Speaking of audiophools

Jun 26, 2006 87 Replies
R

Everyone's talking about wire resistance - the thing the phools are after is characteristic impedance, which is determined by conductor diameter, spacing, and dielectric constant. It's quite irrelevant at frequencies where the length of the transmission line is less than, say, 1/100 of a wavelength at the frequency in question.

Why is there all this discussion about cable resistance and crap? If you pay more than a few cents a foot for your speaker cables, you're an idiot.

It's just that simple.

Cheers! Rich

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R

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At audio frequencies, it's usually irrelevant. When the transmission line gets to be longer than, say, 1/10 wavelength or so, then you start considering things like impedance matching and such.

To just get raw amps into the speaker, though, any wire that's rated for the amps will do - for speakers, they don't even have to be twin-lead - you could lay a couple of random pieces of wire on the floor, and the sound will be indistinguishable from the highest-end audiophool crap, unless they _insist_ on a certain amount of distortion, for example, to give that rich, golden toob sound.

Cheers! Rich

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E

Skin effect @ 20kHz does start to influence the larger cable diameters used for speakers.

A few cents a foot won't buy you much !

Graham

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J

18 Gauge zip cord ;-)

...Jim Thompson

| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | | http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
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I

One wavelength at 30 kHz, in this case, would amount to

3*10^8/30000 = 3*10^4 m. or 30km. Quite a bit loner than regular speaker wires! i

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R

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:18:39 -0700, Jim Thompson Gave us:

Absolutely s***ty. Even Monster cable imitations are better.

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R

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:42:48 -0700, John Larkin Gave us:

Absolutely solid. Very unmanageable. Pretty lame too! If you are buying it that way, you might as well get 12/2.

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