Rob Bird
Agent
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2004
- Messages
- 47
Today, after talking about various commonly held factors regarding speaker cables, it dawned on me that as much as audiophiles pride themselves on being discriminating listeners, most of the second order effects (meaning, not Resistance, Inductance or Capacitance) haven't been well tested. Yes, in the lab we know that stranded wires can look like complex mV diode arrays, but can we actually HEAR it? Can we actually hear the skin effect in huge, solid (or nearly solid) conductors?
So what is the novel idea? The idea is for me to build a couple different sets of cables that should totally violate the "laws" of cable building. These will be tested by me in a totally non-double blind fashion with the intent of choosing cables which are so "bad" that they either have an obious effect or not.
The current (!) comparison will be:
1. My reference...a set of cat5 speaker cables I built and reviewed on audioreview in 1998 (original posting, actually).
2. A set of 00 gauge speaker cables made from pvc insulated copper grounding wire. These will be widely spaced to form a very low capacitance version (high inductance).
3. A set of 00 gauge speaker cables made from pvc insulated copper grounding wire. These will be closely spaced to form a high capacitance version (low inductance). 2. and 3. will be used to demonstrate the effect of skin effect.
4. A set of high gauge aluminum cables. I haven't picked out anything yet, but will post back what was chosen. These will be tested against the corresponding copper geometry above (wide space vs. wide space, etc.).
5. Closely spaced version of 4.
6. A set of cables made from 16 gauge monster cable zip cord.
7. A set of cables made from coated steel security bike lock cable. I will measure the approximate gauge.
I will post the Resistance, Inductance and Capacitance of each as measured by my test equipment. Each will be terminated as best as possible. It's going to be a neat trick trying to terminate some of these into spades. I may have to make some compromises here, but will be as attentive as possible. I will also compare each on some familiar HT tracks (things like finding Nemo).
Back to the lab, and hopefully back later with some interesting results
Rob
Rob
So what is the novel idea? The idea is for me to build a couple different sets of cables that should totally violate the "laws" of cable building. These will be tested by me in a totally non-double blind fashion with the intent of choosing cables which are so "bad" that they either have an obious effect or not.
The current (!) comparison will be:
1. My reference...a set of cat5 speaker cables I built and reviewed on audioreview in 1998 (original posting, actually).
2. A set of 00 gauge speaker cables made from pvc insulated copper grounding wire. These will be widely spaced to form a very low capacitance version (high inductance).
3. A set of 00 gauge speaker cables made from pvc insulated copper grounding wire. These will be closely spaced to form a high capacitance version (low inductance). 2. and 3. will be used to demonstrate the effect of skin effect.
4. A set of high gauge aluminum cables. I haven't picked out anything yet, but will post back what was chosen. These will be tested against the corresponding copper geometry above (wide space vs. wide space, etc.).
5. Closely spaced version of 4.
6. A set of cables made from 16 gauge monster cable zip cord.
7. A set of cables made from coated steel security bike lock cable. I will measure the approximate gauge.
I will post the Resistance, Inductance and Capacitance of each as measured by my test equipment. Each will be terminated as best as possible. It's going to be a neat trick trying to terminate some of these into spades. I may have to make some compromises here, but will be as attentive as possible. I will also compare each on some familiar HT tracks (things like finding Nemo).
Back to the lab, and hopefully back later with some interesting results
Rob
Rob