NHT and Audioquest cables

[chris357]

Good Choice! Try one of these two companies :

http://www.monoprice.com/products/department.asp?c_id=102

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/

Actually I have bought most all of my cable form cable solutions www.cs1.net and have been very happy. They are very similar to BJC in fact they sell Canare cable with similar pricing. I have recently tried BJC and monoprice for some other stuff and been pleased so far.

 

[jinjuku]

I dunno, there are a lot of polksters that absolutely love their AQ and Kimber Kable.

I wouldn't know since cable manufactures won't allow you to demo their product. I think it's funny the companies like Axiom and Emotiva will give you 30 days in home for a fairly large to ship product but you can't get the same demo for some seriously expensive IC's that would fit in a flat rate mailer.

 

[mtrycrafts]

....I'll take a Dos Equis

They don't ship that that far north, do they?

 

[highfigh]

Actually Cobalt cables are over priced!

Many discussions of cables in the past on Audioholcs, but the bottom line is that copper is copper and there are very few qualities that can be changed.

The qualities that affect audio : resistance and end connectors.

Resistance: normally, 14 gauge wire will handle any speaker run up to 50ft. Many people use 12 or even 10 gauge wire but that is overkill.

Connectors: are a moot point unless you have a very cheap cable or broken connections or connectors not securely and eletrically fastened: example: cold solder joint, improperly tightened banana plug, etc. If you are making your own, tin bare wire or use locking banana connectors. Make sure you don't have any stray braided wire whiskers.

Excellent, quality, inexpensive cables can be purchased at Monoprice.com or if you want to spend a little more, then bluejeanscables.com

Or if you are frugal, you can make your own quality cables with ANY 14 gauge two-pair wire and locking banana connectors.

Spend your money on speakers, not cables!
=============

To make your overpriced list complete, add the Pear Cable pearcable.com and their flagship the ANJOU speaker cable. Pear reports that these cables “allow new levels of sonic accuracy to be explored.” Supposedly, this exploration is accomplished by “proprietary hybrid geometry,” “ultra low electrical reactance” and “fully annealed 99.999% pure oxygen free Copper.”

But with these expensive audio cables you approach the realm of audio listening that only an expert in pyschoacoustics could even attempt to address.


Peace at 186,200 miles per second - electron speed ( and also light speed ) ,

Forest Man

Actually, dielectric material, diameter and distance from the conductor to the shield make a difference but not as much in the audible spectrum. These are the reason cable TV and satellite use RG-6 instead of RG-59, like cable did in the beginning. However, the claims made by the companies selling this stuff are preposterous. When most companies are telling us that heavier is better, AudioQuest comes up with a crimpless connector that's supposed to be put on audio/video cable with a 24AWG center conductor that so flexible it's like pushing Silly String.

I already had someone correct me about electron speed in cabling when I mentioned it in the 'speaker cabling being equal length for all channels'- apparently, it's not the same as the speed of light.

 

[highfigh]

They don't ship that that far north, do they?

They have to- we're all in NAFTA.

 

[Wannabubble]

They don't ship that that far north, do they?

I'm in Kansas! It's only half way up!

 

[njedpx3]

a good explanation of the speed of electricity in cables from Archis Gore a professor

...I already had someone correct me about electron speed in cabling when I mentioned it in the 'speaker cabling being equal length for all channels'- apparently, it's not the same as the speed of light.

Part 1

Summary from article = The Speed of Electricity

every electron in the wire must move 0.37455 cm each second according to Archis Gore's explanation following and the speed of light is 299,792,458 m per second exact.

So based on Archis Gore's analysis below elecricity flow at 1.2493 e-11times the speed of light.

Especially read the end explanation I high lighted in red

==========
The Speed of Electricity


I have always noticed how many of our students are ignorant on the very basis of what science is. There are people who know a lot about a lot but are totally ignorant on very basic issues. The educational system is partly a reason for this and the lack of student’s curiosity is the other.



