (RG213/U): 15 X 0.25 X 10^-6H = 3.75 X 10^-6 H

Cable XL @ 16kHz (zip): 1.5 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (Goertz): 0.018 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (RG213/U): 0.38 Ohms

Plugging those numbers into the above, reveals substantial and potentially
audible effects when using the zip cable and the RG213/U with the speaker
cited.

Attenuation @ 16kHz (zip): -13.1dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (Goertz): -0.282dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (RG213/U): -4.6dB

How did you come to those numbers?

My numbers are -5.71dB, -0.14dB & -2.23dB respectively, and for 0.7uH/m
for zip cord (which seems to be more realistic -- e.g. 2 2mm diameter
wires with 3mm insulation between them, thus 5mm axis-axis distance) I
get -4.64dB.

It seems to me you erronously used natural logarithm instead of base 10
logarithm in your calculation (in many colculating programs base 10
logarithm is denoted log10 and natural logaritms is dentoed log which is
contrary to quite popular notation using log and ln respectively).


So even with such borderline case of boutique speakers with extremely
deep dips in impedance connected by unusually long for home setup cables
(15m) the effect is on the borderline o being hearable at all (4.5db
level diff at 16KHz is at the edge of ear detedctability for young and
healthy ears).

Cut the wire length by half, use speakers from manufacturer who knows
how do design her speakers electrically and the effect is well beyond
detectability.

Stereophile, as well as other audio magazines ought to be ashamed of
themselves for perpetuating this speaker cable nonsense.

**Your opinion is duly noted. OTOH, I note that Stereophile, whilst
employing a good deal of 'flowery' language to describe products, go to
quite substantial lengths to publish measured characteristics of products
under test. In fact, I cited one of their tests to show just what a poor
choice Maggies are to delineate differences in speaker cables.

Use any other *properly* designed speakers and effect will be the same.
Even if some typical 4 Ohm speakres have impedance peaks around 20 Ohm
or even 40 Ohm, it doesn't make cables audible, as only exteremely low
impedances could possibly make them so.


I don't care
if they do get advertising money from cable manufacturers. This is a
product area of the business that the audio community can do well
without!

**Actually, it is an area that many people should educate themselves in.
I've just shown that, under certain conditions, there will be very audible
differences in speaker cables.

You didn't show so, as your math has significant bug...

I've also shown why Maggies are a poor choice
of loudspeaker to judge speaker cables with.

They are good choice as any other reasonable speaker as impedance peaks
only diminish cable effect on signal not boost it.


rgds
\SK
--
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang
--
http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels)

[Chuckster]

I just wanted to ad my 'two cents' here, as this is a topic near and
dear to my heart. I concur with you who believe - rightly - that mega-
buck cable is no better than affordable alternatives. I cite the
following, which several years ago changed my mind and my listening
life:

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

After that, I sourced a good-quality, oxygen-free copper wire (Monster
happened to be the most affordable in the 10-gauge range I determined
I needed - yea, maths!) and cut to length. Now, I run two Carver
Amazing Silver Mkll speakers on my front channel, driven by a McIntosh
2205 amp, and two Infinity WTLC's, driven by an Onkyo M504, and this
wasn't my first trip down the 'wire road,' as it were.

As to the speakers, for those who don't know (and to ad to the
validity of the argument) both are 'hybrid' design speakers, the
Carvers with a long ribbon & 3 woofers, the Infinitys with a Walsh
driver for mid-highs/highs and conventional drivers in a lower
cabinet.

Long story short, the gauge of the wire (thickness/impedance vs length
required) was and is the only true deciding factor...that, and the
quality of the wire itself (copper, aluminum, purity of same, etc.).
When I switched to the (admittedly cheaper in price) larger-gauge
cable from what I had had, it was like night and day...and I couldn't
be happier. There IS no difference in speaker wire otherwise, save its
effect on your bank account!

