Speaker wire differences- interesting read

[highfigh]

I was looking for some info about Nelson Pass (which I never really found once I got side tracked) and found some interesting articles. One was about speaker cables and how they can differ. Just something to gnaw on, not start a bottle rocket fight.

http://www.passlabs.com/pdf/articles/spkrcabl.pdf

 

[Shivers]

Link doesn't seem to work for me, I get an error.

 

[highfigh]

Link doesn't seem to work for me, I get an error.

It worked for me but it's too long to post here.

 

[lsiberian]

Interesting.

It seems the higher frequencies seem to curve up in resistance on the wire. which is reasonable,

 

[highfigh]

Interesting.

It seems the higher frequencies seem to curve up in resistance on the wire. which is reasonable,

That higher impedance to highs is inductance, which was really high in some of them. Also, a reasonable cause of some cables being called subjectively brighter than others.

First chance I get, I'm going to measure the impedance and inductance of my speaker wires with my Parts Express WT3. It has a resistance calibration and test lead calibration, as well as measuring inductance of the voice coil anyway, so I have to think it'll work for this. I'll report back when I get the results.

 

[jostenmeat]

I was looking for some info about Nelson Pass (which I never really found once I got side tracked) and found some interesting articles. One was about speaker cables and how they can differ. Just something to gnaw on, not start a bottle rocket fight.

http://www.passlabs.com/pdf/articles/spkrcabl.pdf

It seems I am running into this guy's products and articles more often these days. I just learned about the DIY preamp B1 kit . . .

I find that the noted results with the electrostats to be particularly interesting. While I know impedance input/output ought to be considered between electronics, I never thought about the wire's impact. He had to use 24 gauge not to trip the amp's protection circuitry!? Wild.

 

[highfigh]

I connected my right speaker wire to the TW3 and I may need to clip the ends off and re-test. They have been out in the open for a long time and just re-making the connection changes the results. Re=.5409Ω and Le=.0178mH, total. I noticed that when the TV is on, I get totally different graphs, with a lot of noise.

I also tested the right channel with the speaker connected and found that the reason they sound as good as they do is because of a collection of happy accidents. The impedance graph looks terrible, but the phase plot is great. The replacement woofers I used, supposedly with parameters that are similar to the original Peerless TO-165, aren't even close. The port tuning and the Fb are clearly not where they should be, either.

Looks bad, sounds good. Oh, well. Time to re-do some things.

 

[mtrycrafts]

That higher impedance to highs is inductance, which was really high in some of them. Also, a reasonable cause of some cables being called subjectively brighter than others.

First chance I get, I'm going to measure the impedance and inductance of my speaker wires with my Parts Express WT3. It has a resistance calibration and test lead calibration, as well as measuring inductance of the voice coil anyway, so I have to think it'll work for this. I'll report back when I get the results.

That impedance curve went out to 100kHz, I think.
And, what one needs to see is the actual FR drop due to that cable compared to another and is that FR drop in dB high enough to go over the JND thresholds at the higher frequencies? I posit that it is not high enough in most cases, especially when you use 16 ga and larger.

Fred Davis has a paper on that aspect. It may still be available on the net as it has been floating around.

 

[highfigh]

That impedance curve went out to 100kHz, I think.
And, what one needs to see is the actual FR drop due to that cable compared to another and is that FR drop in dB high enough to go over the JND thresholds at the higher frequencies? I posit that it is not high enough in most cases, especially when you use 16 ga and larger.

Fred Davis has a paper on that aspect. It may still be available on the net as it has been floating around.

It goes to 100K but three of the cables started losing high frequencies around 100Hz with one starting below that, but the effect on all three starting to rise below 1KHz and that would definitely be audible. 18ga performed better than all three and one was Monster Cable. Obviously, if the inductance causes frequency response deterioration above the range of human hearing, it doesn't matter but three of them clearly did and that's why I made the comment about one cable being subjectively brighter than another.