Currently trends are towards increasing creativity amongst students. But what we lack is curiosity. Before creativity, there must be curiosity. There must be a motivation to know something just for the sake of it.



The concept of the speed of electricity is a very common example that I use to confuse many of my peers. And many people are surprised of how totally distant their guesses are from my estimates. During this article, we shall try to calculate the speed of electricity ourselves to get a general idea of the order of magnitude.



I am going to ask you to do something that I always ask all the people to whom I explain this concept. Please try to make an estimate of the speed of electricity after you have read the specifications of the system described below. This estimate must be made orally and just an order of magnitude would be fine. Many answers that I generally get to this question is the speed of light. Some even go on to comment that since they have learned that the speed of light is the absolute limit to how fast anything can travel, they are stopping short of naming a higher value.



I must comment that the speed of electricity is a very subjective issue based on the current, conduction and resistance of the circuit. So I am considering the following well defined system.



Let us consider a common light bulb working on DC (direct current, this will simplify calculations). Let us assume the household voltage of 250 volts, and a standard copper wire of radius 1mm connecting the bulb serially to the voltage source. Assume also, that the bulb consumes 40 watts of power. This rating is decided by the manufacturing company considering the resistance of the bulb and the voltage that is going to be applied to it. This eliminates the need for us to know the resistance of the bulb. Let us assume for the sake of convenience that the copper wire has zero resistance (this will in fact give us a higher estimate for the speed of our electrons).



Now let us first clearly define the speed of electricity that we mean. We shall try to estimate the average distance covered by an electron in the wire in one second when the entire circuit is closed.



First lets calculate the total current that will flow through the bulb. Since we have a voltage of 250 volts and a wattage of 40 watts, the current should be equal to power/voltage=40/250=0.16A.



Now lets divert to another angle. Let us consider a 1cm long segment of the wire used in our circuit. We shall try to estimate the total charge that that segment of wire holds at any instant. We can find the volume of the segment as follows:



Volume=P * r2 * l



Where r is the radius of the wire and l is the length of the segment.

Hence, the volume comes out to be (in cubic metres):



Volume=3.14 * (0.001)2 * (0.01) = 3.14 * 10-6 * 10-2 = 3.14 * 10-8 cubic metres



Now we consider the average number of atoms of copper that this segment of wire must be holding. The density of copper is 8.96 kilograms per cubic metre and its atomic weight is 63.546. Atomic number of copper is 29 which we will require later on in our calculations.



Hence our segment of wire weighs approximately:

Mass=3.14 * 10-8 * 8.96 kilograms = 2.81344 * 10-7 kilograms = 2.81344 * 10-4 grams



Generally 1 atomic mass unit = 1.6603 * 10-24 grams. Since the atomic weight of copper is 63.546, the weight of one atom of copper in grams is given by:



Weight of 1 atom of copper = (1.6603 * 10-24 * 63.546 ) grams = 105.5054238 * 10-24 g

= 1.055054238 * 10-25 kg



Now, we must find out how many atoms of copper are crammer up into 2.81344 * 10-7 kg of copper. We simply divide the total weight of the copper segment by the weight of an individual atom of copper as follows:



Number of copper atoms in segment=2.81344*10-7/1.055054238*10-25 = 2.66663 * 1018



Just to be sure, we shall calculate the same using a different approach. Avogadro’s number gives us the number of molecules (in case of copper, the number of atoms) of a specific substance contained in one gram-mole (molecular weight in grams) of that substance. Hence, one gram mole of copper should contain 6.0221367 * 1023 atoms. The molecular weight of copper being 63.546, one gram-mole of copper is 63.546 grams. Now using some middle school algebra, knowing that 63.546 grams of copper contains 6.0221367 * 1023 atoms, we can easily calculate the number of atoms in 2.81344 * 10-7 kilograms (equivalent to 2.81344 * 10-4 grams) of copper. The calculations are shown below:



63.546 grams : 6.0221367 * 1023 atoms

2.81344 * 10-4 grams : ? atoms



x=6.0221367 * 1023 * 2.81344 * 10-4 / 63.546 = 0.2666245 * 1019 atoms

= 2.666245 * 1018 atoms



This matches our estimate and hence we are probably on the right track. We shall now find the average between the two values and consider that average as the number of atoms of copper contained in our segment of wire of radius 1mm and length 1cm. Hence,



Average number of copper atoms in segment are = 2.6664375 * 1018





One atom of copper contains 29 electrons since its atomic number is twenty-nine. Now we know that not all electrons in an atom are free to move while conducting current. This is the part on which I am unsure and am making a safe assumption. The electron configuration of copper is 2-8-18-1. I will assume that only one electron per atom is allowed to move since only one electron is present in the valence band (outer most band). This is actually a more complicated matter involving primary and secondary quantum numbers and sub-orbitals of equal energy and so on but we shall do away with all this. If in fact more electrons are allowed to move in an atom, then our calculations will give a higher value than the actual value. So our value will be a very safe estimate.



Now since the charge on each electron is 1.6021892 * 10-19 coulomb, an atom of copper will carry movable charge equivalent to:



Movable charge on copper atom=1.6021892 * 10-19 coulomb



The charge on the segment of wire under consideration is:



Charge on segment = number of atoms in segment * charge on each atom



= 2.6664375 * 1018 * 1.6021892 * 10-19 C

= 4.272137364975 * 10-1 C

 

[njedpx3]

Part2 -explanation of speed of electricity by Archis Gore

Part 2


Please note that due to our consideration of only one movable electron, this value of available charge is lower than the actual value. However, please remember that whatever value we calculate for our speed of electricity will be reduced drastically if the actual number of movable electrons turn out to be higher than my assumption.



Now since the current through the bulb is 0.16 A, it means that 0.16 C of charge is traveling through any cross-section of wire at one second. Now we shall calculate how long a wire we require so that it will hold 0.16 coulombs of charge.



This is done as follows:



This is a simple technique learnt in grade school to find out how much 5 mangoes will cost if we know that 7 mangoes cost 35 rupees.



1 cm of wire : 4.272137364975 * 10-1 C

x cm of wire : 0.16 C



Therefore, x= 0.16 / (4.271828943554 * 10-1) = 0.037455 * 10 cm

= 0.37455 cm



For this discussion consider a segment of wire of length = 0.37455 cm. Now since this length of wire holds 0.16 C of charge, it means that when the wire is conducting current and all the electrons at any given instant in the wire go out of one end and new ones enter through the other, we can say that the wire has conducted 0.16 coulombs of charge. Now if this conduction takes place in a second, we can say that the wire has conducted current at the rate of 0.16 A. This means that when the electron on the atom situated at the extreme one end of this segment must completely move to the other end in one second in order for the wire to carry a current of 0.16 A.



Since the wire in our hypothetical scenario is carrying 0.16 A of current, it means that every electron in the wire must move 0.37455 cm each second in order to satisfy the scenario. Let us consider the speed of electricity in the defined system to be approximately 0.4 cm/sec allowing a large margin of error in our calculations which might have made it slower than usual. This means that it would take slightly more than four minutes for each electron to even move one meter. Please note that we have considered a very thin wire in this example and have also made liberal allowances in our calculations. In reality, the speed of electrons is even slower.



This surprises even the geniuses of our schools. Now we can retrospectively analyze why many people think of electricity as having an almost infinite speed even though it is really slower than an old snail.



The process of conducting any scientific experiment involves the following essential steps – observation, conclusion and result. Now in case of the experiment mentioned above, both the steps of the observation and result are perfectly logical, however, it is the conclusion drawn from the observation which makes the result go wrong. When we switch on a light bulb, we instantly see light on our floor. The conclusion most people unconsciously arrive at is that the electricity has traveled from the switch to the bulb in the time it has taken the bulb to light up. In a manner of speaking, this is true since the speed of electricity can be thought of as the speed with which an action performed at one place can produce the intended effect at another place. And that is why I explicitly defined the speed of electricity as the displacement per unit time of an electron in the conducting material at the beginning of this article.