(Now, what I wish someone would write on is the speaker add-on
transformer that allegedly makes an amp see any given speaker system
as a specific 'load', making the amp work less hard, etc...one example
is called a "Zeroformer".)

Chuck

[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:27:56 -0700, Chuckster wrote
(in article ):

I just wanted to ad my 'two cents' here, as this is a topic near and
dear to my heart. I concur with you who believe - rightly - that mega-
buck cable is no better than affordable alternatives. I cite the
following, which several years ago changed my mind and my listening
life:

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

After that, I sourced a good-quality, oxygen-free copper wire (Monster
happened to be the most affordable in the 10-gauge range I determined
I needed - yea, maths!) and cut to length. Now, I run two Carver
Amazing Silver Mkll speakers on my front channel, driven by a McIntosh
2205 amp, and two Infinity WTLC's, driven by an Onkyo M504, and this
wasn't my first trip down the 'wire road,' as it were.

As to the speakers, for those who don't know (and to ad to the
validity of the argument) both are 'hybrid' design speakers, the
Carvers with a long ribbon & 3 woofers, the Infinitys with a Walsh
driver for mid-highs/highs and conventional drivers in a lower
cabinet.

Long story short, the gauge of the wire (thickness/impedance vs length
required) was and is the only true deciding factor...that, and the
quality of the wire itself (copper, aluminum, purity of same, etc.).


Exactly my point. In my argument, I assumed copper as the conductor material,
but you are right. different metals can change the equation somewhat. But
even so, my considerable experience with wire and cabling (as a cabling
engineer for the aerospace industry) tells me that for audio frequencies, and
at the length of runs that are normal for domestic stereo systems, even these
differences are largely irrelevant.

When I switched to the (admittedly cheaper in price) larger-gauge
cable from what I had had, it was like night and day...and I couldn't
be happier. There IS no difference in speaker wire otherwise, save its
effect on your bank account!

(Now, what I wish someone would write on is the speaker add-on
transformer that allegedly makes an amp see any given speaker system
as a specific 'load', making the amp work less hard, etc...one example
is called a "Zeroformer".)

I don't know these products, but just off the top of my head, it would seem
to me that introducing a transformer is elementary purpose defeating. Sure,
we put up with them in tube amps because they are necessary evils to make the
tubes work with low-impedance speaker loads, and there is no doubt that with
care in design and manufacture (as well as materials used) the drawbacks of
transformers can be minimized (if not completely eliminated).

[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:30:25 -0700, Sebastian Kaliszewski wrote
(in article ):

Trevor Wilson wrote:
Audio Empire wrote:
On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:

Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.
**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to
resistive) and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding
on speaker cable geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the
impedance charateristic (particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be
expected to elicit quite marked differences between different cable
geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker
cable test (unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use
them).



That's irrelevant.

**Incorrect. It is very relevant. Do the math. Use either of the two curves
in my last cite.

But doing the math do it properly, using proper logarithm function (see
below).


Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has resistance
(very little) capacitance and inductance which, at audio frequencies,
is of NO consequence for runs less than 50 ft.

**Again. Incorrect. Standard 'zip' type speaker cables (which is 99.999% of
all speaker cables) exhibits inductance figures of approximately 1uH/Metre.

IMHO 0.7 is more realistic.

An exotic speaker cable, such as Goertz MI-1 exhibits an inductance of
approximately 0.012uH/Metre. My favourite cable (RG213/U) exhibits an
inductance of around 0.25uH/Metre. Zip type cables (Monster et al) will be
close to the 1uH/Metre, whilst other constructions generally lie between
the
extremely low figure of the Goertz and zip cable. One standout, is Naim
cable, which has an extremely high (and undesirable) inductance figure.

Taking the example of the electrostatic speaker in my second cite, you will
note an impedance of approximately 0.55 Ohms at 16kHz.

Use of broken design speakers noted...

Those speakers could trip protection circuits in many amplifiers
(especially those with another dip in mid-bass range).

Very true. OTOH, my Martin Logans work well on every amp I've ever tried them
with from $8,000 a pair VTL tube monoblocks to Krell SS amps to a $200
Behringer amplifier.


Feeding in your example of a 15 Metre speaker cable run, you will note
(resistive effects will be ignored, though they will be potentially
audible):

Cable L (zip): 15 X 1 X 10^-6 H = 15 X 10^-6 H
Cable L (Goertz): 15 X 0.012 X 10^-6 H = 1.8 X 10^-7 H
Cable L (RG213/U): 15 X 0.25 X 10^-6H = 3.75 X 10^-6 H

Cable XL @ 16kHz (zip): 1.5 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (Goertz): 0.018 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (RG213/U): 0.38 Ohms

Plugging those numbers into the above, reveals substantial and potentially
audible effects when using the zip cable and the RG213/U with the speaker
cited.

Attenuation @ 16kHz (zip): -13.1dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (Goertz): -0.282dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (RG213/U): -4.6dB

How did you come to those numbers?

My numbers are -5.71dB, -0.14dB & -2.23dB respectively, and for 0.7uH/m
for zip cord (which seems to be more realistic -- e.g. 2 2mm diameter
wires with 3mm insulation between them, thus 5mm axis-axis distance) I
get -4.64dB.

Thank you for taking the time to do the math properly, I. alas, was much too
lazy to do that. I knew Trevor's results were far too great in magnitude to
be correct, but haven't had the time to work out the real figures.

It seems to me you erronously used natural logarithm instead of base 10
logarithm in your calculation (in many colculating programs base 10
logarithm is denoted log10 and natural logaritms is dentoed log which is
contrary to quite popular notation using log and ln respectively).


So even with such borderline case of boutique speakers with extremely
deep dips in impedance connected by unusually long for home setup cables
(15m) the effect is on the borderline o being hearable at all (4.5db
level diff at 16KHz is at the edge of ear detedctability for young and
healthy ears).

Cut the wire length by half, use speakers from manufacturer who knows
how do design her speakers electrically and the effect is well beyond
detectability.

Stereophile, as well as other audio magazines ought to be ashamed of
themselves for perpetuating this speaker cable nonsense.

**Your opinion is duly noted. OTOH, I note that Stereophile, whilst
employing a good deal of 'flowery' language to describe products, go to
quite substantial lengths to publish measured characteristics of products
under test. In fact, I cited one of their tests to show just what a poor
choice Maggies are to delineate differences in speaker cables.

Use any other *properly* designed speakers and effect will be the same.
Even if some typical 4 Ohm speakres have impedance peaks around 20 Ohm
or even 40 Ohm, it doesn't make cables audible, as only exteremely low
impedances could possibly make them so.

And even that depends on where that low impedance occurs in the audible
spectrum. If it was somewhere between 20Hz and 10KHz, I suspect that speaker
cables COULD make an audible difference, but at 16 KHz or above? Uh-uh. Even
our mythical 12-year old girl wouldn't hear any difference, much less a bunch
of middle-aged male audiophiles.

I don't care
if they do get advertising money from cable manufacturers. This is a
product area of the business that the audio community can do well
without!

**Actually, it is an area that many people should educate themselves in.
I've just shown that, under certain conditions, there will be very audible
differences in speaker cables.

You didn't show so, as your math has significant bug...

I've also shown why Maggies are a poor choice
of loudspeaker to judge speaker cables with.

They are good choice as any other reasonable speaker as impedance peaks
only diminish cable effect on signal not boost it.

Yep.

[Sebastian Kaliszewski]

Dick Pierce wrote:
Arny Krueger wrote:
"Sebastian Kaliszewski"
wrote in message

In fact a speaker marketed as
4 Ohm which has impedance dip down to 0.55 Ohm is simply
*not* 4 Ohm speaker to begin with.
Totally agreed. Usually the rated impedance is within
approximately (+/- 20%) of the lowest impedance.

