In article , Martin Schöön
wrote:
On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 17:56:15 +0100, Jim Lesurf wrote: snip

FWIW I tend to prefer thick/fat conductor bundles. Not for low
resistance, but to also get a low inductance. The large conductor
diameters helps to get a low spacing/diameter ratio.

What about 'building' your own 'high-end' cables in the following way?

Why would I bother? :-)

The cables I currently use pun were all reasonably cheap (from Maplin),
and I've tried comparing cables in the past and established that so far as
I can tell, once they have a reasonably low R and L, no changes are
audible.

Start with a multi-conductor cable - preferable multiple pairs of
conductors - and connect the conductors coming out at each end in such a
way that in the end you have a two-conductor cable where the two
'conductors' are braided (sort of) into each other. There is some
possibility that such a cable will have a really low characteristic
impedance - on par with the loudspeakers even.

So far as I am concerned there is no point in having a cable inductance
below a given L value. Once it is low enough not to alter the response by
as much as moving my head a cm or so... :-)

If this results in a an audible 'improvement' I don't know but you can
always boast about your hand-made, custom cables if it doesn't.

Canne be bothered. ;-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

Andy Evans wrote:
No one ever suggested that thirty feet of bell wire would sound the
same as ten feet of 12 AWG. This is of course a far cry from saying
that 'cables sound different'.

Is it? It sounds exactly like saying that cables sound different.


See post from Jim re false dichotomy - you're arguing tripe. The statement
"cables sound different" is far too general. It doesn't account for the fact
that there are plenty of different cables that sound the same.


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com
www.wally.myby.co.uk

In article , Iain M Churches
wrote:


Yes, a pal of mine who is a sound supervisor for Swedish TV uses the
phrase "sound gathering" He has pointed out to me that when the public
listened to TV sound via the speaker(s) on the TV, they were not aware
of the shortcomings.

This has also been my experience. In fact, even fairly recent TVs often
seem to have quite poor sound quality.

Now many people have multi- channel systems into which the TV is
integrated, they are beginning to notice the imperfections.

I am less sure of that. My suspicion is that many of those who buy 'home
cinema' systems expect 'surround' and the ability to get loud 'bangs and
crashes'. Despite this, they still may have little awareness of distortion
or colourations and the degrading effects these can have on the clarity of
the sound. Thus what matters seems to be 'how loud' and 'how deep'... :-/

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

In article , Don Pearce
wrote:
On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 12:05:39 +0100, Eiron wrote:


Don't cables have a low frequency limit to their behaviour as
transmission lines? If 25 cat 5 cables in parallel worked as a 4 ohm
transmission line at audio frequencies, and were connected to a 4 ohm
load, then the amp would see a 4 ohms resistive load whatever the
length.

No, there is no low frequency limit to cables behaviour as transmission
lines - the limit is an upper one on the frequencies at which you can
treat them as lumped.

Word of caution. If the cables have a non zero R and/or non-infinite
(shunt) G, then these may mean that the nominal characteristic impedance is
frequency sensitive, so isn't the same at LF as it is at higher
frequencies. This will probably be the case for any real cables, but the
effects may be negligible with well made, appropriate, ones.

But that is not the issue here - the result is the same whichever way
you look. If you terminate a cable in an impedance higher than its
characteristic impedance it looks like a capacitor. Of course if you
terminate in 4 ohms you are right, all is well, but particularly at
higher audio frequencies the impedance of the typical loudpseaker is
rising; that makes the cable capacitive.

The cable capacitance will still exist, but be countered by the inductance
if the load is essentially matched.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

Thus by attacking either (1) or (2) you do precisely nothing to
establish
that the other false dichotomy view is correct.

It's really quite simple, Jim. If one makes the statement "all cables
sound the same" as Stewart did, you cannot then say "some cables sound
different". This is basic formal logic, as I'm sure you are aware.
E.g.. "All Aussies are Australians" is not compatible with "Some
Aussies are not Australians".

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 13:03:17 +0100, Glenn Richards
wrote:

Iain M Churches wrote:

I have invited you on a previous occasion to visit a session.
But you seem to prefer to hurl abuse from a safe distance:-((

On the occasions between delurking in here I've witnessed Pinkerton
launch many verbal (well, ASCII anyway) attacks on people. In this
thread, because I dared to state that I clearly heard a difference
between two types of cable I'm apparently "arrogant"...

No, that would be because you refused to accept the very high
probability that this perception of difference was due to expectation
bias, rather than to anything in the physical world.

Some people come here to learn, or to offer the benefit of their skill
and experience, others simply come to have their foolish notions
admired. The later seldom works out well, which can cause the sort of
childish, ignorant and stubborn reaction which you have exemplified.

The guy clearly has issues. He's found himself a home in my killfile on
this particular thread, so he can go and content himself with listening
to teenybopper music recorded on unbranded Type I cassettes with no
noise reduction, through a midi system with speakers connected with bell
wire, whilst fantasising about molesting under-age sheep.

(See, I can do personal insults too.)

Yes, but you can't relate them to anything factual. That's the
difference, bonehead.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 12:57:22 GMT, "Wally" wrote:

Andy Evans wrote:
No one ever suggested that thirty feet of bell wire would sound the
same as ten feet of 12 AWG. This is of course a far cry from saying
that 'cables sound different'.

Is it? It sounds exactly like saying that cables sound different.

See post from Jim re false dichotomy - you're arguing tripe. The statement
"cables sound different" is far too general. It doesn't account for the fact
that there are plenty of different cables that sound the same.

What he said..................
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 2 Oct 2005 13:19:26 +0300, "Iain M Churches"
wrote:
Piano Trio No4 in E minor, Opus 90, is also known as the Dumky.

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the Czech words
"nemy" or "pitomy". Languages not your forte, Stewart.?

It's a *pun*, you boneheaded cretin! SAD getting you down already?


Pretty poor pun:-(

I guess you don't have the knowledge to discuss
classical trio form then?

Cordially,

Iain

On 2005-10-02, Andy Evans wrote:
Thus by attacking either (1) or (2) you do precisely nothing to
establish
that the other false dichotomy view is correct.

It's really quite simple, Jim. If one makes the statement "all cables
sound the same" as Stewart did, ...

Sorry, Andy, but I cannot find (well, Google cannot find) that phrase
actually written by Stewart in this thread.

I have seen it written by others but (sort-of) attributed to him.
However even then there has been enough context around, both in this
thread (as recent as 11:33 AM today) and over many years, for someone
with a vestige of memory to understand that in Stewart's view (If I
may be so presumptuous) the phrase always comes qualified with the term
"well engineered".

--
John Phillips

On 2 Oct 2005 08:00:23 -0700, "Andy Evans"
wrote:

Thus by attacking either (1) or (2) you do precisely nothing to
establish
that the other false dichotomy view is correct.

It's really quite simple, Jim. If one makes the statement "all cables
sound the same" as Stewart did, you cannot then say "some cables sound
different". This is basic formal logic, as I'm sure you are aware.
E.g.. "All Aussies are Australians" is not compatible with "Some
Aussies are not Australians".

I would not normally say any such thing unqualified, but it may have
slipped in through carelessness. I formally acknowledge that the
qualification 'when level-matched so that there is no more than 0.2dB
difference at the speaker terminals at 10kHz' should be attached to
any such statement. Given that qualification, all cables *do* sound
the same. If you disagree, you can pick up some fairly serious cash by
proving your point.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering