Speaker Cable Faceoff 2: Introduction & Measurements

[inmypjs]

Stay tuned for our detailed analysis, conclusions and recommendations....

Is this ever going to happen? I have been waiting so patiently!

 

[Wyngdh]

Speaker cable face-off

I read both face-offs (1 & 2). Currently I have 4 different types of cables running to my speakers (don't ask my what gauge, I'm still an audiophyte). All bi-wired - my impression, it provides better clarity in the sound, but I am a novice and use my ears to measure. The best of the lot are those wired to my front speakers (CableTalk bi-wire). Speaker configuration B&W 610i, 602S3, LCR60. Those in the know will immediately realise my migration from analogue to digital has been very recent. Being a bit of a geek, all my banana plus are about 7 years old, as is the CableTalk. The unknowns are the recent additions. Then I found Audioholics!

On reading the face-off and your $12K cable recommendations, I have decided to replace all my banana plugs with Dayton Audio and 12 GA Sound King Speaker wire. I am hoping that the migration will be audible. Shipping will take at least 3 weeks, so expect my take on the change then.

Anyone out there whose done the same?

 

[ht_addict]

In the article it stated that the AR Master 10AWG speaker wire has the highest Inductance due to the spacer. Would their be any benefit to removing the spacer or just folding the speaker wire so the two strands are closer together. Then use some of that poly sleeve to make everything neat.

ht_addict

 

[jaxvon]

Or you could just buy a different 10awg speaker cable that is made properly and save yourself the trouble, like the Belden 5T00UP or a roll of Sound King from Parts Express.

 

[ht_addict]

Or you could just buy a different 10awg speaker cable that is made properly and save yourself the trouble, like the Belden 5T00UP or a roll of Sound King from Parts Express.

And why would I want too when the poly sleeve would be cheaper? As far as specs go it seems to me that other than the inductance the AR are in the pack?

ht_addict

 

[Wyngdh]

Parts Express - they're not worth the punting! Take your business elsewhere

Last week I told you guys that I had decided to order sound King cable plus a fresh set of Dayton banana plugs to go with it.

From Parts Express. After all, their site states '5 easy steps to complete your web purchase'. Oh, and that despatch of the order is the 'same day'.

So I figured my order had left the premises Friday, 11 April. Wrong! Today I received an e-mail. They can't do international deliveries using credit cards if the bank is non-US. Hello! I thought the basic premise of a credit card was that it had its own 'clearing house' (Mastercard, Visa, Diners Club etc.)

Hey Audioholics. How many of you live outside of the USA?

Maybe it's time the Audioholics site chose advertisers who are willing to do so? I'm taking my business elsewhere.

 

[cem-bsee]

It is likely that the biggest influence is physical. eg: the distance between conductors, whether the individual insulated wires are parallel or stranded.

The Cat5 cables consist of 24awg solid copper wires insulated with pvc in twisted pairs, so the conductors are close together.

The Lowe’s cables seem to be 300v cord type which has the insulated conductors twisted | cabled together. The Lowe’s conductors are probably stranded, typically 19strands, of 0.0234inch diameter copper for 10awg, 0.0185 for 12awg; insulation thickness is probably 0.031 inches.

Computing the mutual inductance is based upon Maxwell’s equations of the late 1890s. The influence between cables ( mainly in duct banks ) was done by Miller in the 1930s. Mutual inductance is greatly influenced by physical geometry.

Capacitance will vary because of humidity, temperature, dielectrics, physical spacing: between conductors, conductors to a grounded plane, etc. try placing the cable on concrete, then on carpet on concrete, on a grounded metal table or plate, on a board on a plate, sandwiched under a board to hold the cable flat, sandwiched between 2 metal plates -- immerse part of the cable in grounded water--

All of the cords sold at retail have UL labels, especially if they are voltage rated. The manufacturer is identified by “ E________ number”. Cables will have embossed or printed ledgends with the cable type, maximum conductor temperature rating, usage code, eg: SOJ = service cord, oil resistant, junior. the junior designation equates to 300 volt rating due to the insulation thickness.

Cords, cables, and building wires are built for mechanical strength, as opposed to having good electrical characteristics. Remember that 3M Scotch 33+ pvc tape has 33 000 volt insulating strength since it is about 0.003 inches thick.

It would be interesting to have a cable made of cabled | twisted magnet wire which has thin insulation. If this looks promising, try shielding with conducting tape as used in making medium voltage cable splices -- from electrical distirbutor, maybe WWGrainger.

It would be interesting to have another cable made of coax cable with the shield connected as a conductor.

