Speaker wire is it science or psychology


I have had the pleasure of working with several audio design engineers. Audio has been both a hobby and occupation for them. I know the engineer that taught Bob Carver how a transistor works. He keeps a file on silly HiFi fads. He like my other friends considers exotic speaker wire to be non-sense. What do you think? Does anyone have any nummeric or even theoretical information that defends the position that speaker wires sound different? I'm talking real science not just saying buzz words like dialectric, skin effect capacitance or inductance.
stevemj
Steve, your posts have been popping up on this subject alot lately. Are you on a crusade? I am suspicious of anyone who only talks about one topic on these threads. Your ONLY topic seems to be wires and I'm guessing that you just want to exercise your debating skills. Well, whatever you think, I CAN hear a difference between power cables, speaker wires, and interconnects. Maybe you and your friends systems or ears just aren't as good as mine (and many others)?
Inductance and capacitance are not buzz words. They are real characteristics of conductors, and they can affect the signal enough to be audible. It is trivially easy to design a cable that is audibly distinguishable from generic copper wire. Whether one would want to do so is another matter, which may explain your friends' skepticism on the matter. I hope they're more informed than you, however.
Jim - LOL you are correct, of course. My neighbor is a shrink, however, and has expressed opinions to the contrary :-)
Cables are in series with any two components they connect. Any component in series with the music affects the music. Whether we choose to accept it or not. Cables vary in resistance, impedence, capacitance, inductance, etc. Would you say I was crazy if I said that a WonderCap sounded better in a preamp than a cheap electrolytic? I think not. Cables vary greatly in wire guage, composition, geometry, and whether the wire making it up is stranded, solid core, round, flat, oval, etc. I was once a person who thought that cables could not make as much difference as most people portray. Especially, power cords. I stand before you today saying that cables do sound different. That they do make a difference in whether a system sounds its best, or far from its best. I may also be the one person here who gets into the most arguments over whether expensive cables justify their prices. But, to say that all wire sounds the same suggests that one has not tried much in the way of wire.