Low capacitance cables

Empirical Audio · Oct 15, 2017

DaveC said:
It's trivially easy to make low-C cables, but other more balanced approaches work much better ime.

With no insulation on the wires?? With low susceptibility? With low dielectric absorption?

Not so trivial.

Steve N.

microstrip · Oct 15, 2017

Empirical Audio said:
What kid of a metric is cutoff? I can hear 1dB of roll-off. See my updated calculation above.

You are now multiplying your previously suggested typical output impedance by 20 - an extreme case that seldom happens and using a 2m cable. IMHO it only proves that in extreme situations capacity matters, but not to 99% of people using typical cables.

I have checked many cables and excepting Kubala Sosna, all were bellow 100 pF/meter. Surely I agree with you that manufacturers could supply cable capacitance. They probably choose not to do it because 99% of users would make an erroneous use of it. Evidently professional cable manufacturers supply it - it is almost mandatory for long cables and professionals need it.

microstrip · Oct 15, 2017

Empirical Audio said:
With no insulation on the wires?? With low susceptibility? With low dielectric absorption?

Not so trivial.

Steve N.

What is your numerical threshold in pf/m for "low-C cables"? Probably you and DaveC are referring to different numbers.

Empirical Audio · Oct 15, 2017

microstrip said:
What is your numerical threshold in pf/m for "low-C cables"? Probably you and DaveC are referring to different numbers.

I would say 5pF/foot or lower is low enough to perform well in all systems, both RCA and XLR terminated cables.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio · Oct 15, 2017

microstrip said:
You are now multiplying your previously suggested typical output impedance by 20 - an extreme case that seldom happens and using a 2m cable. IMHO it only proves that in extreme situations capacity matters, but not to 99% of people using typical cables.

I have checked many cables and excepting Kubala Sosna, all were bellow 100 pF/meter. Surely I agree with you that manufacturers could supply cable capacitance. They probably choose not to do it because 99% of users would make an erroneous use of it. Evidently professional cable manufacturers supply it - it is almost mandatory for long cables and professionals need it.

I don't believe they avoid publishing for that reason. They either don't know how, don't care or don't have the equipment to do it reliably. Very few cable manufacturers include engineers I have found. They run the gamut from race car drivers to insurance salesmen to hobbyists.

I have literally never seen anyone do a computer simulation of different cables and then do the measurements to correlate and then publish it, except me. Show me one.

Steve N.

twitch · Oct 15, 2017

Empirical Audio said:
That may be the case. Does the OP have electrostatics?

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I have no clue, I was merely responding to your comment

microstrip · Oct 15, 2017

Empirical Audio said:
I would say 5pF/foot or lower is low enough to perform well in all systems, both RCA and XLR terminated cables.

Steve N.

Thanks, but I do not see any reason why a 5pF/foot cable should perform better than a 30 pF/foot (100 pF/m) in the audio band.

microstrip · Oct 15, 2017

Empirical Audio said:
I don't believe they avoid publishing for that reason. They either don't know how, don't care or don't have the equipment to do it reliably. Very few cable manufacturers include engineers I have found. They run the gamut from race car drivers to insurance salesmen to hobbyists.

I have literally never seen anyone do a computer simulation of different cables and then do the measurements to correlate and then publish it, except me. Show me one.

Steve N.

A few years ago we had a thread on cable simulation at WBF, including examples, simulations and measurements. It was inconclusive, no measurement or simulation could show correlation with sound quality, except for clear cases of misuse of cables, or excessive equipment susceptibility.

Where can we find your papers?

Empirical Audio · Oct 15, 2017

microstrip said:
Thanks, but I do not see any reason why a 5pF/foot cable should perform better than a 30 pF/foot (100 pF/m) in the audio band.

It's a lot like the Nyquist criteria. Makes perfect sense, but we all know that brick-wall filters at 30KHz don't sound right. I have some theories on a lot of these things, but nothing proved yet.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio · Oct 15, 2017

microstrip said:
A few years ago we had a thread on cable simulation at WBF, including examples, simulations and measurements. It was inconclusive, no measurement or simulation could show correlation with sound quality, except for clear cases of misuse of cables, or excessive equipment susceptibility.

Where can we find your papers?

Some of them are still on my website, but not the simulations. Took most of the cable product stuff off.

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/technical-papers/

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/audio-faqs/

I would have to move the simulation plots and measurement plots from one computer to another to post here.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

opus112 · Oct 15, 2017

microstrip said:
Thanks, but I do not see any reason why a 5pF/foot cable should perform better than a 30 pF/foot (100 pF/m) in the audio band.

One potential reason is loading - say you have 5m of the high capacitance cable. That's going to be 500pF, an impedance of j16k @ 20kHz. If you happen to have an opamp driving this with a 2VRMS signal that's a peak current of almost 200uA. Enough to go beyond that opamp's classA region, depending of course on the particular opamp.

Having said that though its not uncommon for a poweramp to have at least 500pF of input capacitance for RF filtration purposes.

Ron Resnick · Oct 15, 2017

What threshold is generally regarded as "low" capacitance?

Are Cardas Clear Beyond interconnects low capacitance?

Are MasterBuilt Ultra interconnects low capacitance?

Loheswaran · Oct 16, 2017

DaveC said:
What amp + speakers?

I am using a LAvardin IT amp - it has, I am told, an unstable output stage that prefers low-capacitance cables. I know LAvardin make cables, but they are in only 3 lengths, and I would prefer cables that are not so obviously system specific - i.e., there may come a stage when I go and get another amplifier (none decided upon as yet - but certainly more powerful).

