Good, Neutral, Reasonably Priced Cables?

"In other words, does 'minimizing skin effect' actually mean 'maximizing skin propagation'?

Tommy: That's a GREAT summary. Only thing to remember is, you've got to have enough "skin" or "surface area" to keep the series resistance low. On top of that, the geometry of each "skin" used, the spacing between the skins and the dielectric used also dictates the nominal impedance and how lossy the cable is, so all of that is important too. Like i said over in the AA thread, it's the only design that takes ALL of these factors into consideration in an even fashion. Many designs try to stress specific attributes of proper electrical design, but they neglect other aspects of signal propagation, resulting in a cable that has various strengths and weaknesses. This is the only product that attempts to do all of them in an even-handed fashion, resulting in the most cohesive package possible. That's why the test results at Audioholics showed what they did. Even the "generic", "copy-cat" or "cloned" versions of Goertz ( like Electro-Fluidics ) don't get everything right. Sean
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Now is the time for Robert Schult to step in...

Clear your head of that caffeine/nicotine overdose and show them what *you* have, Robert. Since my two week fasting my mind is very clear and I've been giving psychic healing prescriptions. I have one for you, too!

Bupleurum Liver Cleanser by Planetary Formulas--follow the label instructions. This is a five day modified fast: distilled water with lemon juice, watermelon (in season!) and chamomille tea before bedtime. No cigarrettes, no coffee. Sleep with a small white quartz on a necklace and recite these words before going to bed:

Porque yo...soy la fama
Soy aquél que la gente reclama
Y nadie me puede comprender.

It will get worse before it gets better. Call me if you need help.

***

Tommy: One more thing about the Magnan's that you linked to. That is, they appear to use the flat ribbon design but then make additional connections to a different type of conductor for termination at each end of the cable. This means for a standard pair of speaker cables, you've now got a connection from the binding post to the spade, from the spade to the "round" wire, from the round wire to the foil, from the foil to the round wire, from the round wire to the spade and from the spade to the amp. Now you've got the same thing for the other polarity. Compare those 24 ( !!! ) connections per stereo pair of speaker cables and the overall design of the cable to Goertz and see what you get.

First of all, the Goertz connects the ribbon to the spade directly. Secondly, the lack of connections maintains a more pure path / consistent path for the signal to be carried upon. Thirdly, there's only one type of conductor used per polarity, so there's no reduction of the benefits that we worked so hard to achieve in terms of trying to minimize skin effect. As far as the total connection count for a pair of Goertz flat cables, you've got the connection from the binding post to the spade, the spade to the ribbon, the ribbon to the spade and the spade to the amp's binding post. This is 16 connections per stereo pair. This results in a 33% reduction in connections as compared to the Magnan's, let alone retaining a higher level of signal integrity / signal path.

To be fair though, some folks consider ANY connection as being one too many. As such, they try to reduce the number of connections to as few as possible. As such, it would be possible to use bare Goertz ( that was stripped of its' insulation" and tie it directly to each binding post. This would result in two connections per polarity, for a total of 8 connections per stereo pair. This would result in a 50% reduction of connections compared to using spades with the Goertz or a 66% reduction compared to the Magnan's. I say this because i really don't think that you could safely use the Magnan's by directly connecting their very thin and fragile ribbon directly to the binding posts without tearing them apart / ripping the foil.

Like i said before, there's a lot of good ideas, but some ideas are implimented better / in a more practical manner than others. Sean
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Rooze: To make things easier on you, here's a link to a thread where i made my most recent mention of Magnan interconnects. It can be found in a thread entitled IC Advice Needed.

Psychic: Send him on over, along with all of the other manufacturers that want to join in. Since they didn't want to try and refute the facts over at AA when i first detailed all of this, they can come for a "swim" now. The water feels fine and there's actually some technical specifications provided by a third party that we can use for reference material. We can see just how much snake oil / misinformation one can fit into a thread and at the same time, see who can lie through their teeth without smiling or giving themselves away. Somehow, i get the feeling that there are VERY few cable manufacturers that would be afraid to enter even the shallow end of this "pool". If they do, they better bring their "inflatable water wings" like young ones use before they really swim. You might also want to let them know that this "pool" has sharks in it : ) Sean
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PS... How does one deal with the oxidation of a conductor when using a natural "non-sealed" type of dielectric? After all, oxygen is allowed to flow through a cloth fiber, which in turn oxidizes the conductor. Oxidation causes corrosion and pitting of the surface, resulting in increased skin effect, impedance bumps, irregular signal paths and higher resistance. Since this will take place over the entire length of the conductor due to a lack of dielectric protection, you've now got an entire length of potential signal variations.

The way to get around this is to use both the highest grade of dielectric that acts as a protective barrier AND the least amount of it. Yes, there may be a minute amount of signal degradation that takes place due to miniscule amounts of DA ( Dielectric Absorption ), but at least you've got a consistent conductor that is good for long term use that doesn't require constant maintenance due to corrosion.

For sake of comparison to other designs, the Goertz flat conductors have a very fine layer of dielectric plated directly onto the conductor and then another very thin film-like jacket over that to hold the two conductors together. The latest versions make use of Teflon, which is a material that has the lowest DA of any material known to man. Audioholics tested the older version, so the results may be even better with the current Goertz speaker cables due to the use of higher grade dielectric materials.

Sean, et al, thanks for the great info. (Sean, are you sure you only spend 15 minutes a day on Audiogon?)

Earlier, I made a comment that:
"MANY cables may sound neutral in one system but not another; ALL cables will influence their systems to some degree; SOME cables may sound neutral in most systems."

Does this make sense? It appears that the Goertz hits the last point pretty solidly.

By the way, to the earlier question about pc's affects on components with good power supplies -- I've tried three different pc's on my Sierra Olympias with no discernable affect on the sound. Even though the tranformer is torroidal, the power supply is absolutely massive (4+kva) and further bolstered by large caps at each output device. It may not be as elegant as what Sean describes, but it seems pretty pc neutral.