The Cable Dialectic

garylkoh

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I'm glad that the thread got resurrected.

The two designs tell me that it is a preference. One - the one with greatest capacitance sounds sweet and smooth, but lacks details and resolution. The one with greatest inductance sounds warm and full bodied but timing was off. It needs to be somewhere in between the two, and you can achieve this by different combinations of wires.

Unfortunately, it is loudspeaker dependent.... so no one design works for every loudspeaker.
 

untangle

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Thanks. Your conclusions are not surprising given all the cable-rolling that occurs.

I'll build and let you know what I find out.

As may have been reported earlier, one of the biggest info sources for CAT5 speaker cables is here on Audioholics.

Bob
 

A.wayne

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Cable rolling is a pain in the arse ...:)

Unless you have done it , one would not believe the difference it makes on a system with decent resolution .....
 

KBK

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I read this piece with pleasure .
Although i have a bold statement about it : i dont believe in 100 K cables no matter who is using them , i look to it more like this , people who have that kind of money to spend on cables will not use a normal watch either ,but a audemars piquet or what ever ,it still is the same time on the display but oh that piece of swiss? mechanics looks and feel stunning and gives a sensation .
The cable has to be well designed/ constructed and i do have my preferences on cable construction but they are still cheap .
Cyrogynic treatment seems in the end the most logical way to improve , or heat treatment , the molecules in metal rearrange when exposed to certain heat , i dont know of a cable company making copper red of heat and tensionless.
specialized companies do it after there has been welding on high grade steel (steam) tubing , the metal gets slowly heated up to a certain temperature and then cooled down slowly , it can take up to a few days
I ve heard many systems and i dont believe cables are in a way the limiting factor to good audio , although they have to be of a certain standard off course

What if the cable inherently has expensive materials, that are unique, and uses a verifiably 'different physics' of signal transfer? This, through and via a different than normal medium? That it has verifiably different results under (correct) measurement? That it is unique not just in the world of audio but unique in the world of all transmission lines? What if it is a full evolutionary leap beyond, not just in audio, but in practical realization of transmission lines, due to all those aspects? (as in full magnitude of change, unrecognizable from the prior)

Where does one 'draw the line', then?
 

KBK

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Cable rolling is a pain in the arse ...:)

Unless you have done it , one would not believe the difference it makes on a system with decent resolution .....

I heartily recommend cable rolling.

cables can change a systems that is getting 'close' to being clear. it takes a systematic and single cause analysis method and temper to get there. Of course this is difficult, as we are talking about left brain analysis of right brain orientation, all oriented toward emotional satisfaction. The layers are difficult enough in the mind, regarding negotiation, never mind trying to relate that to another's perceptive base. The entire audiophile argument/quandary is indicative in that concept, to some degree.
 

TBone

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I'm glad that the thread got resurrected.

The two designs tell me that it is a preference. One - the one with greatest capacitance sounds sweet and smooth, but lacks details and resolution. The one with greatest inductance sounds warm and full bodied but timing was off. It needs to be somewhere in between the two, and you can achieve this by different combinations of wires.

Unfortunately, it is loudspeaker dependent.... so no one design works for every loudspeaker.

Many moons ago, I decided to modify my speakers. Although they were already a very rigid design, I aimed to achieve even superior structural integrity; xover integration; improve connection quality; and internal wiring.

It was relatively time consuming (esp the xover), but after all was said and done and it finally came down to a "simple" choice of wires, it took me much longer than I had anticipated trying out wires to find the best sonic fit. Interestingly enough, after much experimentation, I achieved my goal using a combination of CAT5 and Goertz in parallel.

BTW, your project is a very interesting read.

tb1
 

Johnny Vinyl

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Looking forward to reading your observations/impressions (good and/or bad). I have a 50ft strand of CAT5 and am tempted to try this myself.
 

untangle

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Listening Impressions

SYSTEM CONFIG

Mac Pro -> TEAC UD-501 DSD DAC -> Emotiva 400wpc -> Test Cable -> Quad 2905
Music: Nick Cave Push the Sky Away


LISTENING IMPRESSIONS

The low-C cable config sounded better. In particular, the bass was cleaner and more present. Not louder, just better. This in turn seemed to clear a subtle haze that plagued the mids and highs of the high-C config.

The effect was subtle but quite noticeable. I only had an hour to spend on this and so just used my HT power amp. I doubt if my Goldmund monoblocs would alter the result.


RATIONALE

I don't know. Common wisdom is to minimize C in interconnects and minimize L in speaker cables. Maybe things are different with an electrostat. For example, maybe the series C lowers overall C (link below). Or maybe my subjective observations are off today (wouldn't be the first time).

Bob

http://www.aikenamps.com/AddingComponents.htm
 
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DonH50

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Could you publish the specs of the cables if you know them, or the configuration? I missed that, or am too lazy to read back and find it, probably both...

All the ESLs and Maggies I have ever heard benefit from very low R to help control the panel, especially in the bass region. Minimizing interconnect C has rarely been an issue unless the cable capacitance was very high and the amp not terribly stable. For ESLs, they already look like a big capacitor, and it's hard to imagine adding enough more in a cable to matter. Low L benefits HF damping but IME low R has almost always been the biggest improvement.
 

garylkoh

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untangle

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I built the cables to GK spec.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but the high-C cable has an order of magnitude more capacitance than the high-L cable.

Resistance is identical of course.

Bob
 
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DonH50

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Thanks guys!

Off the cuff, I would expect an amplifier to shrug off quite a bit of capacitance since it is a very low-impedance source. Inductance will roll off the highs (and reduce the HF damping factor) no matter the amp. So, it all makes sense to me. Actually, I would expect L to have a larger impact with ESLs since they are mainly a capacitive load, making the series L and load C (including additional shunt cable capacitance) act closer to a second-order LPF.
 

DonH50

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p.s. Just for grins, assume the LC is lumped and calculate the resonance frequency of the resultant tank circuit:

fo = 1/[2*pi*sqrt(L*C)]

C1 = 630 pF, L1 = 0.2 uH ==> 14.179 MHz
C2 15 pF, L2 = 1.7 uH ==> 31.517 MHz

Not terribly interesting, but now assume an ESL that has 0.2-ohm impedance at 20 kHz (fairly typical for a large ESL panel like ML Montis etc.) Assume that is purely capacitive so Cesl = 39.789 uF (wow!) Now add that to the cable capacitance and recalculate the numbers:

High-C cable + ESL ==> 56.418 kHz
Low-C cable + esL ==> 19.351 kHz

Starting to seem interesting... The model needs some work, but at least the numbers are in the audio ballpark.
 

untangle

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the plot thickens

Things get even more complicated when including the Quad in the model.

For starters, the first thing that the signal encounters with the Quad is a signal-shaping network (1.5ohm and 220mfd in parallel). Then there's the multiple-delay line... (pic below)

I would also re-emphasize that these are not night-and-day changes in SQ.

Bob

quad filt.jpg
 

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