It would be interesting to have a cable made of small twisted pairs having shielding, then with the overall assembly having shielding= Belden1411R= 12pr or Belden1217B =12awg, low capacitance. Belden9718= zip style, 12awg, =65#30awg strands. This configuration would have more consistant conducting surfaces which should give more consistent capacitance. Perhaps the ultimate would be to have the individual conductors with a shield as well.

Re: one can strip phone wires with tough thumbnails. But there are many stripping tools available -- WWGranger has many, as does HOLSFELT.com.

 

[pikers]

I always forget the basic stuff. Hey, I'm an ME. At least you haven't thrown the square root of -1 at me!

Nerd humor.

When was the last time you were on a date with someone that weighs less than you?

 

[nibhaz]

You have no class!

Nerd humor.

When was the last time you were on a date with someone that weighs less than you?

Why don't you crawl back into the hole you came from! Your use of language suggests that you have at least risen above the primate level of evolution; there is even a hint of education. However your logic and reasoning skills place you some where in the dark ages of human history. Do you believe that rotting meat spontaneously produces maggots? I’m sorry if you spent a large sum of money on cables, and you want to justify your choices. You don’t want to feel like a dolt that has been fooled by clever marketing and years of disinformation no one does. But that doesn’t mean that you need to find every post in the forums that refer to cables and proceed to expunge your drivel.

I said good day sir…I SAID GOOD DAY!

 

[saint michael]

http://cygnus.ipal.org/mirror/www.passlabs.com/spkrcabl.htm

 

[buzzy]

On this page:
http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/interconnects/DIYSpeakerCablesp4.html

Shouldn't this read higher instead of lower? Both the rankings and the tests (R,L,C) seem to suggest that higher is better. For example, compare the Monster cable to the top line.

Editorial Note

The 1-10 scale ranks the overall score of the cable regarding technical and final rankings. The lower the #, the better the cable scored with respect to the test criteria, where the technical ranking is based solely on performance and the Final ranking also factors in value.

In any case, if it's meant to be helpful some editing might be useful. Something more like:

Editorial Note

With respect to the 1-10 scale used for the test criteria and the Ranking Numbers, the higher the #, the better the cable scored. With respect to the technical and final rankings, the lower the ranking, the better the cable scored. The technical ranking is based solely on performance; the Final ranking also factors in cost.

Also, I doubt it needs to be on that page twice.

 

[j_garcia]

So do the measured variances correlate to actual performance differences? Am I just missing this aspect of the comparison?

 

[Mudcat]

On this page:
Shouldn't this read higher instead of lower? Both the rankings and the tests (R,L,C) seem to suggest that higher is better. For example, compare the Monster cable to the top line.

The main reason that the factors for resistance, Inductance, and capacitance read from a high of ten down to a low of one is that I originally used an exponential curve that I set up for another project and wanted to use it on this project. The use of an exponential curve sort of created a greater seperation at the high (good) end and bunched things up at the low end. This method was developed in excel and was based on weighing various engineering design principles that I worry about when designing a ships propulsion plant (you know, gas turbines, diesel engines, gears, propellers, bearing, and shafts etc....). Anyway Gene, wanted to use a simpler linear method of generating each parameters rank factor. Gene won. But I kept the 10=high=good, 1=low=bad concept.

The reason the reason the "Technical Rank" and "Final Rank" are the opposite; 1=high=good, 10=low=bad, is human nature. People equate #1 with being #1. Plus is was a simple ranking procedure performed in excel. Plus it was easier (for me at least) to see that one particular cable was #1 out of 20 and another cable was #17 out of 20.

So do the measured variances correlate to actual performance differences? Am I just missing this aspect of the comparison?

That is something I am still working on.
Mathmaticaly, you can compare two cables and come up with a number. But to do this you need to know your speakers impedance at all frequencies, you need to know your amps output impedance at all frequencies. When connected, you would have a circuit that looks like Figure 1. Mathmatically, you can treat the cables capacitance and speaker impedance as a seperate parallel impedance and the amps output resistance along with the cables resistance and inductance as a seperate series circuit as shown in Figure 3. This makes it easier to solve.

My next phase is to actually compare and measure the entire circuit, amp/cable/speaker to see how they actually correlate to a mathmatically determined dB delta. To do this you need to have your speaker impedance plot and know the amps output resistance at specific frequencies (I'll be using an Alesis RA150 amp for everything).

I have the calibrated measurement mic (Earthworks M30), I have the sillyscopes (Instek GDS-840C 2 channel and Tektronix 2246 4 channel), I have the other equipment necessary (I hope) including a Metex 9170 multimeter/waveform generator, Instek LCR821 LCR meter, Instek GOM-802 milliohm meter, Fluke 189 handheld digital multimeter. Now I just have to measure several cables that have distinctly different resistances, inductances, anc capacitances at the octave center frequencies (i.e. 16, 20, 100, 1000, 2500, 5K, 7.5K, 10K, & 20K Hz) to see if I can detect any voltage deltas significant enough to be heard.