Not correct. There are standardized procedures for defining
such. Allow me to quote from IEC 268-5 Sound System Equipment:
Loudspeakers:

7 Impedance
7.1 Rated impedance
Characteristic to be secified

The rated impedance of a loudspeaker or loudspeaker
system is that value of a pure resistance which is
to be substituted for the loudspeaker system when
defining the available electric power of the source.
This is to be specified by the manufacturer.

Note. - The rated impedance specified by the
manufacturer normally represent the lowest
value of the modulus of impedance in that part
of the rated frequency range, where the maximum
power is to be expected, and is normally not
more than 20% higher than the lowest value of
the modulus of impedance at any frequency
within the rated frequency range.

Now, there is a lot of wiggle room in the requirement. Note the
phrase,

"that part of the rated frequency range, where
the maximum power is to be expected,"

And then refer to fig 4 showing th frequency distribution
of typical program material, showing that maximum power
is to be expected between 150 and 200 Hz. Using this
criteria, which is based on some sound science, the rated
impedance of the Infinity Kappa 9 would be about 6 ohms,
and accoustat is about 8-9 ohms. And for thr purposes
outlined clearly in the standard, those are realistic
impedance figures.

While Accoustat could maybe get away, Kappa 9 could not.
0.8 Ohm dip at 33Hz and 0.9 at 7KHz are in the band of significant power
in too many cases of musical material (esp. that 33Hz).

Note in the standard is... a note. The normative text is the paragraph
above the note, that note only (briefly) describes reasonable way to
conduct rating. And that reasonable way includes "not more that 20%
higher than the lowest value of the modulus of impedance at any
frequency within the rated frequency range".

That 'Normally' gives wiggle room, like allowing speakers with narrow
dips at the extreme of rated bandwidth, but 5x times too low impedance
at 33Hz and 4.5x too low at 7Khz seems too much.

Electrically speaking, neirther of these speaker BEHAVE
as if they were nominal 0.6 or 0.8 ohm speakers, not
in terms of the expected delivery of power with broad-band
music material

But speaker which culd trip protection circutit in a properly made
amplifier rated at 4 Ohms should not be sold as 4 Ohm speaker.

rgds
\SK
--
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang
--
http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels)

[Sebastian Kaliszewski]

Audio Empire wrote:
On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:30:25 -0700, Sebastian Kaliszewski wrote
(in article ):

Trevor Wilson wrote:
**Your opinion is duly noted. OTOH, I note that Stereophile, whilst
employing a good deal of 'flowery' language to describe products, go to
quite substantial lengths to publish measured characteristics of products
under test. In fact, I cited one of their tests to show just what a poor
choice Maggies are to delineate differences in speaker cables.
Use any other *properly* designed speakers and effect will be the same.
Even if some typical 4 Ohm speakres have impedance peaks around 20 Ohm
or even 40 Ohm, it doesn't make cables audible, as only exteremely low
impedances could possibly make them so.

And even that depends on where that low impedance occurs in the audible
spectrum. If it was somewhere between 20Hz and 10KHz, I suspect that speaker
cables COULD make an audible difference,


Well, that other speaker has 0.8 Ohm at 33Hz and 0.9 Ohm at 7KHz -- that
second (treble) dip could maybe be audible with 15m of zip cord as it's
-1.89dB at 7KHz (and -1.05dB at 6KHz and -1.5dB at 9KHz) -- pink noise
1/3 octave bandpass filtered around 7KHz should be detectable, and maybe
some warming effect on real music (not artificial signal). But cut the
cable to a reasonable 5m and effects are down to -0.71dB at 7KHz (and
-0.39dB at 6KHz and -0.57dB at 9KHz) which is undetectable in music and
on the border of detectability with narrowband noise signals (as that
range is above the most sensitive hearing range).


