Phil Allison wrote:

"Phil Allison"

Jim Lesurf wrote:

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/...g/howlong.html

Doing the usual maths on your table of cables

A = 8.5

** Cable "A" would be a woven multi-strand cable like "Tocord" - it was
sold under other names too.

** I have placed a pic of a " Tocord " speaker lead on ABSE - since I
could not find one on the net.

There are 72 green and 72 copper coloured strands - each enamel coated so
are all insulated. There is a central clear plastic core ( not visible in
the pic) of about 4mm diameter which the 144 strands are woven around. The
outer sheath is only 7mm diameter and so the cable is quite flexible.

In order to fit a termination like the banana plugs shown, one must first
burn off the enamel coating with a hot soldering iron and lots of solder.
Quite easy really.

..... Phil

I doubt I'd ever wanna use that Tocord cable.

If someone crushes the cable under a foot or something, then it'd
be easy to get a short between the different colour enamel wires woven
together.
So the amp sees a short circuit. Might be intermittent.
And if the enamel wire can be tinned with a hot soldering iron, then its
fragile enamel,
and softer than grade 2 magnetic winding wire which cannot be cleaned
with a soldering iron and you have to use a
flame or scrape off the enamel with a blade.

But without a short, I can see why the capacitance would be high because
enamel isn't thick insulation,
so wires are close, and closer wires are, the higher C becomes.

Most SS amps are made to tolerate pure C loads from say 0.002uF to 0.22
uf because they have an R+C
series Zobel between output emitters and 0V, and also have an L+R
parallel Zobel between emitters and
output terminal. So at HF above say 20kHz, some pure C isn't ever "seen"
by the output transistors,
so there is no way the C can cause the phase shift and oscillation at
low RF.
But some amps may not be so well designed, eg, like the Flame Linear you
mentioned.

Meanwhile many tube amps are allergic to some pure C load without
speakers connected.
That's why one should always ensure all amps are unconditionally stable
no matter
what the load, or if there is no load.

It used to be fashionable to try to omit the Zobels, to get more
impressive bandwidth,
and to make claims that sound became "unveiled" due to a more direct
connection.
Fashionable ideas are often the purest BS.

A simpler cable can be made by anyone use to blue covered 4 pair Cat 5
cables.
Just twist them together, and make the 8 wires in each become the out
and back wire for the speakers.
Its easy to strip the wires and solder to banana plugs and put some red
and black shrink wrap on.
I know a guy with ESL speakers who likes such cables, and very cheap as
well.
Kinda difficult to get a short if you tread on them.

Patrick Turner.