The test set up will be as follows:

1) CD player to amp using generic interconnects playing test tones of above mentioned frequencies.
2) Aamp gain/volume knob set to output 2 volts at the amps output terminals measured with a Metex 9170 multimeter.
3) Voltage signal measured at the speaker input terminals using an Instek GDS-840C Oscilloscope.
4) Mic positioned one meter from reference speaker (In my case, a Sapphire SB because I have the impedance curves for it). The mics output goes into Channel two of the sillyscope.
5) Subtrack one signal from the other using the oscope
6) Convert voltage difference to dB and that would be the drop across that particular cable.
7) Repeat using a Tektronix 2246 Oscillscope to see if there are anomalies.
8) Repeat again using a Metex 9170 Frequency generator instead of a CD of test tones to compare more complex wave forms (more complex than a sine wave, but not as complex as music)

If I find that I need a mic preamp I'll try and run everything through a TASCAM mixer I have.

I hope I've answered all of you questions. But Just wait, I've got something that'll blow your socks off. But It will take a month or so until I'm ready to make it public.

 

[oliverlim]

So is the final conclusion up yet? Any semi finished conclusion if the measurements line up with sighted or unsighted listening test?


Oliver

 

[mtrycrafts]

Any semi finished conclusion if the measurements line up with sighted or unsighted listening test?
Oliver

Historically speaking from other DBT tests, yes

 

[oliverlim]

Historically speaking from other DBT tests, yes

Meaning they all do sound the same if level matched and does not do strange things that make them act as a equaliser right?

 

[Stringreen]

Cables

There are so many posts on the internet debunking the differences in cables. All you scientific minded people are busy proving with tests that there are no differences. You "scientists" surely can't get the value of breaking in a cable. I wish all of you guys would sit down and LISTEN. I hear clear differences in all cables. Listen to top of the line Cardas and Audioquest cables, and if you can't hear the difference you should see physician. You can clearly hear the differences in the next room. ..and yes - they sound different after 15 hours than they do upon first inserting them in the component.

 

[billy p]

There are so many posts on the internet debunking the differences in cables. All you scientific minded people are busy proving with tests that there are no differences. You "scientists" surely can't get the value of breaking in a cable. I wish all of you guys would sit down and LISTEN. I hear clear differences in all cables. Listen to top of the line Cardas and Audioquest cables, and if you can't hear the difference you should see physician. You can clearly hear the differences in the next room. ..and yes - they sound different after 15 hours than they do upon first inserting them in the component.

Ok! Not to beat a dead horse.Nobody states these are not good cables just not at 5 or 10x's the price!!!!!!!!

 

[mtrycrafts]

There are so many posts on the internet debunking the differences in cables.

Yes, there are a few.

All you scientific minded people are busy proving with tests that there are no differences.

How else would you show differences or sameness if not by a test?

You "scientists" surely can't get the value of breaking in a cable.

Value? What value are you thinking of?

I wish all of you guys would sit down and LISTEN.

I guess you must not have read anything on the net then after all.

I hear clear differences in all cables. Listen to top of the line Cardas and Audioquest cables,

Well, that is your claim lacking evidence though. Might as well claim psychic powers, able to levitate, etc. Easy to make claims, much harder to demonstrate it.
By the way, you can collect $1 million form the James Randi foundation by demonstrating what you claim. Yes, Randi will entertain you challenge as he was negotiating a challenge from a golden ear about some magic black dots or something.


and if you can't hear the difference you should see physician.

This is because you know something others don't???


You can clearly hear the differences in the next room.

Again, just another claim, unproven, no evidence.

..and yes - they sound different after 15 hours than they do upon first inserting them in the component.

This too can be challenged with Randi. And, you being the very first on the planet to win that $1 mil, you will be famous.

Or, just go down in smoke like all your predecessors.

 

[billy p]

There are so many posts on the internet debunking the differences in cables. All you scientific minded people are busy proving with tests that there are no differences. You "scientists" surely can't get the value of breaking in a cable. I wish all of you guys would sit down and LISTEN. I hear clear differences in all cables. Listen to top of the line Cardas and Audioquest cables, and if you can't hear the difference you should see physician. You can clearly hear the differences in the next room. ..and yes - they sound different after 15 hours than they do upon first inserting them in the component.

Since you don't approve of the scientific approach you'll not be looking for answer or posting question looking for answer??
PS:I suppose you think BOSE are great as well!