J
jneutron
Senior Audioholic
For transmission line runs, where the impedance of the line is matched, you are entirely correct. Proper temination impedances allow for most power transfer. It is a technique that needs to be done even if the cables are shorter than a wavelength though, as the high speed slews still need the match.<font color='#000000'>Making a flat speaker cable out of ribbon cable to be 4 Ohms does not make sense. Sure, the cable and the load (speaker)will be matched, but the source (amp) impedance is a fraction of an Ohm. You still have an unmatched system. Furthermore, this impedance matching technique that is used at RF frequencies is done because interconnects are several wavelegths long. In low frequency Audio applications, the length from amp to speaker is a tiny fraction of wavelength. So you can assume that the cable is a lumped RLC element!
Or am I wrong?</font>
For speaker wires, an impedance match to the speaker will minimize the total energy stored within the wires..both elements of the line impedance, the inductance and capacitance, will show as lag elements in that storage...a matched load impedance will minimize that lag.
It does need to be shown that that storage, which is 90 degrees behind the signal, is significant enough to warrant concern. Of importance is the issue of how we lateralize soundstage...by slew, peak, zero crossing, or some other, yet undiscovered mechanism. Till that is understood, I see no valid reason to specify Mhz bw speaker cables....
The audiophile community has yet to even understand the issue of low microsecond timebase lags and the impact on soundstage...nevermind think about testing it. I do am somewhat heartened by the current round of papers and research being done w/r to surround sound and dipole wavefront technology...but I fear the equational relationships will remain IP for way too long..
The same, I have found, to be true with skin effect..the "Ap" community for the most part, does not even understand skin effect...I blame Hawksford's essex paper for a large part of that..that paper did a disservice to the Audiophile community by promoting erroneous methods, calculations, conclusions...and I see very little out there happening to dispel the garbage..I do see lots of web pages that promote the errors of the past, however..
Cheers, John
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