But that whole excerise rather shows that if someone is determined
enough one could misdesign ones speakers to make cables detectable --
but I've simpler and cheaper design that that electostat
just connect 20 el cheapo 4 Ohm drivers in parallel and voila: 0.2 OHhm
speaker for all cable belivers; one caveat: probable side effect is a
fried amplifier ;-)

but at 16 KHz or above? Uh-uh. Even
our mythical 12-year old girl wouldn't hear any difference, much less
a bunch
of middle-aged male audiophiles.


My 3 years old daughter hears 20KHz for sure (at normal levels, I didn't
expose her for high levels for obvious reasons), maybe even 22KHz but
she got bored and stopped giving reliable anwsers when we got there. But
she is not interested in middle-aged male toys. My sensitivity at 16KHz
is down 45dB from that at 13KHz. At 17KHz I could hear (or rather feel
something like pessure deep in the ears) only at high levels (8KHz or
12KHz signal at the same level is not deafening but very loud). At
17.4KHz I could someties detect something (unreliably) and 18KHz is
total silence for me.

rgds
\SK
--
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang
--
http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels)

[Arny Krueger]

"Chuckster" wrote in message


Long story short, the gauge of the wire
(thickness/impedance vs length required) was and is the
only true deciding factor...that, and the quality of the
wire itself (copper, aluminum, purity of same, etc.).

Only copper and silver are serious candidates for speaker wire, based on
their conductivity and mechanical considerations. If you like the
conductivity of silver, just jump to the next wire gauge larger with copper
and you are there. Commodity copper is 99.9% purity and annealed. There is
nothing significant that can be done to improve 99.9% copper.

Aluminum was tried for house wiring, but its mechanical properties and the
skill level of working electricians that knocked it out of general use on
the grounds of safety. It is still used in houses for very high current
applications where the cost savings and required attention to detail while
being terminated can be counted on. It is the standard for most applications
upstream of the home, but only for reasons of cost and lightness.

When I switched to the (admittedly cheaper in price)
larger-gauge cable from what I had had, it was like night
and day...and I couldn't be happier. There IS no
difference in speaker wire otherwise, save its effect on
your bank account!

In general I agree with you, but when you are talking about crazy
mis-designed speakers like Trevor does, inductance can matter. Your typical
speaker has rising impedance at high frequencies, which mitigates a good
portion of the effects of speaker cable inductance. However, the rising
impedance of speakers at high frequencies is usually due to lossy
inductances, which means that the impedance of the speaker does not rise
porporitionately as fast as that of the cable.

(Now, what I wish someone would write on is the speaker
add-on transformer that allegedly makes an amp see any
given speaker system as a specific 'load', making the amp
work less hard, etc...one example is called a
"Zeroformer".)

Transformers are a very costly and complex situation. In general,
transformers make wire look pretty good, even when costs are disregarded.

In modern times the most effective and cost effective approach is to simply
build the power amplifier to do the job at hand. The second step, which is
being taken more and more, is to co-locate the speaker with the power amp,
and make the speaker cable moot.

The best person to choose the power amp for driving a given speaker is
usually the speaker designer/developer, not the audiophile. The reliability
and costs of speakers and amplifiers are such that packaging the power amp
with the speaker is generally reasonable.

[Trevor Wilson[_3_]]

"Sebastian Kaliszewski" wrote in message
...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
Audio Empire wrote:
On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:

Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.
**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to
resistive) and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding
on speaker cable geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the
impedance charateristic (particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be
expected to elicit quite marked differences between different cable
geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker
cable test (unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use
them).



That's irrelevant.

**Incorrect. It is very relevant. Do the math. Use either of the two
curves in my last cite.

But doing the math do it properly, using proper logarithm function (see
below).

**Indeed.



Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has resistance
(very little) capacitance and inductance which, at audio frequencies,
is of NO consequence for runs less than 50 ft.

**Again. Incorrect. Standard 'zip' type speaker cables (which is 99.999%
of all speaker cables) exhibits inductance figures of approximately
1uH/Metre.

IMHO 0.7 is more realistic.

**My measurements of a dozen of so zip type cables (speaker and mains power)
have revealed figures ranging from around 0.8uH to 1.1uH, with one cable
(really badly designed) measuring 1.5uH. 1uH seems to be a reasonable
average figure IME. Perhaps Australian cables exhibit higher inductance
figures, due to (possibly) larger diameter insulation.


An exotic speaker cable, such as Goertz MI-1 exhibits an inductance of
approximately 0.012uH/Metre. My favourite cable (RG213/U) exhibits an
inductance of around 0.25uH/Metre. Zip type cables (Monster et al) will
be close to the 1uH/Metre, whilst other constructions generally lie
between the extremely low figure of the Goertz and zip cable. One
standout, is Naim cable, which has an extremely high (and undesirable)
inductance figure.

Taking the example of the electrostatic speaker in my second cite, you
will note an impedance of approximately 0.55 Ohms at 16kHz.

Use of broken design speakers noted...

**Nope. Not broken. Just ESLs and inconveniently designed ones, at that.
They were commercially available and quite popular when they were
manufactured.


Those speakers could trip protection circuits in many amplifiers
(especially those with another dip in mid-bass range).

**Sure.



Feeding in your example of a 15 Metre speaker cable run, you will note
(resistive effects will be ignored, though they will be potentially
audible):

Cable L (zip): 15 X 1 X 10^-6 H = 15 X 10^-6 H
Cable L (Goertz): 15 X 0.012 X 10^-6 H = 1.8 X 10^-7 H
Cable L (RG213/U): 15 X 0.25 X 10^-6H = 3.75 X 10^-6 H

Cable XL @ 16kHz (zip): 1.5 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (Goertz): 0.018 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (RG213/U): 0.38 Ohms

Plugging those numbers into the above, reveals substantial and
potentially audible effects when using the zip cable and the RG213/U with
the speaker cited.

Attenuation @ 16kHz (zip): -13.1dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (Goertz): -0.282dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (RG213/U): -4.6dB

How did you come to those numbers?

**Stupidly, as it happens. My old calculator threw in the towel and I picked
up one from the supermarket. Sadly, I failed to check what I was doing
carefully enough.


My numbers are -5.71dB, -0.14dB & -2.23dB respectively, and for 0.7uH/m
for zip cord (which seems to be more realistic -- e.g. 2 2mm diameter
wires with 3mm insulation between them, thus 5mm axis-axis distance) I
get -4.64dB.

It seems to me you erronously used natural logarithm instead of base 10
logarithm in your calculation (in many colculating programs base 10
logarithm is denoted log10 and natural logaritms is dentoed log which is
contrary to quite popular notation using log and ln respectively).

**What can I say? I miss my old calculator. It served me well for 20 years.



So even with such borderline case of boutique speakers with extremely deep
dips in impedance connected by unusually long for home setup cables (15m)
the effect is on the borderline o being hearable at all (4.5db level diff
at 16KHz is at the edge of ear detedctability for young and healthy ears).

**Not so much. Up until I was in my 30s, I was unable to remain in the same
room as a TV set which had loose core material in the line output
transformer (15,625Hz, in Australia). When in my early 20s, I found myself
in a warehouse and had to leave due to the unbearable noise from the
ultrasonic motion detectors used.


Cut the wire length by half, use speakers from manufacturer who knows how
do design her speakers electrically and the effect is well beyond
detectability.

**Not the point. The claim that I responded to is this:

"Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has resistance (very
little) capacitance and inductance which, at audio frequencies, is of NO
consequence for runs less than 50 ft."

That is the claim I responded to. I proved that claim to be incorrect. I
alos demonstrated that Maggies are the most speaker cable insensitive
speaker available and, therefore, are an extremely poor choice for speaker
cable testing. THAT is the extent of my claim.



Stereophile, as well as other audio magazines ought to be ashamed of
themselves for perpetuating this speaker cable nonsense.

**Your opinion is duly noted. OTOH, I note that Stereophile, whilst
employing a good deal of 'flowery' language to describe products, go to
quite substantial lengths to publish measured characteristics of products
under test. In fact, I cited one of their tests to show just what a poor
choice Maggies are to delineate differences in speaker cables.