Well, if electricity doesn’t travel from the switch to the bulb in such a short time, then how does the bulb light up so quickly? The reason is that electricity is already in the bulb and doesn’t need to “travel” from the switch to the bulb. Electricity or rather electrons are present throughout the conductor. What we really do when we turn on the switch is push the electrons near the switch very slowly. These electrons in turn push their forerunners and so on until the electrons present in the bulb start moving. This is what gives us the illusion that electricity has traveled very fast from the switch to the light bulb.


A good analogy to explain this phenomenon is to consider an apartment building having a height of 30 feet. There is a water tank on top of the building which is filled. Whenever anyone on the ground floor opens their tap, water instantly rushes out of the tap. Does this mean that the water travels more than 30 feet per second through the pipe? It would be a motorists dream to travel at such speeds!



As an end note, I would like to comment that there are so many other such simple secrets in our life which if unlocked will improve our understanding and thinking to greater levels.





Archis Gore,

TY BSc. (C.S.)

 

[jinjuku]

Thanks.
I just can't swallow their claims and prices. Let's say I'd get over the snake oil if they were priced decently but these guys (AudioQuest) are shameless - you can buy 20k$ cable from them !!! Decently priced speakers sold buy NHT will NOT be paired with 800$ cables from AQ. My 2c

I wouldn't mind so much, but AQ doesn't put their $$ where there mouth is. They have ZERO free trial and a VERY steep 20% restock fee (plus shipping).

I know Signal Cable and Sonic Horizon (Shotgun cables) have 30 day trial policies. This is standing behind your product and with nothing to lose I say have a friend over to help you blind A/B them.

 

[highfigh]

Part 1

Summary from article = The Speed of Electricity

every electron in the wire must move 0.37455 cm each second according to Archis Gore's explanation following and the speed of light is 299,792,458 m per second exact.

So based on Archis Gore's analysis below elecricity flow at 1.2493 e-11times the speed of light.

Especially read the end explanation I high lighted in red

==========
The Speed of Electricity
Let us consider a common light bulb working on DC (direct current, this will simplify calculations). Let us assume the household voltage of 250 volts, and a standard copper wire of radius 1mm connecting the bulb serially to the voltage source. Assume also, that the bulb consumes 40 watts of power. This rating is decided by the manufacturing company considering the resistance of the bulb and the voltage that is going to be applied to it. This eliminates the need for us to know the resistance of the bulb. Let us assume for the sake of convenience that the copper wire has zero resistance (this will in fact give us a higher estimate for the speed of our electrons).
Now let us first clearly define the speed of electricity that we mean. We shall try to estimate the average distance covered by an electron in the wire in one second when the entire circuit is closed.
First lets calculate the total current that will flow through the bulb. Since we have a voltage of 250 volts and a wattage of 40 watts, the current should be equal to power/voltage=40/250=0.16A.
Now lets divert to another angle. Let us consider a 1cm long segment of the wire used in our circuit. We shall try to estimate the total charge that that segment of wire holds at any instant. We can find the volume of the segment as follows:

This matches our estimate and hence we are probably on the right track. We shall now find the average between the two values and consider that average as the number of atoms of copper contained in our segment of wire of radius 1mm and length 1cm.
This is actually a more complicated matter involving primary and secondary quantum numbers and sub-orbitals of equal energy and so on but we shall do away with all this. If in fact more electrons are allowed to move in an atom, then our calculations will give a higher value than the actual value. So our value will be a very safe estimate.
Now since the charge on each electron is 1.6021892 * 10-19 coulomb, an atom of copper will carry movable charge equivalent to:
Movable charge on copper atom=1.6021892 * 10-19 coulomb
The charge on the segment of wire under consideration is:
Charge on segment = number of atoms in segment * charge on each atom
= 2.6664375 * 1018 * 1.6021892 * 10-19 C= 4.272137364975 * 10-1 C

"Archis Gore a Professor"-a professor of what?

