I have owned, and in some cases still own, Synergistic Research, Audioquest, Tara Labs, Mapleshade, AntiCables, Van den Hul and (yikes) Monster speaker cables.
And for under $30 I just bought from Blue Jeans Cable Co. 16 feet of Belden 12-gauge 5000UE and 4 pair of gold plated, compression style banana plugs. I cut the wire in half and installed the plugs, installed the shrink tubing, and then hooked them up to my speakers and to my amp in my system paying no attention to "directionality."
These speaker cables sound AS GOOD as any I have owned or listened to previously!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No break in needed.
Steve |
Amps: Manley NEO 250 monoblocks
Speakers: Thiel CS2.4
I have correct speaker cables, for me, when I hear more than I've heard before and didn't spend an arm and a leg to do so. Plus, the overall balance and stage are "just right." |
Even if could connect our amp to speaker terminals with 1 inch square (cross sectioned), or other rectangular profile, six nines, pure copper bars with only air as the dielectric, there would be NO improvement in sound. None, zilch, zip. Arrrgh! |
+1 morg111! What the heck b4icu is spouting is NOT SCIENCE!
Example (one of many): "Unfortunately, most speaker cables are of 14-12 AWG and with some length from 8' to 24'. For the length, by increase the length from 8' to 16', in order to keep the same resistance of a cable, the cable's cross-section needs to double. For 24' length it needs to triple and so on."
No. That is not correct.
And the cable does not contribute to the Damping Factor (DF).
Resistance in an 8 ft length of 12 AWG copper wire is INSIGNIFICANT! |
8 Ohm nominal speaker impedance +
0.0256 Ohm cable resistance =
8.0256 total nominal amp load.
Amp output impedance 0.016 Ohms
DF (which is a ratio, not units) into 8 Ohms is 8/0.016 = 500
DF into 8.0256 Ohms is 8.0256/0.016 = 501.6
Big difference. Not. |
Yes, it goes like:
amplifier + speaker = cable, which in turn means:
speaker = cable - amplifier
or
amplifier = cable - speaker
obviously, neither speaker nor amplifier can be a negative quantity, which means that cable > speaker and cable > amplifier.
|
tobor007:
Dazzling lights flash, bells chime, trumpets blast, money-as-confetti flies every where, rock stars emerge from giant cakes, the ghost of J. Gordon Holt appears and personally shakes everyones hand. |
Geoff: Skepticism is absolute and invariable, so no possibility of it being "overly." |
b4icu:
If you have such a "formula," which implies a quantitative, calculated solution based on quantifiable input factors and the means, instrumentation or otherwise to verifiably measure such quantitative variables, what are the factors that are measured and used to calculate the optimal speaker cable features?
I’ll bet you have absolutely NO such measurable factors and no such instrumentation and are simply blowing smoke up all of our proverbial exit chimneys.
Quantifiable, calculations, formulas, measurable? Yeah, uh huh, right. |
And what defines an expensive high end cable? What price point please? I just may have purchased one or two sets in the past and I need to make sure what side of the "end" I fall on.
The reason we don't see complaints from people who spent money on expensive high end cables is that they are too embarrased to admit that they wasted money on a wish, a prayer and gossamer. |
Note that on 9/28 I provided my amps and speakers, as the OP requested, and the OP didn't provide a response let alone the optimum cable.
I call sham, fraud, hoax. |
So, 10 milliOhm is going to make a big difference? That's 0.010 Ohm resistance. Really? |
The focus on damping factor as the holy grail of speaker cabling is total nonsense.
Boring. |
I'm still waiting for my "solution" to my amps and speakers from back in September. Nothing forthcoming. SHAM CITY. |
"I’ll do say, that there is a no much sense in matching a Thiel CS2.4 to a Manley NEO 250! https://www.stereophile.com/content/thiel-cs24-loudspeaker-measurementshttps://www.manley.com/hifi/n250/That is a 4 ohms speaker and goes down to 2.73 ohms at 600Hz ! with 88dB/w/m SPL. one of the most difficult to drive. I hope you enjoy the Manley NEO 250 1.5% THD and its 14.8 DF vs. 2.73 ohms... In your case the cables are the last to worry about." This simply proves my point. You know NOTHING about anything with regard to HiFi. But keep on plugging your 0 AWG battery cables, which also proves my point. |
OK here’s a little factoid since we’re so engrossed in AUDIO cables. VIDEO cables are FAR more demanding of the TRANSMISSION of the SIGNAL relative to AUDIO. Low capacitance and resistance are REQUIRED to do this and over long distances. If such cables work well for VIDEO, they will also work well for AUDIO. VIDEO transmission has had MUCH R&D to succeed.