Use any other *properly* designed speakers and effect will be the same.
Even if some typical 4 Ohm speakres have impedance peaks around 20 Ohm or
even 40 Ohm, it doesn't make cables audible, as only exteremely low
impedances could possibly make them so.

**Impedance peaks are of no consequence. It is impedance minima that is
relevant.



I don't care
if they do get advertising money from cable manufacturers. This is a
product area of the business that the audio community can do well
without!

**Actually, it is an area that many people should educate themselves in.
I've just shown that, under certain conditions, there will be very
audible differences in speaker cables.

You didn't show so, as your math has significant bug...

**Acknowledged.


I've also shown why Maggies are a poor choice of loudspeaker to judge
speaker cables with.

They are good choice as any other reasonable speaker as impedance peaks
only diminish cable effect on signal not boost it.

**Again: Impedance minima are the issue.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:35:41 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

"Sebastian Kaliszewski" wrote in message
...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
Audio Empire wrote:
On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:41:18 -0700, Trevor Wilson wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:

Speakers were a pair of Magnepan MG 3.6s.
**Maggies exhibit a relatively flat impedance curve (close to
resistive) and, therefore, can be expected to be far less demanding
on speaker cable geometry than almost any other speaker. Note the
impedance charateristic (particularly at HF):

http://stereophile.com/floorloudspea...03/index6.html

Here is the impedance curve of a couple of speakers which can be
expected to elicit quite marked differences between different cable
geometries:

http://www.rageaudio.com.au/index.php?p=1_12

IOW: Maggies are almost the worst possible choice for a speaker
cable test (unless, of course, everyone on the planet happens to use
them).



That's irrelevant.

**Incorrect. It is very relevant. Do the math. Use either of the two
curves in my last cite.

But doing the math do it properly, using proper logarithm function (see
below).

**Indeed.



Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has resistance
(very little) capacitance and inductance which, at audio frequencies,
is of NO consequence for runs less than 50 ft.

**Again. Incorrect. Standard 'zip' type speaker cables (which is 99.999%
of all speaker cables) exhibits inductance figures of approximately
1uH/Metre.

IMHO 0.7 is more realistic.

**My measurements of a dozen of so zip type cables (speaker and mains power)
have revealed figures ranging from around 0.8uH to 1.1uH, with one cable
(really badly designed) measuring 1.5uH. 1uH seems to be a reasonable
average figure IME. Perhaps Australian cables exhibit higher inductance
figures, due to (possibly) larger diameter insulation.


An exotic speaker cable, such as Goertz MI-1 exhibits an inductance of
approximately 0.012uH/Metre. My favourite cable (RG213/U) exhibits an
inductance of around 0.25uH/Metre. Zip type cables (Monster et al) will
be close to the 1uH/Metre, whilst other constructions generally lie
between the extremely low figure of the Goertz and zip cable. One
standout, is Naim cable, which has an extremely high (and undesirable)
inductance figure.

Taking the example of the electrostatic speaker in my second cite, you
will note an impedance of approximately 0.55 Ohms at 16kHz.

Use of broken design speakers noted...

**Nope. Not broken. Just ESLs and inconveniently designed ones, at that.
They were commercially available and quite popular when they were
manufactured.


Those speakers could trip protection circuits in many amplifiers
(especially those with another dip in mid-bass range).

**Sure.



Feeding in your example of a 15 Metre speaker cable run, you will note
(resistive effects will be ignored, though they will be potentially
audible):

Cable L (zip): 15 X 1 X 10^-6 H = 15 X 10^-6 H
Cable L (Goertz): 15 X 0.012 X 10^-6 H = 1.8 X 10^-7 H
Cable L (RG213/U): 15 X 0.25 X 10^-6H = 3.75 X 10^-6 H

Cable XL @ 16kHz (zip): 1.5 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (Goertz): 0.018 Ohms
Cable XL @ 16kHz (RG213/U): 0.38 Ohms

Plugging those numbers into the above, reveals substantial and
potentially audible effects when using the zip cable and the RG213/U with
the speaker cited.

Attenuation @ 16kHz (zip): -13.1dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (Goertz): -0.282dB
Attenuation @ 16kHz (RG213/U): -4.6dB

How did you come to those numbers?

**Stupidly, as it happens. My old calculator threw in the towel and I picked
up one from the supermarket. Sadly, I failed to check what I was doing
carefully enough.


My numbers are -5.71dB, -0.14dB & -2.23dB respectively, and for 0.7uH/m
for zip cord (which seems to be more realistic -- e.g. 2 2mm diameter
wires with 3mm insulation between them, thus 5mm axis-axis distance) I
get -4.64dB.

It seems to me you erronously used natural logarithm instead of base 10
logarithm in your calculation (in many colculating programs base 10
logarithm is denoted log10 and natural logaritms is dentoed log which is
contrary to quite popular notation using log and ln respectively).

**What can I say? I miss my old calculator. It served me well for 20 years.



So even with such borderline case of boutique speakers with extremely deep
dips in impedance connected by unusually long for home setup cables (15m)
the effect is on the borderline o being hearable at all (4.5db level diff
at 16KHz is at the edge of ear detedctability for young and healthy ears).

**Not so much. Up until I was in my 30s, I was unable to remain in the same
room as a TV set which had loose core material in the line output
transformer (15,625Hz, in Australia). When in my early 20s, I found myself
in a warehouse and had to leave due to the unbearable noise from the
ultrasonic motion detectors used.


Cut the wire length by half, use speakers from manufacturer who knows how
do design her speakers electrically and the effect is well beyond
detectability.

**Not the point. The claim that I responded to is this:

"Speaker cable is a CONDUCTOR. It has resistance (very
little) capacitance and inductance which, at audio frequencies, is of NO
consequence for runs less than 50 ft."

That is the claim I responded to. I proved that claim to be incorrect. I
alos demonstrated that Maggies are the most speaker cable insensitive
speaker available and, therefore, are an extremely poor choice for speaker
cable testing. THAT is the extent of my claim.



Stereophile, as well as other audio magazines ought to be ashamed of
themselves for perpetuating this speaker cable nonsense.

**Your opinion is duly noted. OTOH, I note that Stereophile, whilst
employing a good deal of 'flowery' language to describe products, go to
quite substantial lengths to publish measured characteristics of products
under test. In fact, I cited one of their tests to show just what a poor
choice Maggies are to delineate differences in speaker cables.

Use any other *properly* designed speakers and effect will be the same.
Even if some typical 4 Ohm speakres have impedance peaks around 20 Ohm or
even 40 Ohm, it doesn't make cables audible, as only exteremely low
impedances could possibly make them so.

**Impedance peaks are of no consequence. It is impedance minima that is
relevant.



I don't care
if they do get advertising money from cable manufacturers. This is a
product area of the business that the audio community can do well
without!

**Actually, it is an area that many people should educate themselves in.
I've just shown that, under certain conditions, there will be very
audible differences in speaker cables.

You didn't show so, as your math has significant bug...

**Acknowledged.


I've also shown why Maggies are a poor choice of loudspeaker to judge
speaker cables with.

They are good choice as any other reasonable speaker as impedance peaks
only diminish cable effect on signal not boost it.

**Again: Impedance minima are the issue.




The bottom line is that speaker cables can be pretty much eliminated as a
source of sound degradation and that for the lion's share of audio systems in
the world, 14 gauge zip cord is audibly indistinguishable from the "boutique"
cables that can cost thousands of dollars for just a a few meters of
elephant-trunk sized wire.

Did you bother to read:

http://www.roger-russel.com/wire/wire.htm

?

Everything that I and others have stated in this thread is bourn-out by Mr.
Russel's impressive missive on speaker cable.