First, if Archis Gore is this person, http://www.geocities.com/archisgore/, there's nothing in his bio or resume that suggests that he actually knows how fast electrons move, he admits that his grades weren't good and agrees that he's a bit of a failure. I have found nothing to suggest that he's a professor. He's employed by Microsoft as a development engineer and that doesn't require the science needed for his attempt at an explanation of the speed of electron flow in copper wire.
http://www.geocities.com/archisgore/

He is also very wrong when he showed the density of copper and anyone who has held a roll of pennies knows that it's heavier than 8.9 kg/m³. It's actually 8.9g/cm¯³, which means that it's 8.9kg/LITER³, not METER³. That's a huge difference.

Here's something that completely disagrees with him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity

Second, if the electrons idle along at about 3mm/sec, how does wire or any other conductor become hot enough to melt? If we're dealing with DC, it can't have anything to do with frequency and if they're creating that much heat, they must be under extreme pressure, which isn't really possible with a small battery, is it? That being the case, how is it possible to connect a wire from the positive terminal to the negative terminal of a AA battery and cause the wire to get so hot that it will melt the insulation and burn fingers? That's DC and while his explanation of electricity being that "it's already there, like water from the tap from a tank on a 30' high building", if he had any formal physics training, he would have said that electrical voltage is potential energy. In that sense, he's correct.

The electrons may not need to move far, but they do need to move fast in order to do any work. If Ke=1/2MV², they had better be moving incredibly fast if the energy will reach any kind of useful level. The lag from having to accelerate and decelerate so rapidly would negate any work they could do at his speed.

I went to an engineering school and while it wasn't for electronics, we still had lots of physics and some electrical classes. I know a lot of electrical engineers and people in electronic communications and as long as I have been exposed to info about electricity, the speed used for electrical design has been extremely fast. His explanation also has nothing to do with audio since he was working with DC voltage, too.

How can the resistance in the wire be assumed to equal zero? Any voltage applied would cause the wattage to approach infinity (P=E²/R), not 40W. The only way around this is to place a resistor in series with the element and in that case, the resistor would dissipate the heat, not the element.

 

[zhimbo]

The problem is that "the speed of electricity" is open to (mis?)interpretation. The actual electrons due indeed only move a few mm/sec - in that sense, Highfigh's wikipedia link is in perfect agreement with "Archis Gore".

("When a DC voltage is applied the electrons will increase in speed proportional to the strength of the electric field. These speeds are on the order of millimeters per second. "; the article's link for AC current says the speeds are the same in AC situations)

The propagation of the electromagnetic wave, on the other hand, is very fast.

When you're stuck in a line of traffic, and one car creeps up a little, a wave travels backwards that eventually ends at the end of the line. The individual cars are moving at a different speed in the opposite direction. The travel of the wave and the travel of the medium of the wave can be very, very different.

 

[Boerd]

I wouldn't mind so much, but AQ doesn't put their $$ where there mouth is. They have ZERO free trial and a VERY steep 20% restock fee (plus shipping).

I know Signal Cable and Sonic Horizon (Shotgun cables) have 30 day trial policies. This is standing behind your product and with nothing to lose I say have a friend over to help you blind A/B them.

Funny you'd say that - imagine the face expression of somebody A/B-ing BJC (or Signal Cable or Sonic Horizon) against AudioSnake (AudioQuest) - "What ??? I can't posibly hear the difference and one cost 10 times (or more) than the other???"
I also do not agree with buying audio stuff for the "cool" factor. You want a status symbol? Buy an expensive car or even better an expensive house and nice furniture; electronics do not qualify as status symbol IMHO...