But please, continue lculating, (yawn). |
He keeps banging on about damping factor too when it is NOT predictive as to how an amp, cable, speaker will sound. In fact, damping factor means nothing. To my ears, those amps with the highest DF sound like (your favorite scatological noun here) because they implement excessive feedback to control an otherwise unstable circuit! |
Ya, some business. If the OP doesn't approve of your amp/speaker combination he will refuse to help you. It's like a revisit of the Seinfeld soup nazi episode: "No Cables For You!" |
b4icu: I did not call you a nazi and I'm sorry you completely misconstrued that; I attempted to compare, with poor humor perhaps, what from my perspective was an arbitrary rejection of being served by your formula, which you claimed was needed in order to gain optimal speaker coupling to an amp. You also rejected and insulted my selection of amp (tube) and speakers (88 dB is not an "insensitive" speaker if the industry average is 87 dB). Both my amps and speakers have been lauded as good products. You have never heard my system yet feel emboldened to tell this entire group that it must sound horrible because of some fundamental incompatibility or flawed design.
That episode of Seinfeld was written and produced by Jewish Americans. I was paraphrasing the use of that term in that pop-culture episode simply because your rejection of applying my stuff to your formula felt as if things didn't arbitrarily fit your expectations perfectly, then I need not apply. There is such a thing as catharsis. |
Mr b4icu: "Did you try a powerful SS amp with high DF and thick cables attached to your Thile?" Yes, I used to own a Krell 400cx amp that I used to drive the Thiels. It sounded ok but not as spacially defined and three dimensional as the tubed Manleys. "Even if you did, and you like your sound, that’s O.k. My remarks were pure technical." Thank you! |
"It is amazing what this industry can convince you pay for, without any justification."
EXACTLY! Now we're getting somewhere! |
b4icu: "All the difference in conductivity is below 0.1% and no one would notice an audible difference in such a small difference in conductivity."
You see, this is the point I take issue with. Conductivity includes resistivity as a factor. This factor is the main one you use in your so-called calculations for high DF amps. I stated long ago that the contributory resistance of a normal 12, 14, 18 gauge speaker wire is going to contribute INSIGNIFICANTLY, i.e., "...such a small difference in conductivity."
This is why the use of jumper cable sized conductors as speaker wires is a fool’s errand. This is not high current, low voltage, direct current. Never will be, nada, rien, zilch, nyet, null, void, disintegrated.
You cannot,
Have it,
Both ways.
Have a great day. Oh, and please review why Edison failed with DC and Tesla prevailed with AC. |
And...even if say for the sake of argument, someone uses 10m of these wires, then that is:
0.0252 Ohm for 10 m of 14 AWG
0.00093 Ohm for 10 m of 0 AWG
Who cares? You CANNOT hear any sonic differences due to this resistance difference alone! Electrically, this is chasing angels on a pinhead when it comes to an AC audio signal of a few volts, if that.
I'm sorry but this is biggest bag of (Maritime51 please insert here) ever concocted. |
Mr. b4icu,
"When you get a 0 AWG cable, that has a 0.1% loss due to none purity dos not equals to a 14 AWG that has a resistance of 2.52 Ohms per 1000m, vs. a 0 AWG that has a resistance of 0.093 ohms per 1000m. This ratio is of x27 times or 2,700% (not 0.1%)."
I cannot believe we are having this discussion. This is not real world. Tell me exactly, please, who, in the reality I live in, uses 1000m of speaker wire? An aircraft carrier? If there are audiophiles on such ships, then they are your market. Go get 'em. |
"The resistance of #14 vs. #0 is remaining relative, no matter of length. It will apply to any length from 1 m to 1 km or 1 cm."
Perhaps, but at REAL WORLD lengths, the relative difference is
IN
SIG
NIF
I
CANT |
"No aircraft carrier. Also no one should place his amplifier 1000m from its speaker. That’s common sense. It seems to me that you could use some more of it!"
And you sir, may I suggest that you, in turn, try to develop a bit of a sense of humor? Also, you are totally wrong about the effective doubling of length of speaker wire (nice try!) because you aberrantly believe that the signal goes out and then returns. Where the heck did you get your electrical engineering education and experience? That is total horse hockey. Impedance is impedance is impedance and you are not going to change physics just because you want to. |
b4icu: "They also asked me if you worked for NASA at the time the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (January 28, 1986)? That could explain a lot…"
I read that and my heart sickened. What kind of negative insinuation is that on Geoff? That’s just sad and completely uncalled for. And you got upset about my reference to a comedy show! Challenger was launched out of specification that morning, despite warnings by engineers. Politics overrode that position. Enough said. Go peddle your nonsense in another universe, please.
0 AWG is complete and utter NONSENSE! |
How is it that someone like the OP can dangle so much nothing and get so much attention?
There is no relevance to what the OP has to offer other than the illusion of some secret sauce. It doesn't exist. The DF of an amp does not define anything, nor does the minimum impedance of a speaker. These factors are not predictive of anything.
And why haven't speaker and amp designers, who are ALL far more talented than the OP, come up with such "calculations" or "standard guidelines?" Because there would be no value. |