My speakers are Yamaha NS 1000m's

thanks

Lohan

DaveC · Oct 16, 2017

Loheswaran said:
I am using a LAvardin IT amp - it has, I am told, an unstable output stage that prefers low-capacitance cables. I know LAvardin make cables, but they are in only 3 lengths, and I would prefer cables that are not so obviously system specific - i.e., there may come a stage when I go and get another amplifier (none decided upon as yet - but certainly more powerful).

My speakers are Yamaha NS 1000m's

thanks

Lohan

Ok, as long as you stay away from Goertz-type cables (2 ribbons one atop the other), cables that use many twisted pairs, or many runs of interwoven +/- legs you'll be fine. OTOH, DNM type cable with runs that are separated a distance do have very low capacitance but don't sound as good. Most cables on the market these days are in between, which is good because neither extreme works very well imo. If you want to PM me your budget I can make specific recommendations.

Empirical Audio · Oct 16, 2017

Ron Resnick said:
What threshold is generally regarded as "low" capacitance?

Are Cardas Clear Beyond interconnects low capacitance?

Are MasterBuilt Ultra interconnects low capacitance?

Clear Beyond appear to have the conductors spaced too closely, and maybe even duplicated conductors doubling the capacitance. This is by observation only.

Masterbuilt seems better, just by its size and dielectrics, but it evidently uses 2 twisted pairs.

Again, even well-known manufacturers are not publishing or measuring the capacitance of their cables. Why not? If they understand the physics, they would understand the importance of this.

Steve N.

DaveC · Oct 16, 2017

Empirical Audio said:
Clear Beyond appear to have the conductors spaced too closely, and maybe even duplicated conductors doubling the capacitance. This is by observation only.

Masterbuilt seems better, just by its size and dielectrics, but it evidently uses 2 twisted pairs.

Again, even well-known manufacturers are not publishing or measuring the capacitance of their cables. Why not? If they understand the physics, they would understand the importance of this.

Steve N.

Steve... Everyone here thinks their system is special and what they've done with it is special and if they're in the industry what they do is also special. Making statements that their system is EXTRA special and denigrating others by attacking their qualifications and whether or not they choose to share measurements is not cool. Evaluating competitors' designs without hands-on comparisons is questionable and even then... it's just plain questionable to do this at all.

I choose not to show measurements because, like many others in the industry (and not just cables), I don't believe they will be interpreted correctly and incorrect assumptions will be made about the way my product sounds. I've tried all sorts of designs and measured them and I don't agree with you about the importance of super-low capacitance.

I'd much rather people actually try out my product at home, in their own system, and compare it to other products they are interested in at their leisure.

With that said I appreciate anyone with deep technical knowledge posting here including yourself.

Empirical Audio · Oct 16, 2017

DaveC said:
Steve... Everyone here thinks their system is special and what they've done with it is special and if they're in the industry what they do is also special. Making statements that their system is EXTRA special and denigrating others by attacking their qualifications and whether or not they choose to share measurements is not cool. Evaluating competitors' designs without hands-on comparisons is questionable and even then... it's just plain questionable to do this at all.

I choose not to show measurements because, like many others in the industry (and not just cables), I don't believe they will be interpreted correctly and incorrect assumptions will be made about the way my product sounds. I've tried all sorts of designs and measured them and I don't agree with you about the importance of super-low capacitance.

I'd much rather people actually try out my product at home, in their own system, and compare it to other products they are interested in at their leisure.

With that said I appreciate anyone with deep technical knowledge posting here including yourself.

Each to his own strategy. Too much snake oil out there is one reason why I'm selling my cable business, not that you purvey snake-oil. I have not read your site.

Steve N.

microstrip · Oct 16, 2017

opus112 said:
One potential reason is loading - say you have 5m of the high capacitance cable. That's going to be 500pF, an impedance of j16k @ 20kHz. If you happen to have an opamp driving this with a 2VRMS signal that's a peak current of almost 200uA. Enough to go beyond that opamp's classA region, depending of course on the particular opamp.

Having said that though its not uncommon for a poweramp to have at least 500pF of input capacitance for RF filtration purposes.

Well, I would say that if a designer used an opamp that can not supply 200uA in class A it is because he does not care about class A and thinks class AB sounds better. And 2V at 20 KHz is really atypical!

But yes, if we increase the length and the capacitance - I owned for a few weeks a famous IC cable with 980 pf/meter! - we can easily have problems with dynamic changes in the preamplifier spectral characteristics due to the changing impedance.

microstrip · Oct 16, 2017

Empirical Audio said:
It's a lot like the Nyquist criteria. Makes perfect sense, but we all know that brick-wall filters at 30KHz don't sound right. I have some theories on a lot of these things, but nothing proved yet.

Steve N.

Probably other manufacturers have other theories, also not proved yet.

BTW, one of the reasons manufacturers should supply cable specifications is to allow forgery detection - the used market is filled with chinese counterfeited copies and measurements are the easiest way to spot them. I must say I always measure any used cable I get!

dan31 · Oct 16, 2017

Ron Resnick said:
What threshold is generally regarded as "low" capacitance?

Are Cardas Clear Beyond interconnects low capacitance?

Are MasterBuilt Ultra interconnects low capacitance?

If you look at Tara Labs they have some really low capacitance (single digit) figures. I was looking at them for phono cables from turntable to the Io.

Low capacitance cables

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