 

[JerryLove]

Second, if the electrons idle along at about 3mm/sec

Then when I flip my light switch, which has about 20ft of cabling between it and the first of four lights it controls, I will have to wait about 200 seconds for the first light to come on.

It takes very little real-world experience to determine that his number is wrong.

The fact that I need to introduce an artificial delay into my rear speakers also tells me that electricity is faster than sound.

 

[njedpx3]

Then when I flip my light switch, which has about 20ft of cabling between it and the first of four lights it controls, I will have to wait about 200 seconds for the first light to come on.

It takes very little real-world experience to determine that his number is wrong.

The fact that I need to introduce an artificial delay into my rear speakers also tells me that electricity is faster than sound.

Each electron only jumps to the valence bond of the next molecule so 3mm /second between modules is pretty fast That is why I said read the highlighted red in part 2

Later,

Forest Man

 

[chris357]

Funny you'd say that - imagine the face expression of somebody A/B-ing BJC (or Signal Cable or Sonic Horizon) against AudioSnake (AudioQuest) - "What ??? I can't posibly hear the difference and one cost 10 times (or more) than the other???"
I also do not agree with buying audio stuff for the "cool" factor. You want a status symbol? Buy an expensive car or even better an expensive house and nice furniture; electronics do not qualify as status symbol IMHO...

i cant afford a "cool" house, or a "cool" car but I can scrap together a bad *** home theater/stereo system and if I want to spend a few extra bucks on cool looking cables then thats a pretty low cost item in the over all sceme of things. mind you I buy budget cool cables

but if I didnt have my bad *** stereo stuff I might have a cooler car

 

[JerryLove]

Each electron only jumps to the valence bond of the next molecule so 3mm /second between modules is pretty fast That is why I said read the highlighted red in part 2

I think part 2 might have not been posted when I started typing... that or I had a complete brain failure (because I saw the "read in red" instruction, but not the highlighted part).

Zhimbo seems to have already written the rest of what I thought.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I would rather see NHT sell AudioQuest cables than see NHT bankrupted.

Times are hard.

NHT has made excellent speakers in the past, and I don't mind seeing them sell AudioQuest cables.

On another note: just because Denon sells a $500 Ethernet cable does not mean that Denon is a bad company with bad products and they are not to be trusted.

 

[chris357]

I would rather see NHT sell AudioQuest cables than see NHT bankrupted.

Times are hard.

NHT has made excellent speakers in the past, and I don't mind seeing them sell AudioQuest cables.

On another note: just because Denon sells a $500 Ethernet cable does not mean that Denon is a bad company with bad products and they are not to be trusted.

amen brother

 

[Boerd]

i cant afford a "cool" house, or a "cool" car but I can scrap together a bad *** home theater/stereo system and if I want to spend a few extra bucks on cool looking cables then thats a pretty low cost item in the over all sceme of things. mind you I buy budget cool cables

but if I didnt have my bad *** stereo stuff I might have a cooler car

Budget cool cables (magic word budget) - yes! that is coool!
I've done some "not so smart" speaker/amp/sub buying myself (see my signature, the "old" setup); at least I can say I didn't bite for cables ... Like you said: "If I didn't make those purchases I'd have a nicer car (or slightly lower mortgage) "

 

[jostenmeat]

I would rather see NHT sell AudioQuest cables than see NHT bankrupted.

Times are hard.

NHT has made excellent speakers in the past, and I don't mind seeing them sell AudioQuest cables.

On another note: just because Denon sells a $500 Ethernet cable does not mean that Denon is a bad company with bad products and they are not to be trusted.

Outlaw Audio also has a good reputation, one that is also value oriented in general, but they also sell cables that are over-priced, and have done so for a while. A pair of the shortest interconnects, or the shortest HDMI cable, are both $50. Price just goes up from there. A lot of companies want a piece of the pie.

http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/cables.html