Copper foil

Rather than explore relevant Bessel functions & Maxwell equations in a non-technical forum, I suggest that doubters spend $100 at McMaster-Carr for some electronics-grade copper of equivalent gauges in both formats & experiment. You will be surprised.

Regalma1 Wrote:

I speak as someone who works in the GHz range.

Others are probably speaking as someone who listens to music.

Cheers!
Robert
RSAD

I went from solid cord to ribbon. There is no looking back. Dynamics, depth, detail, and separation have never been better.

I did the ribbon experiment. It was a fun go at it. I made 4 inch cables & 2 inch cables. The 2 inch were 0.005 thickness while the 4 inch were 0.007 thickness. The 2 inch had beautiful highs but lacked bass in my system. I then tried again. The 4 inch had too much bass and no highs. While inductance is a major concern for speaker cables and this is solved by separating the positive & negative cables by about 2 inches (or you can tune to taste), the foils on the floor will have a capacitance with the floor if not well insulated. This has been my results. I would suggest 2 inch with 0.007 if you want something that is as good as almost anything in the 5K range. But the best speaker cables are significantlly better. It depends how resolving your system is and how much top & bottom end extension you have.

I do have 1/2 inch foils for interconnects. They are very impressive. Again the best is better, but the foils are very impressive. The best designers recognize how the dielectric stores energy and is truly what breaks in. Audioquest & Tara take this approach. They have different ways of working around it. I also think Synergistic Tesla might also have a related approach. I am by no means an electrical engineer (although I took some courses years ago) but did consult with one in analyzing why certain cables failed in differet areas. Lifting the foils of the floor was his immediate recommendation and it helped a lot but not enough for my taste. I didn't want to listen to my system as I felt that everything was muddied do to excessive bass. This has since been rectified.

To relay a story about 20 years old;

I had a proffesor at Berkeley in Material Science while studying Civil Engineering. He was a hot shot from Texas. They would call him in to analyze electrical malfunctions etc in plane wrecks etc. He new his stuff. I went up to him and asked him why different cables cost more & what the differences are.

His simple answer was (w. a Texas accent)"Heck I don't know, but I just bought that MIT stuff because it sounds better". I think there is more to be said for trial & error than science on early cable design. By now, I think we have come a long way. I can easily hear the difference between my older cables and newer designs.

I do want to experiment w. the Furutech Demag on some of my older cables. I have a feeling Demaging the dielectric might lead to sonic gains.

Dgad, yours is a thoughtful, and educated response. Thank you.

My ribbons dangle in the air. Having never heard them lying on the floor, I will take your word it isn't recommended. I know Speltz warns of the same thing on his almost naked wires.

I had a Tesla on my system for an audition. We were comparing it to a Speltz IC. There was a difference, albeit small. The Tesla either sounded a bit cleaner, or it masked a bit of detail. If we had more time...

I have heard MIT on lots of systems. My prejudice tells me the systems sounded good despite the MITs.